10 moves or less…
Like a moon, I go through phases. During one phase, I’ll be obsessed with Urdu and during another, I’ll be all over Sanskrit learning words and phrases I’ll seldom get to drop on others. Four months ago, I was glued to birds; identifying the avians I was lucky enough to spot as well as those I will never see alive with my eyes. A few months earlier, I was into plants and trees — learning the names of all the greenies I could see around me. As you can expect, none of these phases last long. They fizzle out sooner or later, leaving me a bit more enriched than before, a bit lonelier too. It’s sometimes weird to be unable to share enthusiasm with others because like-minded folks are an endangered species.
This was then. As of now, I am smitten with the B&W 64 squares. So much so my reading books and watching movies/series/etc have gone down significantly. I am totally committed. This phase started late January of this year and has continued without a break. I’ve been not only playing and studying and watching videos but also managed to create a micro chess revolution on social media. As a result, I’ve been matching up with people who were regular players as well as those who haven’t moved a piece in ages.
Let me share some of the lessons/observations that I’ve picked up during this phase:
- Practising chess doesn’t make you intelligent or sharp. It only makes you a better chess player. People often say that chess is for the brainies/nerds. People are plain wrong.
- Chess is about instilling discipline in yourself more than anything else. To be in command of an army is a big deal even if all the parties involved are made up of wood/plastic. Your decisions are in sync with every little fingerprint you leave on those pieces.
- Time really doesn’t matter here unless you’re tapping rapid/blitz. What matters more is space. Everybody on the board are trying to establish themselves and it’s your job to ensure each of your 16 characters attain their maximum potential by moving forward/backward/wherever.
- You’ll lose a lot. But losing is a step toward learning how to draw. And then you’ll draw a lot. Which is a guaranteed step toward learning how to win. A gradual process, overall.
- Levels differ but passion pretty much remains the same.
- You don’t like blood or gossip but enjoy violence and deception? Chess is totally for you. Your nice guy image is the last thing you’d worry about while trying to fork the opponent’s queen and king with your knight.
- What looks lazy isn’t always lazy. Chess requires you to sit quietly at a spot for hours but your mind is blasting with ideas. And thinking is working too. Something we keep forgetting.
- In chess, you’re actually thinking for two people.
- Mistakes. Hell lot of mistakes greet you on the chessboard. Like it or not. They are there to make you stronger. As is the case with life, errors during a game means only one thing: Avoid repeating them.
- Stress is a part of the rhythm. No escape from that shit whether you’re Buddha or Mick Jagger.
- Nothing, absolutely nothing within your existence, is in black and white as there is an element of grey. Except you-know-where.
- Luck plays a minuscule role but it does. Do check in triumph as well as defeat.
- Chess is truly egalitarian and defies sexism as effectively as it denies ageism. A 12-year-old girl can battle out a 59-year-old gentleman on the board. Nobody’s gender or age or background have a say. Can you imagine a world where boys and girls—let’s say, in football — would be encouraged to participate in the same team on the same turf? Questions of physical advantage and whatnot will be arraigned into the argument against it. Forget a boy-girl-mashup team, the world’s richest football club (Manchester United) doesn’t even bother to have a women’s team. Chess, on the other hand, helps us rise above this gaping bullshit.
- Scattered mind, aided by poor sight, can be extremely antithetical to what this sport stands for.
A lot of people take objection to my calling chess a sport. Well, if it’s just another board game and not a sport, then why do say you’re playing against XYZ instead of playing with XYZ? Think about it. While you are at it, think about everything else too.
