Chess

Not the musical.

I have been playing chess since I was about 8 years old. I was never really that good but would hold my own for a while with my dad on the occasions we sat down to a game. I think that I only managed to beat him a few times out of dumb luck more than any real skill.

My method of play has always been one of headlong attack and melee in the hope that I would force a mistake that I could capitalise on. This strategy has served me well over the years as I played against automated chess games in various guises; from the very early electronics of the eighties, on through the first home computers up to the 3d version that is now on my phone.

This latest version is self learning (after a fashion) and increases in level after each victory of mine and crushing defeat that it experiences. For the last month or so I have disabled the incremental difficulty function; I wanted to perfect certain moves and preempt the programmed responses to my own maneuvers. My plan was to increase my understanding of the strategy which the programmers had digitally embedded into the game in order to defeat it at higher levels.

This may or may not work.

The great Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu in his classic “The art of war” addresses many aspects of the military leader and his recommendations for victory. Chiefest among the many suggestions is that of understanding your enemy; we cannot defeat what we do not understand either in mindset or capabilities.

Each new game begins with a set piece response to my first few moves with only a few minor variations; I goad the game into rash moves that result in me taking key players early in the dance of ultimate death. I always try to protect my queen (instinctively in life and in the virtual world) and will sacrifice the horsey thing and pawns without hesitation.

So far my strategy is succeeding.

At this current level after the first six or seven set moves, the game always takes a different direction that inevitably ends with my resounding victory. I hear Mr Smith from the Matrix growling, “that, Mr Anderson, is the sound of inevitability.”

I have taught a couple of people to play chess; both times I adopted the annihilation technique, for both of the victims this worked perfectly. They were mathematically minded and responded to these repeated defeats by learning really quickly how each piece moved; before very long both of these people had out witted my poor strategy and snatched victory from me.

I tried, only once, to teach my wife how to play.

It was a blisteringly hot day in carribean and we retreated for an hour into the respite of air conditioning to cool down a little.  She is blessed with many gifts and abilities but the entire concept of the game utterly eluded her; after a while of trying to explain the purpose of each piece we decided that it was never going to work as she could see no point to it all.

I have seen people allow constant defeat to be their lot in life and just accept that this will be the way of things for ever. Conversely I have seen people grow weary of these defeats and adopt strategies to overcome. Perhaps you too are replaying a thousand movies with this plot in some good overcoming adversity scenario; but do you walk away from such stories thinking that my life is fairly stable and threat free while allowing poor thinking and habits to remain in control of you (or is that just me)?

It is my hope that having pressed pause on life, as I also did on the chess game, that I will be able to apply the newly learned strategies to face the enemy within and the opposition from without when it is time to move on into the next phase of the battle.

My wife has taught me more about overcoming and victory than any chess game ever will, because she just finds a way to do it. So although I respond to defeat and adversity in a different way than she does, ultimately we achieve together a very similar end goal.

And that is really all that matters!