Zwischenzug

In chess there is a concept called “zwischenzug”. It’s one of those German words that has no direct English translation (like “schadenfreude” or “bildungsroman”), and so it entered our vocabulary by virtue of capturing an idea that was perhaps novel and distinct. I like to think that when the Germans first explained it, English speaking chess players had their minds blown. How is there not a word for this in English!!?

It’s surprising that there isn’t, because the meaning of “zwischenzug” is quite useful. In chess, it’s a kind of tactic—a move or sequence of moves that gives one player the advantage. More specifically, it’s an intermediary move. Zwischenzug’s closest English translation is literally: “in-between move”. Not all tactics are zwischenzugs. In fact, most tactical sequences are strong precisely because they offer no room to make any other moves besides the obvious ones. This is what makes a good zwischenzug so powerful, because by nature it is importantly, unexpected.

One way a zwischenzug often appears is right before the recapture of a piece. When an opponent takes a chess piece, it’s pretty much baked in any chess players’ brain to think about the ways that they can take back. If my opponent captures my queen with their queen, I will immediately be thinking of a way to capture their queen back. This way, I can attempt to keep the game even. A lot of the time, this heuristic is sound. What I’ve pictured here is simply the concept of trading pieces. They take my queen, I take their queen right back.

This is where the zwischenzug comes in. In some cases (and I should emphasize again; not all, or even most cases), there is an opportunity to play an intermediary move. This move is made in-between the expected capture of a piece. Say someone takes my queen. Before relying on instinct and immediately recapturing, I take a step back and evaluate the position more closely. Out of the corner of my eye, I spot BxNh5+! This move takes an opponent’s knight with check, meaning that the King has to respond immediately before the queen can escape from being recaptured. After the King responds, then I make the obvious queen recapture. The critical difference from if I had just recaptured first is that I’ve managed to come away with a knight as well as the queen.

I hope I haven’t gotten too deep into the weeds because the technicalities of the chess are not that important. A Zwischenzug is not always some game-ending tactic. In fact, you can miscalculate and have your opponent take advantage of a failed intermediary move.

What is important is how chess has introduced me to a concept that I’ve found great practical value in. The idea behind a Zwischenzug is simple, but it is this simplicity that is so important. Whenever I am faced with an easy, obvious decision, I remember not to immediately jump to it. Instead, I’ll take a step back. I’ll survey the field of other options that I might have in-between and I’ll see if any of these might be worth pursuing.

Of course, like in chess, these intermediary moves don’t always work out. Sometimes the obvious choices are obvious for a reason, and in those cases I won’t pass up the obvious. But more often than not, I find that this philosophy of waiting, of thinking about in-between choices, leads to great introspective benefit.