Why Is Chess So Complicated?
I started playing chess when I was 7, and back then I was not thinking of what would come next. My parents asked me, “Do you want to play chess?” I heard “play” and I answered joyously “Yes!”. And so the adventure began. Only about 10 years later I understood how much chess changed me. This is when I stopped playing the game and started playing the game of life.
In school, I was taught that if I learn well, I’ll get good grades, I’ll get a job, I’ll have kids and everything will be fine. Chess taught me that no matter how much I try I can fail. Chess taught me that life can be challenging and unpredictable.
Why is chess so complicated?
Questions, questions, too many answers.
It starts with generic questions such as — What is your plan? Where to attack your opponent? How do you stop them from attacking you? to repetitive questions such as — To exchange or not to exchange the pawns? To move this rook or the other rook? To move the bishop to this diagonal or the other diagonal?
The more you ask, the more you have to answer, the more you have to calculate, the more you exhaust yourself, and the more you start doubting yourself. In the background the clock is ticking, 20 minutes have passed, and you have to move. “C’mon, move!”
Staying rational for an extended period of time.
Professional chess players play on average 10–15 tournaments a year, which means up to 100 days or more of travelling per year. The rest of the time is occupied with studying the game and resting from time to time. A tournament can have up to 9–11 games. A game of chess can last up to 5–6 hours. Chess players burn their minds and calories. It might not necessarily be 6000 calories a day, but it can be mentally draining to stay in the same place focused on one task. I can say for a fact, this is the case for millions of people in a knowledge economy. We might not realize it, but thinking is exhausting. Even if we evolved as species, our lizard brains cannot keep up. Everyone needs a break.
Thinking for two under time pressure.
A chess player needs to understand their opponent’s style, intentions, plans and at the same time prepare their own. Considering that we humans prefer to hold onto our own opinions, taking the time to understand the other side of the board can end up being an exhausting affair. This happens every time a move is made. The situation on the board changes, so might the opponent’s intentions. The chess player has to check in every move.
Winning slow.
Everyone wants to win fast but this is rarely possible. In chess, there are two “time perspectives” that do not allow winning fast:
- The chess clock.
- The position on the chess board.
The chess clock allows chess players to think for an extended time period, but also limits them. Thus, a game can take up to 6 hours, for some it can be frustrating to play that long.
The second time perspective is a relative way of representing time. On the chess board, events happen; to chess players it really feels like they are in a separate world, living their lives, fighting. Sometimes extraordinary events happen on the chess board , and it just feels good to play the game. Sometimes it may seem like nothing is changing on the board, the game is not developing anywhere, and so it’s becoming frustrating to play, it feels like time moves slow. This is especially the case for professional chess. Most of the time, nothing extraordinary is happening for the first 3–4 hours. That means both opponents have to have the patience to be able to endure a still game.
Accepting that you are wrong.
During the chess game, pieces are exchanged, dynamics change, and with that, the plans might need to be changed. This can be hard to accept, humans can easily end up in the sunk cost fallacy. It requires high rationality to accept the sunk costs and move back.
Going over a loss. Going over two, three losses, … ad infinitum
There is no professional chess player that has never lost. Every chess player goes through a plateau, going through loss after loss, without any reason behind. In this phase, it’s very easy to give up. But there is no time to give up. If you lost today, you have to be ready mentally to win the next day. Generally, it’s hard to program your brain to not think about the current loss and move forward in less than 12 hours. You still have to find the energy to win tomorrow, even if you had lost all the games before.
Believing in yourself …
… for up to 6 hours every game, 9–12 games in a tournament, 10–15 tournaments a year. For years.
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