Open

There are some books that persecute me. I run into them at different places in different times. Whenever I open them I read something intriguing inside.

One of the last such book was Open, Andre Agassi’s autobiography. I love tennis and have always followed it. I must admit that I was never a fan of Agassi, always rooting for Sampras. My admiration for Agassi started when from number 1 in the world he fell so low, outside the top 100, only to start playing at Challengers again and rise back to the top.

I ran into Open at various bookstores, at a friend’s house. It always drew me to pick it up. Finally I succumbed and bought it. It arrived in the morning and that day I read 312 pages. I read the rest the next day.

I found it strange that Agassi doesn’t compare tennis to chess, perhaps he wasn’t familiar with chess, as he compares it to boxing as one of the most isolated sports. I’d say chess is more isolated than tennis, the player is more alone in chess, not allowed to speak (or curse) aloud, not allowed to exchange glances with his coach. Only his thoughts and his demons.

I understand how much work is required to reach the top and it goes without saying that Agassi puts in the hours to do it. But the core of the book for me was something that rings so true to me and something that I have felt all my life - his admission that winning is “normal” and expected while losing is not and it hurts like hell and worse. Winning never feels so good as losing feels bad. The abyss of losing is infinitely deeper than the elation of winning.

The book is mostly about losses. From a man who has won more than 800 matches, it is the losses that remain most in memory, the pain endures. He is beaten by Sampras on more than one important occassion and at one point it derails his career.

What astonished me is that a sensitive character like Agassi (who would have thought, especially remembering his outrageous outfits and outbursts) could be affected so much by those losses and yet always managed to come back. The book is full of his self-doubts, psychological break-downs during and after matches, thoughts of quitting while still a teenager and still managing to play actively until age 36, full 4 years after Sampras retired.

In the matches he describes I recognise that every single one of them is tough. Even when he’s supposed to win. It is exactly the same in chess. Nothing is easy. By now it’s clear why this book attracted me so much. It is as if it was written by a chess player and a chess career.

After finishing the book I now admire Agassi more. In spite of all his deficiencies he managed to overcome himself. Isn’t that what we are all supposed to do?

P.S. In this week’s video I show how to use The Method to study and learn dynamic chess. The previous video on The Method saw a game by Capablanca and this time I use a game by one of the greatest dynamic players in history - Garry Kasparov - to explain how analysing the game in the manner described in The Method you can improve your understanding and calibrate your intuition when it comes to dynamic chess. Check out the game Kasparov-Seirawan from Amsterdam 1996 to see the powerful display of dynamism by the 13th World Champion.