En Passant, En Prise, Zwischenzug, and Zugzwang
July 21st 2008 20:17
Chess has provided a wonderful allegory or model for mankind to explore a variety of things. Geometry, mathematics, war, class structure, artificial intelligence, human intelligence, and learning all come to mind.
In the Middle Ages, Knights where required to learn and play the game as part of their normal training. Sissa even said that there was no finer thing than chess to train you in the art of war.
"Chess is war over the board. The object is to crush the opponent's mind." said Bobby Fischer.
"When you are lonely, when you feel yourself an alien in the world, play Chess. This will raise your spirits and be your counselor in war.” said Aristotle.
How is business any different?
In economics we deal with how to best utilize limited resources. It is exactly the same in chess.
You will notice that sports terms have made it easily into business lingo. You may hear things like, “You hit a home run with that”, or any one of about a million clichés that I have no desire repeating here.
But what about chess terms in business? We all know what a pawn is. If you are a pawn in someone’s game that is usually a bad thing.
Have you ever heard some one say, “Oh we will get them en passant”, “You left that issue en prise”, “We should Zwischenzug now”, “We are stuck in a Zugzwang”?
Chess is very international as you can see from some of these terms. My argument is a linguistic one. We experience the world through the language we use. So why not pillage some of these unique ideas in chess for our business purposes?
Four cool chess vocabulary words you should know: En Passant, En Prise, Zwischenzug, and Zugzwang.
In the Middle Ages, Knights where required to learn and play the game as part of their normal training. Sissa even said that there was no finer thing than chess to train you in the art of war.
"Chess is war over the board. The object is to crush the opponent's mind." said Bobby Fischer.
"When you are lonely, when you feel yourself an alien in the world, play Chess. This will raise your spirits and be your counselor in war.” said Aristotle.
How is business any different?
In economics we deal with how to best utilize limited resources. It is exactly the same in chess.
You will notice that sports terms have made it easily into business lingo. You may hear things like, “You hit a home run with that”, or any one of about a million clichés that I have no desire repeating here.
But what about chess terms in business? We all know what a pawn is. If you are a pawn in someone’s game that is usually a bad thing.
The pawn
Have you ever heard some one say, “Oh we will get them en passant”, “You left that issue en prise”, “We should Zwischenzug now”, “We are stuck in a Zugzwang”?
Chess is very international as you can see from some of these terms. My argument is a linguistic one. We experience the world through the language we use. So why not pillage some of these unique ideas in chess for our business purposes?
Four cool chess vocabulary words you should know: En Passant, En Prise, Zwischenzug, and Zugzwang.
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Comment by katyzzz
Photography Tips
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Generally, at the end of the day, business does best at simply counting money.
I have met a lot of fools in business, generally males, but completely unaware of their own shortcomings and many are the sycophants of society.
There are some, of course, that do have brains, but most of their employees don't demonstrate any other than to feather their own nests.
Sorry, I was taught Chess by an international master, a computer guy, turned barrister, now HE was bright.
Comment by Clint Emry
Strategy and Solutions
So how good is your chess game?