I occasionally run into the person that is enamored with Chess. I like chess. I play it once in a blue moon. I'll also occasionally run into the person that plays Go and will mention how it is more complex than chess. I like go. I play it less often than Chess. I've been told I am good at chess, but I just play for fun and don't always know until after the fact that someone was hoping to beat me when I was just hoping to have fun. Often when I play I'll try some new thought pattern just to see how it works out. I am not talking strategy as sometimes when I play it I am not thinking far enough ahead for me to call it a strategy. I am usually expecting someone to start doing something and the dance that is in my mind will end. Sometimes I'll win. I'll find out that the person was bragging how they could beat me. Yet I wouldn't know until after the fact. In the most recent case people were glad I won the first chess match I've probably played in a decade.

I was just casually playing without a plan and as I carried on conversations with other people. I was just playing for fun. I found out that this young man (Teenager who is tall for his age) was fond of telling people how he could beat them at chess and I guess until I beat him it was true. Thus, the people told me they were glad because they said he needed the opportunity to lose. I was actually a little saddened by it. Especially, since I wasn't treating it serious at all. I was very casual about it and if he was serious then it could have seemed dismissive and like I didn't care. I didn't realize it was supposed to be serious...

I am no master. I have played against people that are (Decades ago). I often win the first match. I almost always lose the second one. Usually because I took the first one serious and had a plan, and the next ones I turn it more into mental experiments for me. I don't like routine. Thus, sometimes I will mix it up just so I am having fun even if it will cost me a match.

I go from appearing to be good at chess to WTF is this person doing in the span of a few matches...

Answer: Having fun, and experimenting.

What about life

I've been thinking about Chess for about a month since I won the match against that teenager and was informed by people of what he had said and them indicating they were glad I won.

This teenager is bright. He is intelligent. Yet he is also in that mode many people go through where he knows he is intelligent. He hasn't caught onto the life lessons that a lot of intelligent people never learn.

• Being wrong is okay. It is a learning opportunity. It is only bad if you are wrong about the same thing over and over again.

• Being ignorant is part of life. We all have areas we have knowledge and we have areas where we do not. Again it is an opportunity.

Tooting your own horn may work with your own age group, and it may work with adults who are not interested in learning until the day they die. If you run into Philosophers and people who love learning and knowledge you will invariably find that they are not impressed by people who spend energy tooting their own horn and singing their own accolades. The dance of the ego grows old quickly. It can also blind you to opportunity when you are too busy trying to live the image you are trying to project to everyone around you.

Had I known how this teenager viewed that match I would have tried to teach him something important. I didn't know until that opportunity had passed.

Basically it is this...

What is the big deal about Chess?

If you get good at chess then you are good at chess. To me the true value in chess is teaching you to understand different ways pieces of a puzzle can be used and training yourself to think ahead. If that is as far as you take it then there isn't much value in that beyond chess.

If you take that thinking ahead and looking at how different pieces can move in various puzzles and events around life then it can be a very valuable tool for helping you try to predict outcomes of things that have nothing to do with chess and if they are problems perhaps think of several ways to potentially head off a problem. That is the value of chess. It becomes valuable when you take what you have learned and internalized there and you can project that to solving problems, and making predictions about life.

It also can teach life lessons about sacrifice, risk, and other things if a person allows those teachings to manifest in their life. Outside of winning it can hopefully teach some humility and that is is okay to win and lose. You don't need a participation trophy. There are winners and there are losers. If you are skilled enough at it the lessons in humility might end up not being available. That is too bad as I personally think it is an important lesson.

Part of the importance of winners and losers is learning to get back up an try harder. In the age of participation trophies that lesson is often not learned and it is an incredibly important lesson.

What about Go?

Yes, I was in my teens (1980s) when I first played Go. I was told how it had many more possibilities than Chess. It wouldn't be long before a computer beat the Chess Grandmaster yet it still had not beaten Go.

Does that mean Go is the more intelligent game, and that people are smarter because they are good at Go than someone who is good at Chess?

To me the answer is no.

Go pieces have a specific movement (really they don't move - they are placed). Though the path to victory is quite different from Chess. There are things to learn from Go that likely can also translate to good life lessons and tools.

I can assure you other than the thinking ahead portion the life lessons from Go and Chess can differ so there is actually a benefit to learning and playing both.

Chess having pieces with different movements is much like having people with different skills, or tools with different purposes and thinking of ways to combine them and utilize them. That same concept is not really part of Go as far as I can tell. Yet Go has moves that can take out a lot of pieces at once. It can completely change the board.

While I have played Go it has been longer since I have done so and I never played it as often as Chess. I thus, don't have probably a complete set of insights into things Go can teach us about life.

Computers have won...

The fact that we have computers that have beaten Chess (possibly Go by now as well) is not an issue to me. They are expert systems. That is all they do. They can't take what they learn from such exchanges and apply it to life.

If you don't...

If you don't actually apply the techniques and skills that Chess, Go, or other games teach you to other aspects of life then why play? I could run in place as well. Yes, it seems boring but it gives me some cardiovascular and respiratory work out. Nothing else. Unless you are getting paid to play chess what do you gain from it if you don't apply what you learn there to other places?

Anyway... That's all I have to say about it at the moment. I felt like writing about something different this morning and my thoughts on Chess were where I wanted to go.

Thank you for your time. I know it is valuable. Spend it wisely.