Falling Back in Love with Chess
A personal story of my chess journey before, and during, the Covid 19 pandemic
Yes, I’ve fallen back in love with chess. Since watching the Queen’s Gambit in November, 2020, I’ve downloaded 4 chess apps, subscribed to 5 professional chess players’ channels, played over 700 chess matches, and read 50+ chess articles published on Medium. Now, I’ve graciously been given the opportunity to write about chess by
in his newest publication, Getting Into Chess.I’ve played chess on and off throughout the years. My love for the game peaked between the ages of 8–11, and some of my fondest memories consist of chess tournaments with my family on New Year’s eve. I loved trying to figure out the best way to checkmate my opponent.
In this article, I give an account of some events in my personal chess journey. My hope is to convince you of my love for chess, and even inspire you to love it too, regardless of playing level. To make this article more readable, I’ve divided my chess life events into five different age groups:
- 2
- 8–11
- 17–18
- 18–22
- 24–26
Age 2
My Dad taught me how the chess pieces move at the tender age of 2 years old. Honestly, I don’t remember. My only memory from this age was watching my dad play darts at the pub on base (back when he was in the United States Air Force). However, I always smile with affection as I watch my dad proudly explain how I intently studied the pieces and listened to his lessons. I could have put the pieces in my mouth, he explains, or flung them across the room.
Ages 8–11
My first memories of chess start at about 8 years of age. After learning the pieces and how they moved from my Dad, I furthered my chess studies with a book titled “How to Play Chess”, written by Emanuel Lasker and first published in 1900. My copy was thin and red, with the title in bold, black letters along the hard spine. It used the old chess notation system, so e4 would be KP-4, or just KP4. The book taught me some of the openings (i.e. King’s gambit), as well as general tactics (fork, pin, and skewer).
Learning just from a book isn’t that great, so I started using our chess set to work through the examples. At the time, the only chess set we had in the house was a handmade one my parents had bought during our stay in England. The pieces were carved from stone into actual medieval figures, with the white pieces resembling Vikings, and the black pieces the Saxons. The black knight even had a person clad in armor atop a noble steed. I enjoyed the details in this chess set, and it certainly played a part in fueling my love for the game.
Enter the chess computer game (before the dawn of smartphones and the dozens of chess apps available now). We had a generic game titled simply: Chess. The gameplay consisted of gray and blue (representing white and black, respectively) pieces played on cream and orange squares, set atop a teal background. I spent long hours playing against the computer. There were 10 levels, and I got good enough to play the computer on Level 7. However, at this level, the computer would crash if you got close to beating it. I joked it was the computer’s version of throwing a temper tantrum for losing.
After getting fed up with the computer’s childish behavior, I found a new opponent. Armed with some chess experience, I decided to challenge my dad. We started playing casually a few times a year, but things got interesting around New Year’s. We started a New Year’s tradition of playing between 5–8 games throughout the night. I finally beat him during the first game as white. I still remember the excitement I felt! My dad taught me how to play, and yet I had just beaten him. Surely it was a fluke. To ensure it wasn’t a fluke, we played another match, and this time, I was black. I beat him again. On to our third match. The same outcome. Finally, on the 6th match, I lost. We immediately stopped for the night. Each New Year’s, I would win the first 5–7, and my Dad would win the last one(I blame it on fatigue). After a while, no one in my immediate family (Dad, Mom, sister) wanted to play me any more. Although, sometimes, my Mom and sister would team up on me and actually win. I’d immediately challenge them to a rematch, but they hadn’t my stamina.
To support my love for chess, my parents gifted me Chess: 5334 Problems, Combinations, and Games, by Lázsló Polgár for Christmas. I highly recommend it for chess players at all levels. I attribute the Mate in One and Mate in Two puzzles to the biggest reason my chess ability increased enough to beat my Dad during our New Year’s chess tournaments. To repay the favor, I picked out Chess for Dummies, 2nd Edition by Grand Master, James Eade for my Dad. I meant it both as an actual gift and an affectionate joke. However, in hindsight, I realize this may have contributed to the discontinuation of our chess time together.
In a search for opponents at my level, I once attended a chess event at a Border’s bookstore (no longer in business). I remember being fascinated with their roll up boards with gray and green squares, and big chess pieces. This was also my first introduction to timed chess, as everyone had some kind of analog or digital timer. I played about 5 people there, and there was only one I couldn’t beat. I don’t recall his name, but I nicknamed him “Thumper” because he always thumped his pieces down hard after a move. Anyways, Thumper seemed annoyed at the thought of playing a kid like me, and he thumped his pieces extra hard when I played him. His attitude was part of the reason I didn’t go to any more chess events, in addition to Borders being a bit far from our house.
Eventually, I found a new chess opponent: my uncle. My uncle was in the Marines, so it’s no surprise he took up chess, a game historically known for being a battle simulator. We’d play chess for the duration of our visits sometimes. I never beat him, but he always told me to focus on my endgame. He gave me some books to study for that purpose. Another cool thing he gave me was a chess computer game called Fritz’s Grandmaster Challenge. The chess engine’s avatar was this old man dressed like a 20’s mobster. He always referred to you by your computer’s name, dishing out colorful commentary if you made a blunder. For instance, if you brought out your king too early, he’d say something like, “You sure you want to do that, Jupiter (I’m an astronomy enthusiast)? Or if I moved a piece multiple times to attack his queen, he’d say, “That’s no way to treat a lady, Jupiter!”, before proceeding to checkmate me. This game was more difficult to beat than the previous one, but it made me a stronger player.
I don’t remember the exact moment I realized my love for chess was fading. Some contributing factors were my uncle and his family moving farther away, my fear of meeting more Thumpers, a lack of chess players my own age, and a genuine change in interest. I’ve always loved physical, as well as mental, activities. Since my dad had played baseball as a kid, he thought I’d enjoy it as well. In any case, I either lost or got rid of some of the chess stuff I had.
Ages 17–18
I played little league baseball between the ages of 11–16, and high school baseball from 15–18 (a homeschool team was formed called the Wolverines). I also joined a homeschool group called Encore Youth Chorus to sing. These activities left little time for chess, and consequently, I only played a few games between ages 17–18. During these two years, I took some classes with a local homeschool co-op (other homeschool moms teaching classes in which they had some experience and enjoyed). Board games are popular within the homeschooling community, and I’d occasionally play chess with some of the other students in between classes. I never lost.
Ages 18–22
My undefeated record in high school prompted me to love chess again. Since I had just gotten my first cellphone at 18, an iPhone 5s, I downloaded an app called Chess Time on March 2nd, 2013 (I only know because it says so on my profile). I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed being a chess player with a smartphone. No longer did I have to search for opponents in person, or deal with CDs. Playing on this app, I was introduced to the ELO rating system, and I got a rush in seeing my rating go up with each game I played. Although, I soon learned that when it comes to chess players all over the world, I’m a rather average player. I’ve played 87 games on this app to date, with a record of 57–30, and a peak rating of 1411 (currently 1125). I played on the app mostly before starting my Bachelor of Science degree in physics at the University of Texas at San Antonio. During my studies, I just played occasionally, including a few against one of my physics professors in his office. He never beat me.
In the summer of 2017, I performed in a musical, Jekyll and Hyde, at the Performing Arts of San Antonio (PASA). I played a minor character, and I got to perform with my dad (he got to be General Glossop!) and cousin. This cousin was the son of my uncle with whom I used to play chess before. Well, in between rehearsals, I’d play my cousin and a fellow cast member on the app. Again, I never lost.
Ages 24–26
Fast forward a couple of years, and I’m a 24 year old in his second year of graduate school, seeking a PhD in physics at UTSA. My fellow physicists and I volunteered to be judges at the Texas State Science and Engineering fair when it was hosted at Texas A&M in College Station for the first time in April of 2019. After eating dinner the night before, we decided to play board games at our Airbnb place until the wee hours of the night (don’t worry, I promise we still did a great job judging the projects!). Can you guess what one of those games was? Yep. Chess! I played 6 different people over the course of the night, but never lost.
Over a year goes by, but I don’t give chess much thought. That is, until the pandemic. I downloaded a newer version of Chess Time, called Chess Time Live, sometime in the summer of 2020. Like most folks, I was looking for entertainment that was pandemic safe. Here, I learned of chess variants such as bullet, blitz, and rapid, though it took me a while to figure out how long each variant typically lasted.
Then, in October of 2020, I see a trailer for the Queen’s Gambit on Netflix. I was intrigued. It had chess, and Anya-Taylor Joy was the star. I didn’t know too much of her stuff, but I recognized her from the Emma remake. I watched the Queen’s Gambit in mid-November with my mom. I don’t wanna spoil anything, so I’ll just say that we both enjoyed it very much, and I highly recommend you watch it! It had all the elements of most football and baseball movies (exceptional talent as a child, extraordinary victories later on, heartache etc.) I’d seen in the past, but for chess. Truly amazing.
Later in the month, I downloaded 3 more chess apps: Chess (mobile version of chess.com), chess24, and lichess (mobile version of lichess.org). Out of the 5 chess apps I have now, I play lichess the most. I’ve become hooked on bullet chess (though I should be wary of playing bullet too much as
describes in his article). It’s so neat how even the smallest of errors can make you lose when you have so little time to play. My current ratings are 1101 for bullet, 1366 for blitz, 1412 for rapid, and 1666 for classical, though I’ve lost over half my games (note the trend of higher rating with more time).Finally, I browsed funny chess videos such as “Things Chess Players Say”, and stumbled upon a YouTube channel run by the Botez sisters (high ranking chess players Alexandra and Andrea). Later, I discovered their Twitch account, as well as other accounts from masters such as Hikaru Nikamura, Ben Finegold, Anna Rudolf, Eric Hanssen, and of course, the current chess world champion himself, Magnus Carlsen (being the champion he is, he’s not real interactive, though). All of a sudden, I could now join thousands of other people watching these chess masters just be awesome. What’s even more amazing is how interactive they are, even while playing matches. They really make their “subs” feel like a part of the team, imbibing them with their love for the game.
Going Forward
Recounting my childhood memories of chess here has made me realize just how much I love the game, more than I realized. I had fun and developed my logical reasoning skills. I’m sure it helped me in my physics classes too.
But what does this mean going forward? In other words, what do I expect to come of my chess journey? Do I wish to achieve a Grand Master title, play casually, or something in between? I’d answer somewhere in between. As I played chess mostly for fun, I never devoted myself to learning lots of theory, relying instead on intuition and tactics. Even now, I only know the names of some openings. Starting a serious study to achieve a Grand Master title does not seem practical. However, I’d like to reach an ELO rating between 1600–2000, just good enough to maybe enter a few competitive tournaments and gain new experiences down the road. Who knows? No matter where my chess journey ends, chess is back in my life and here to stay. Yes, I’ve fallen back in love with chess.
