Things I learnt from the beautiful game of chess

I remember my first encounter with the chess board. I was very small then and didn't understand what was happening on the board, but it was fun to watch old men play with toys and move them around to kill each other.

"They are so serious with these toys" I taught to myself

Fast forward to when I grew a bit older and then I understood that it was a board game. But then I wasn't really interested cause there were so many rules and it all seemed very complicated. There was also the stereotype that chess is for the highly intellectual and I wasn't highly intellectual so I steered clear. Fast forward to my final year in Secondary (high) school. We had finished our WAEC exams but we weren't allowed to leave cause there was still another exam coming up (NECO) which we didn't really care about all that much (Nigerians will understand). Anyways, we were looking for anything to pass the time. Novels and books were hotcakes then (that was probably when my interest in reading also peaked). I was waiting in long lines for multiple books which I'd then have to read really fast and pass to the next in line.

One day while I was in class I saw some of my classmates gathered around and out of curiosity I went to see what they were doing and lo and behold it was the beautiful game of chess. I watched as everyone was excited to play and it gave me an entirely different perspective on the game. I wanted to play. And so I started learning. I can't remember anyone teaching me, I just watched and asked questions and before I knew it I knew all the moves. There was a long line to play so I and my roommate used paper to create the pieces. It wasn't anything special though, we just folded paper and sketched images on them to represent the pieces. Then we painted a wooden board in our room. Everyday we'd play. That was when I saw how fun the game really is.

Years have passed by and I still play very frequently. Though I did take a long break after secondary school. Hive chess played a big part in why I started playing again. Right now I'm still nowhere near as good as I want to be but I'm getting better everyday. I remember starting at around 1100 blitz rating and now I'm hobbling around 1600 and 1700. I've crossed 1700 a couple of times but I keep falling down. I probably need more studying. I noticed I jump more in rating when I study, but I prefer to just keep playing as it's more fun.

THINGS I LEARNT FROM CHESS

Here are some of the things I learnt from the beautiful game of chess:

Concentration and focus

I laugh at myself as I write this one because I'm always having trouble focusing. Anyone that knows me can attest to this, but whenever I'm on the chess board I'm always locked on, my brain constantly calculating what the opponent is going to do next, the possible sequence of moves, what the best route to success is all at the same time. And whenever I get distracted even for a second I blunder and the game implodes. Chess has taught me that the best way to dominate and excel is to be focused. Lack of focus leads to blunders which could be very costly.

Problem-solving

When I play the game of chess there's always a problem to be solved, whether it's the very dangerous bishop on the diagonal that must be captured or the Knight in the center that could easily fork my important pieces if I leave a square undefended, or whether it's kicking the defender to capture another piece. The problems are dynamic and always changing, and you have to address them all or you lose. The same applies to life, my people will say "Problem no dey finish."

Planning

When I started playing more frequently one thing I was taught was to develop my pieces first before attacking. Because if you're not well developed when the battle begins you won't be organized and at the end of the day you're most likely going to lose the game. Planning before Implementing something is synonymous to developing your pieces and getting them ready to attack.

Learning from mistakes

After most games (Not all cause I can be lazy at times), Both ones where I won or those that I lost I usually analyze them. I'm thankful for the current age we are in where analysis is easy, with just a click I see better moves I could have played. At times I see moves I could have played to win the game easily, or the point where I threw away the game. I analyze and learn from my mistakes. The number of things I've learnt from analyzing are numerous, and you can be sure when I enter such situations again I don't make that mistake again (most times :)

Resilience

When playing sometimes you may blunder mid game and some people resign straight away, but for me, I don't click the resign button, a lot of times when that happens I just remain calm and continue. Sure a lot of times I end up losing but at times I get lucky and seize the game from the opponent again and win. They've been a lot of times this has happened, for chess lovers you can check out this one that happened recently

here

I blundered my Queen but ended up chasing his King all the way to my half of the board with my bishops and then I used a discovered check to gain control once more, before sealing the deal with a nasty rook mate. Very interesting game.

Giving up means you've lost, but if you keep trying you may get lucky and get back on top. I'm tempted to say "Na who give up fuck up" (Nigerian slang)

I could go on and on about a lot more things chess has taught me like pattern recognition, humbleness, time management and a lot more but I'll stop here so as not to make this post too wordy. I got the Idea for this post from a funny joke I saw this morning. It said, "The game of chess taught me that you can fumble a Queen and still win." That one is open to your interpretation, lol.

~THANKS FOR READING~

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