Beautiful Old Game - Chess - My Resurrection and Progress!

In recent weeks I discovered an old lost game for myself again. I am talking about chess! I know it is not lost by any means by from my personal point of view I haven’t been playing this amazing game for a long time now! When I was little I was used to play with my grandfather and sometimes with my father. Once I grew up I lost this game out of my sight but in recent weeks I rediscovered it for myself again. Now, I am no expert in this game/ sport by any means but I truly enjoy playing this game from time to time more and more! In this article I want to talk about my recent discovery, what makes this game so special in my opinion and how my recent development is going. Spoiler-Alert: I really need improvement! :D

Various Strategies

First things first, let’s talk about this amazing game itself. One of the oldest strategy games that have ever existed and one that has a universal understanding in every culture! It is truly amazing how a simple game like that can influence the whole cultural and social landscape on the whole globe. I don’t think I need to explain what the separate pieces are able to do and what the goal of the game is but if its demanded, I could do a general rule break down in another post!

Anyways, in my opinion what makes this game truly amazing are the different strategies and the variety of plays that people could do. From my perspective no game is similar to another. In this point, people that are playing longer or more often than me, would disagree but I think that this game will never produce the same result. It amazes me that there are several different openings and how to defend against each opening. There are different gambits in order to get better board positions and even the most chaotic plays could result in a win in the end.

It is really a game of foresight and strategy. On when to know when and what to sacrifice and how to get your opponent into moving their pieces how you predict them. I am often amazed what the smart heads of this sport are able to see that I am just missing. A lot of the times I am really looking to short sighted but this comes with experience I think.

My Development

Saying that, let’s quickly discuss my own development in this sport here. I usually like to play the Blitz format where you have 3 minutes and get an additional 2 seconds per turn. I think it is a very solid timeframe for a quick match that does not require you to take too much time off and you can do in a train or while commuting to work. I usually play a few matches before going to bed and after I wake up just to get the brain started.

As you could tell from my previous comment, I am not the best in this game. I am often losing sight and giving up important pieces very easily but this thing already got much better. I am also starting to catch my opponents of guard in many occasions but I also recognize that my brain is sometimes working to slowly for the format that I am playing. I know what many people would say now: Just change the format and allow yourself more time.

Yes, it would be a good move but I just do not want to spent more time since I don’t have that much during a morning. This is why I will stick with this format for now. Furthermore, I will now try to integrate more strategies into my game. For the next few weeks, I will select 2 openings that I will practice and learn what piece positions are the most beneficial in certain situations. In general, a control of the center of the field is very much wanted but I also had a lot of opponents who demolished me without having that.

With that being said, I think my biggest weakness at the moment is the mid-game. I often do not know what to do there and move pieces mindlessly without any effort or goal. This is something I need to change to improve. Often times I am wasting valuable turns with these moves instead of developing my pieces. When it then comes to the end game, my pieces are not in the best positions or I have a big disadvantage in amount of pieces.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am also winning the one or other game, bit in general I would really like to improve this portion. I think my end game is pretty solid as there are less pieces and I usually know how to pressurize my opponent or relief the pressure from myself. Nevertheless, I think that it is also not the hardest part of chess to learn.

Conclusion

All in all, I am pretty thrilled that I am getting back into this old and beautiful game of chess. It reminds me of the good old times with my grandfather and father! I am using this game as a switch off from the current stresses and let’s see maybe I can improve my game to even get a good enough rating at some point. I am not sure which rating is good, but one above 1000 would be a first step I think! With that being said, I am pretty interested in whether you guys are also playing this game and what your experiences are? Maybe you can even give me some advice on how to get better? 😊

Published by ga38jem on
Sports Talk Social
On 23rd April 2023