Book Review: Dark Squares, by Danny Rensch

An important modern figure in chess charts his journey spiritually and over the board.

Dark Squares: How Chess Saved My Life by Danny Rensch (the “Chief Chess Officer” of the extremely popular Chess.com website) is a gripping read, not because of the chess story contained therein, but because of the unique circumstances Rensch experienced growing up in a cult, namely, the Church of Immortal Consciousness. This is very much in the category of what I call Chess Americana reading. If you’re only looking for chess advice, you ought to look elsewhere. Otherwise if you’re interested in Rensch’s story, you should consider reading.

Danny gives an autobiography of his life, starting from the soft young years when his family was taken in by a cult that was springing up in the desert of Arizona: The Church of Immortal Consciousness, which was being run by Stephen and Trina Kamp. Danny charts his beginning steps as a chess player, the numerous adoptions and transfers from one family to the next, the abusive religious practices of “The Collective”, the familial disputes, health issues, the beginnings of chess’s online forays, and the eventual rise of chess.com. It’s all here in a story that I wish sounded too crazy to believe, but probably isn’t.

As an evangelical Christian myself (who, incidentally, also grew up in Arizona), I find cults fascinating and horrifying. Sometimes, I can sadly recognize behavior like this in my own religious tradition. Whether it is someone I consider orthodox or not, because cult leaders are so good at redirecting criticisms to others instead of themselves, there is always an element of backbiting and other-devouring among the followers. This is clearly seen in the extremely broken homes Danny recalls growing up in, and the impossibly convoluted relationships within them, yet hardly did anyone appear to question the premises that led to such dissonance. No one questioned the laws handed down to them from the Kamps or other ministers as if by God. From their perspectives, how could they?

As I listened to Danny recount how his familial ties were broken down and artificially tied together with others over and over (in order to keep everyone in the cult “in integrity”), he would occasionally use the word “unnatural” to describe the processes — so apt to use this term, because it was. Whenever a religious body uses supernatural ties to destroy natural ones, the fallout ripples through the immediate association and can even go outward to society, and creates fractures and cracks that either go unseen, or self-medicated, or both — after all, grace is supposed to be supernatural, not anti-natural.

Rensch’s story clearly isn’t over today, but there comes a few cathartic moments late in the book that really hit you in the heartstrings: re-connecting with an estranged parent; finally telling off the abusive, religious, manipulative “father” figures who estranged you from the ones who actually loved you; choosing your family and marriage over the cult (especially for the sake of your own kids); reforming one’s purpose outside of the definitions given to you from a young age by your spiritual leaders, etc. As a parent seeking to raise my own children “in the faith”, there were many moments I began to reflect on my own, others, and especially my own kids’ relationships to religious structures. But you don’t have to be religious, or formerly religious, to benefit from reflections like this.

-

Side note: One thing that became more and more clear in the book is how most of the adults Danny dealt with in his childhood were themselves rather emotionally immature. I don’t think I would have really thought so much about or even noticed this, except that earlier this year I read the book Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay Gibson, which I’ve seen on Reddit referred to as a sort of “Millennial bible” (which, tbh, the title makes me cringe for multiple reasons including how broadly it covers so many people’s experiences growing up). So, if you’re trying to figure out why parts of Rensch’s story feels so familiar to you even if you’re happily religious or irreligious or didn’t grow up in a cult, ACEIP may help explain some things about your experience. YMMV.

-

I was particularly struck at how Danny both critiques and praises the adult figures in his life. He doesn’t pull punches on the horrible things he was put through — that nobody should have to go through. But he also displays respect and charitableness to the people who raised him, as well as to those who hold to religious views that he himself may not. It takes actual integrity to praise the good in people who have done much legitimate evil to you — to find the silver lining without ignoring the actual clouds. Danny, in this respect, is downright virtuous.

Chess.com figures in late in the story. It’s genuinely interesting to get Danny’s take on how things came about, partly because he was dealing with religious trauma while chess.com was trying to grow from start-up to big business, and his character flaws were up front and center to his very own co-founders (which Rensch plainly admits in his typical speaking style). It’s not until around 2020 that Danny was able to finally leave the Church of Immortal Consciousness — way after he had become so involved with chess.com. Along the way we learn from his perspective about how chess.com became the leading brand in online chess. Stuff like this often comes across as self-congratulatory, but he weaves this into the narrative well — just like most other parts of the story are well-integrated.

Besides the auto-biographical majority of the book, Danny gives the reader bite-sized historical recaps of various moments in chess. I get the feeling that some of this is “marketing” for chess — but I imagine for the non-chess obsessed reader, these snippets are overall welcome.

Dark Squares is bookended with Danny’s own account of the episode of chess drama that ensued after Magnus Carlsen accused Hans Niemann of cheating. In retrospect, this feels a little out of the blue compared to the rest of the book, because even without these details, Danny’s story is so compelling on its own. Of course, these details are juicy — the conversation between Danny and Henrik Carlsen about Magnus’s intentions to quit the Sinquefield Cup, the numerous brushes with Niemann and his scandalous behavior through the years, not to mention some details of the controversial decisions chess.com has made with regard to if and how they report on cheating.

While I get the feeling that the Hans Niemann controversy fueled an onus to write a whole book (and I do feel this was a bit opportunistic), in the end this just isn’t where the substance of the book is — it’s really in Danny’s journey into and out of The Collective; the emotional, physical, and medical turmoil thereof — finding the fortitude to finally leave, and to reconcile as best he could with everyone from whom the cult estranged him. The human element of this story is the best element.

I was honestly very surprised by the depth and quality, the self-reflection, and the erudition Danny put on display — not because I didn’t think he was capable; but rather probably because like most people my interactions with him were one-sided on the State of Chess.com videos, where he is self-censored yet affably unprofessional. A lot of this book explains a lot of the person behind the talking head, and I’m really thankful I invested the time to read it — and that Danny took the time and emotional labor to write it.