Football and chess: the art of play from Crete to Berlin

Returning from an expedition to the archaeological wonders of Minoan Crete, I have arrived in London with plenty of time to spare to watch England in the Euro Final at the Berlin Olympiastadion tomorrow. In virtually any sport, watching the global elite in action is always instructive.

My trip to Crete set me thinking about the relationship between physical and mental sport. In particular, the views of Beethoven’s inspiration for the 9th Symphony, the German philosopher and dramatist, Friedrich Schiller, who evidently saw no distinction between mental and physical play.

To preface the following quotation, a brief biography of the translator is deserved: what is a self-contained quote in the native German, does not transpose to English easily.

The treatment is a sensitive insight by an eminent German journalist, who earned her doctorate in Slavic philology after attending Hamburg University. Chairwoman of the German Journalists Association’s admissions committee, she more recently lectured on Ethical Journalism at the Free University of Berlin.

“Der Mensch spielt nur, wo er in voller Bedeutung des Wortes Mensch ist, und er ist nur da ganz Mensch, wo er spielt.” Thus the mighty Schiller.

The following elucidation (“Man is only fully Human When at Play”) is  from Friedrich Schiller’s Ideas Concerning the Aesthetical Education of Man, by Gesine Dörnberg.

“In Schiller’s opinion, to play means to act free from the force of need as well as of duty and thus to enjoy liberation from necessity. It is this experience of freedom that links play with the aesthetical phenomenon of beauty and causes its high educational value. The quality that we call beauty represents the same lightness of spirit as the game does. In the beautiful work of art, the material is not dominated by the form or vice versa. The work of art shows a free play between form and matter, between beauty and necessity, and thus represents the highest kind of play. Games are steps on the way to beauty, because they educate the player to enjoy the freedom of creativity.“

In Crete the prevailing view, since the early 20th century days of heroic excavations by Sir Arthur Evans at Knossos, has been that Minoan sport centred very much around bronzed, scantily clad youths, performing amazing acrobatics with bulls. Largely responsible for such impressions have been the fantastic illustrations and reproductions commissioned by Evans from the Swiss Gilliéron father and son artistic team. To my mind, though, their work has more to do with Diaghilev’s then fashionable set designer, Leonid Bakst, than with BC Bullocks.

For a start, the mountainous Cretan landscape is far better suited to the cultivation of sheep and goats, rather than cattle. Next, I believe that Crete was essentially a maritime and trading civilisation, dealing with dried fish, ivory, both elephantine and hippo in origin, copper, tin, cedar wood and precious minerals and metals, not bovine produce. The proliferation of rollocks (or oar points for galleys) in the archaeological testament could easily lead to confusion, since humble curved rollocks, given an overheated romantic imagination, might easily be misinterpreted as a bovine rather than maritime infatuation.

Knossos was lauded as the palace of King Minos. Millia, further to the east of Crete, has equally been touted as the palatial residence of King Minos’s brother, Sarpedon. On my recent visit I felt, however, that I was more at the epicentre of some vast granary, olive oil and wine store, rather than the hub of a sports training ground for golden Cretan youth.

Crete’s eminence amongst that antique topographical ring of advanced cultures, including Mycenae, Egypt, Cyprus, Hittite and Assyrian, suffered from the volcanic explosion of Santorini and later from the unexplained and universal collapse of Aegean-centric civilisation in that fateful year 1177 BC.  Whether the cause was famine, epidemic, climate change, drought or incursions of the mysterious Sea People, it is hard to establish.

Views of Cretan sport have been, in my opinion, excessively coloured by the legends of Theseus and the monstrous Minotaur. As with so many cultures, the Aztec arena (Ullamaliztli), Bushkazi in the East, the most popular usually involve a kind of ball.

I have been impressed by an erudite manual, taking Schiller’s conclusions on the identity of physical and mind sports even further. Comparing the two mind and physical sports activities, Football and Chess: Tactics, Strategy, Beauty by Adam Wells, published by Hardinge Simpole, convincingly demonstrates Schiller’s philosophical position, that there are, indeed, more similarities than one might expect. In what follows, I have drawn heavily on the author’s conclusions:

At the most fundamental level, football and chess are games that involve using space effectively and getting the timing right in order to break down an opponent’s defence, whilst preventing them from breaking down yours.

That’s it. There are very few limiting rules. There are no complicated scoring systems and procedures of play that have to be followed. It is clear-cut: we must capture pieces or score goals while staying within the confines of the board or pitch. However you choose to do this is entirely up to you. Since players have such freedom to do what they want, they are presented with a huge number of options of how to act in a given situation. Thus, it is the very simplicity of the games that paradoxically makes them so complex.

Aside from the freedom of choice that the games allow players, it is also the “teamwork” element which creates the complexity. No other team sport places such an emphasis on harmony between players as football. As in chess, every movement or action affects everything else around it. One badly positioned player (or piece in chess) can be ruinous.

Consequently, a group of superior footballers will sometimes lose to technically weaker players who are interacting more harmoniously. In the same way, as every serious chess player knows, having more powerful pieces left on the board does not guarantee a win. It is the power of the interactions between these pieces which is decisive. This week’s main game is a case in point. White’s nominally more powerful queen can make little headway against Black’s entrenched bishop and knight.

Perhaps it is no surprise that both Rafael Benitez (a Champions League winner when he managed Liverpool FC) and Karel Brückner (long-standing coach of the Czech Republic national team) are both avid chess players, and know only too well how much greater the whole can be than the sum of its parts. Both are famous for their ability to create exceptional teams without exceptional players. Indeed, according to his agent, Benitez has no particular aptitude for noticing good players, such is his preoccupation with watching the team as a whole.

An even more contemporary case for the cross-over between the battlefield of chess and the territorial strategies of football is exemplified by the appointment of the new Chelsea manager, Enza Maresca. His playing credentials were impressive, having represented Juventus, Sevilla and Olympiacos, among several others. However, his managerial experience is already exceptional, despite his scarce years in charge.

Most notably, he managed Leicester City’s return to the Premiership last season, after acting as assistant to the legendary Pep Guardiola on two separate occasions. While he was studying for his coaching badges at the premier Italian “Football University” at Coverciano in Florence, his thesis was entitled Football and Chess. In it, he expanded his conception of  the positional parallels between the contests.

As a result of the endless possibilities of harmony and interaction, both games are limitless: infinitely complicated, infinitely interesting, forever elusive and mysterious, and always open to new interpretation. This makes them very exciting to play and watch. And so, because, in essence, both games are based on the same concept, if you were a fan of one game, it is likely that you will enjoy the other.

One of the popular misconceptions about chess is that it is a game of pure calculation. Either you have a brain that could work through 10 moves ahead, or you don’t. This is not true. Of course, calculation is a large part of chess, but also important is positional knowledge, instinct and creativity. If two players with equal powers of calculation play each other, the player with the greater positional knowledge and better chess intuition will usually win. Great chess players like Mikhail Tal frequently came up with creative responses to problems, and often relied entirely on intuition when they could not work through all the possibilities in their head. As Garry Kasparov says, “it takes more than logic to be a world-class chess player. Intuition is the defining quality of a great chess player.”

By the same token, playing football well is not just about good positioning, creativity and instinctive reactions. It also requires a lot of calculation.

In most situations on the field, there is more than one option of what to do at any given moment. Players have to make a quick decision on which one to choose. If a player has moved out of position, do you cover? Do you play a fast ball up to the strikers or do you play it into space to build up an attack more slowly? Do you overlap the winger or is it too dangerous? The game involves constant calculation – quickly assessing the situation and then making an instantaneous decision. Football, according to former Dutch international Arnold Mühren, is a game you play “with your brains, not with your feet”.

In other words, the games are not so different in the way that you play and understand them than it seems at first. If you like playing or watching football, you can use the understanding you have to play chess. Similarly, if you are a chess fanatic, you will find that your understanding of chess will help you appreciate a good game of football.

An obvious difference between the games is that one is constantly moving, while the other is static for the most part. However, while many conceive of chess as a slow game, the experience of playing a good game contradicts this. In every static position movement is implied. As long as your mind is constantly thinking through movements and ideas, the game will be as alive and as exciting as any other sport.

In many senses, chess gives you the opportunity to play a game of football on a board, controlling every piece of developing your understanding of positioning, movement and combinations with every game you play. This is discussed in the following YouTube clip of former world champion Magnus Carlsen and Pep Guardiola, manager of Manchester City FC and widely considered to be the greatest football coach alive.

Despite the fact that parallels between such a cerebral pastime and all-action athletic pursuit seem counter-intuitive, their positional strategies share much in common. This is the view explored in a fascinating examination of the first Norwegian to play both sports at the highest level, including representing his nation in international competition.

Simen Agdestein (born 15 May 1967) is a Norwegian chess grandmaster, coach and author — and a former professional footballer, a striker for the Norwegian national football team.

Simen was awarded the IM title in 1983 and the GM title in 1985. He has won a record nine Norwegian chess championships, including the 2022 and 2023 championships. He holds records for being both the youngest (at 15, in 1982) and oldest (at 56, in 2023) champion.

Agdestein is also the former coach of Magnus Carlsen, and is the brother of Carlsen’s present manager, Espen Agdestein. He has authored and co-authored several books on chess, including a biography of Carlsen.

All these details and more are included in a new biographical exercise, Games and Goals: The Fascinating Chess and Football Careers of Simen Agdestein (NiC) by Atle Grønn. One excerpt should suffice to demonstrate the accomplishments of Norway’s first chess grandmaster: “His international football career was cut short when he refused to play for Norway in a World Cup qualifier against Scotland. He opted instead to play Garry Kasparov in a chess tournament in Belgrade.”

Our featured game this week combines football and chess. My game against Agdestein was a serious exercise, where the full point was required, and yet I hope you will agree, vividly epitomises the spirit of, “nothing ventured, nothing gained”.

Simen Agdestein vs. Raymond Keene

Gausdal Jubilee, rd. 2, 1983

1.d4 g6 2. c4 Bg7 3. Nc3 d6 4. e4 Nc6 5. d5 Nd4 6. Be3 c5 7. Nge2 Qb6 8. Nxd4?!

A diffident continuation which discounts the motive behind Black’s last: to overprotect d4. Stronger is 8. Na4 Qa5+ 9. Bd2 Qc7, when after 10. Bc3, for example, 10… e5 11. dxe6 Nxe6 12. Bxg7 Nxg7, when White can demonstrate a slight, yet tangible advantage.

8… cxd4 9. Na4

 9… dxe3?

Spectacular, even astonishing — but probably bad. My position regarding this provocative move, recorded in 2005, was that I had played …Qa5+ against Seirawan the previous year and didn’t like it. The Queen sacrifice wasn’t played to draw; it was played to get an interesting position – I think Miles might have later refuted the variation but as Agdestein played I felt I was the one who was pressing for the win. I gave a draw in the final position rather reluctantly, as I couldn’t see any way to improve Black’s chances then, nor has one been successfully proposed since.

The engine confirms that after, 9… Qa5+, White can maintain parity with, 10. Bd2 (10. b4 draws immediately: 10… Qxb4+ 11. Bd2 Qa3 12. Bc1 Qb4+ 13. Bd2 etc.) 10… Qd8 11. c5 (11. Bd3 Nf6 12. O-O e6 13. h3 O-O 14. Rc1 b6 15. Re1 Bd7 16. b4 b6 17. a3) 11… Bd7 12. Bd3 Nf6 13. O-O O-O 14. b4 e6 15. dxe6 Bxe6 16. cxd6 Ng4 17. f4 Qxd6 18. e5, and it is equal.

10.Nxb6 exf2+ 11. Kxf2 axb6 12. Qc2

A year later, in 1984, Miles played instead, 12. Qd2 against Rohde, and won in 30 moves.

12… Bd4+ 13. Ke1 Nf6 14. Be2 O-O 15. Rd1?!

A strangely ineffective way of activating White’s rooks. The engine prefers 15. Kd2 (also good is 15. a4 Bd7 16. h3 Kg7 17. Rf1) 15… Kg7 16. a4 Bd7 17. h3 h5 18. Rhf1, with initiative.

 15… Be5 16. a4 h5 17. b3 Bd7 18. Qd3?!

Stronger is 18. Kf2, when White both guards the g3-square after a subsequent h2-h3, and also enables the king to find a modicum of safety after the h1-rook is activated. Black has a cramped position from which to prosecute an attack with his kingside pawn majority, which would also leave his own king prone to attack. The candidate responses, 18… Rac8, …h4 and…Ng4, are all insufficient continuations and leave White with a significant advantage.

18… e6 19. dxe6 Bxe6 20. Bf3?

An error which relinquishes White’s advantage. Considerably better is 20. Qe3, which is more consistent with White’s previous move, and forces Black’s hand: 20… b5 21. cxb5 Rac8 (21… Rfc8 22. Rf1 Rc3 23. Rd3 Rac8 transposes) 22. Bd1 Rc1 25. h3 Nd7 26. Kf2 Nc5 27. Rd4 (White is happy to offer a rook in exchange for the powerful black-squared bishop) 27… Rb1 28. Kg1 Nxb3 29. Bxb3 Rxb3 30. Rd3, when White succeeds in hanging on.

20… Nd7 21. Kf2 b5 22. axb5 Ra2+?!

Full equality is available after, 22… Nc5 (22… Ra3 23. Qc2Nc5 transposes) 23. Qc2 Ra3 24. b4 Nb3 25. Rd3 Rfa8 26. Rxb3 Ra2 27. Rc1 Bxc4 28. Re3 Bd4 29. Be2 Rxc2 (29… R8a3 30. Kf1 Rxc2 31. Rxc2 Rxe3 32. Rxc4 Be5 transposes) 30. Rxc2 Ra3 31. Kf1 Rxe3 32. Rxc4 Be5 33. h3 Bg3 34. b6 Ra3 35. Bd1 Ra6 36. Rc7 Rxb6, when a draw is the most likely outcome.

24.Rd2 Nc5 24. Qe3 Rxd2+ 25. Qxd2 Nxb3 26. Qc2 Bd4+ 27. Kg3 Be5+  

If there was one very slight improvement I could have introduced at this late stage, it was here, when 27… Nc5 is also possible. However, 28. Rd1 Be5+ 29. Kf2 Ra8 30. Kg1 Kg7 31. Be2 h4 32. Bf1 Ra3 33. Qf2 g5 34. Be2 Ra2 35. h3 b6, or alternatively, 28. h3 Be5+ 29. Kf2 Ra8 30. Rd1 Ra3 31. Kg1 Rc3 32. Qd2 Bxc4 33. Bxh5 Bb3 34. Re1 Rc2 35. Qh6 gxh5 also draw.

28.Kf2 Bd4+ 29. Kg3 Game drawn ½-½

Ever-resonant, twelve years later in 1995 the motif reappeared for our eponymous hero, only with colours reversed. In this epilogue, the thematic sacrifice is played with great effect by Agdestein against an unfortunate Nigel Short — then at the height of his career.

Ray’s 206th book, “  Chess in the Year of the King  ”, written in collaboration with Adam Black, and his 207th, “  Napoleon and Goethe: The Touchstone of Genius  ” (which discusses their relationship with chess) are available from Amazon and Blackwells. 

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