The Art of Chess
"To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself." - Sun Tzu, The Art of War.
I’ve started playing chess recently. I play four or five ten-minute matches every single day. I play using an app on my phone, called simply Chess. You can play with your friends and family or be matched up with random people around the world that are ranked at around the same level as you. I am becoming slightly addicted to it in a way I never thought possible; I have even subscribed to a YouTube channel that is based entirely on mastering the game; I haven’t watched any videos on it yet, but I plan to do so soon.
Playing chess through the app is a lot more practical than playing with people in real life. I used to play in real life on occasion years ago, but I found the experience far too frustrating. Either the person is better than you and beats you ever game, which is extremely demoralising, or you are better than them and it simply gets boring to play with them.
I feel like it’s a game from which it is possible to learn something. I’ve played 1-minute matches, 10-minute matches, 3-day matches, and 7-day matches. Interestingly, I seem to be strongest at playing 3 or 7 day matches when I can ruminate for as long as I want on what move I shall make next. I’m okay, but not great, with 1-minute matches, but not because I’m a better player than my opponents, but rather because I move faster. The name of the game with 1-minute matches is moving as fast as possible. It doesn’t matter if you’ve taken every single one of your opponent’s pieces, if your clock times out, it’s game over, you lose.
I got to thinking that the 1-minute match is a metaphor for life. If you stop and think about what to do next too much, it comes to an abrupt end without your really realising.
In the first few hours I started playing the game, I resigned every time I lost some of my best pieces, in particular my queen. But I have since learned that that is a stupid thing to do, since even when things seem bad, you can still win, or at least draw. Your opponent’s phone battery might die, and then you win by timeout. They might get cocky and make careless, stupid moves, which lead you to draw or even win sometimes, and there’s nothing more satisfying than winning when the odds seem heavily stacked against you. As in life, things, even when they seem utterly hopeless, might eventually get better. The game is never over until it’s over, and you’re not necessarily a loser until you give up trying.
The objective, for those that don’t know, is to take out the king of the other player. If you do that, you win. Along the way you almost always have to sacrifice some of your pieces towards that end.
I got up this morning and played a couple of games. The first was against someone in China, the second was against someone in Vietnam. I won both and was feeling rather good about my increasing prowess in the game, and so I decided to have a third game, and did so, against a chap from Zambia. He took me out within 1-minute of a 10-minute game, and then sent me an invite to play again, and this time it took him around 6-minutes. He wanted to trash me a third time but I messaged him that I was demoralised enough for one morning, but sent him a friend request. Whilst he is ranked higher than me in the 10-minute match by about 50%, I am ranked higher than him in the 3-day match by 100%, and so I challenged him to a 3 day battle, and hope to regain my dignity 😊.
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