Dinner is over, my tummy is full, and my mind is empty. I sit down in my blue chair and pull out my phone, opening the regular app, which greets me by name and offers me my drug of choice.
A wooden sound accompanies the first move of the chess puzzle, which prompts my toddler (aka Bean, The Bean, Little Bean, Tummy Bean) to run over from wherever he was to feast his eyes on my screen. “Puzzles chest?” he implores. “Can I play puzzles chest with you?” I laugh and pull up a learning puzzle so he doesn’t get the real puzzle wrong for me; I can get the wrong answer all by myself, thank you very much.
During the pandemic isolation, we all probably spent too much time on our phones, but this isn’t a story about phone addiction. This is a story of how I overcame a personal obstacle and learned to play chess.
Opening Principles
I learned the rules to chess sometime in elementary school. I don’t remember exactly how; I think it was a combination of finding a chess program on my family computer, playing around with pieces until I figured out what they did, and finding a book in fourth grade with some descriptions of the game. I remember playing a game against a friend on the computer, taking turns at the keyboard until the game told us there were no legal moves. It was a stalemate, but we couldn’t agree on whether that meant I won or lost (we didn’t know what a draw was, apparently). And since I had very few people in my circle who even knew the rules, let alone played, chess receded deep into the background with all the other things I don’t use.
It came back into mind a few times since childhood. For example, in high school I began one of my most valued friendships so far with someone who actually did know the rules and played. We did play a few times, and he complimented my careful play, but I never once beat him in those days. In college, I saw that the US chess champion was Hikaru Nakamura, and noticed he was younger than my sister. I thought that was cool and moved on with my life.
Since then, chess is something I would look at only every once in a while, playing fewer than one game a year, occasionally reading about it but never jumping in. Nevertheless, it has always existed in my mind as something I should enjoy, so I’ve always been drawn to it as one is to a bonfire, looking on and enjoying but not getting too close.
Blundering Along
Playing chess had many false starts for me, and every attempt I had to play the game fizzled out. Why is that? After reflection, I think I’ve identified a few reasons.
The biggest reason? Anxiety. Media frequently portrays chess as something that smart people do, as if IQ suddenly teaches you rules, tactics, and strategy, but I felt pressure that my lack of chess ability would somehow indicate that I’m not actually smart, just another impostor. This is clearly ridiculous, but it took a great deal of work to evict that thought from my mind.
Another reason was how I act in ambiguous situations, or, more precisely, how I don’t. In most positions, there are dozens of legal moves. Which one is right? Since I couldn’t answer that question, I froze, repeating the same fruitless calculations, not only unable to find a good move but even to decide what I should even be trying to do.
Much less than those, but still present in my mind, was the belief that chess was dead. Not only did high level play usually end in a draw, but humans were clearly outclassed by computers for most of my life. The question of “what’s the best move?” was clearly beyond even our most gifted specimens, so why even bother pursuing it?
Rematch
Many times over the years I had decided I would try again, and each of those times would end the same way, with my not having played more than a couple games and losing heart. This attempt has gone better; chess just seems to have clicked finally. I can think of a few reasons why:
The anecdote at the top is true. One habit I built up was to do chess puzzles every day. This found mixed success; I enjoyed doing them, but I frequently wouldn’t be able to reason out the right answer. Some days, I’d get five in a row, other days, I’d miss them all, but one day I suddenly started getting them more frequently and found my ability growing. I’m not consciously aware of what happened, but that’s how learning works. The answer is probably that I had become comfortable enough with certain patterns that I could now reason about some chess positions.
Second, chess came into popular culture. Netflix released The Queen’s Gambit, which I could probably write an entirely separate post about (and probably will). In an entirely separate universe, chess masters such as Hikaru Nakamura (it helped his was already a familiar name to me) and Levy Rozman started training famous streamers, YouTubers, and actors, and PogChamps was born as a chess tournament without the masters (I am HIGHLY in favor of this, as it cements the idea that anyone can enjoy the game, even though I’m not particularly interested in watching it). But these two masters have produced a lot of content which has helped me.
Third, was the event that really tipped the scales for me… One coworker gave a lecture on something very very silly, the BongCloud. It’s an opening that has no theoretical merit; in fact, the computer will tell you that it is the WORST POSSIBLE move to play, but you can watch Hikaru play it and steamroll over everyone, including strong players, in a series of videos. The point my instructor made was this: though computers far outclass humans at chess, with time controls, human to human chess is still a battle of minds. Minds can be thrown off, not merely by the best move but also by surprises, and moves like this can surprise your opponent, leading them potentially not to play their best.
The fourth was the experience of all this in community. I found other friends who were learning to play, or picking back up the chess pieces, and I felt less anxiety playing with them. I did so until I started to feel less anxiety overall, and now I am playing random people on chess.com.
Finally, what helped that I don’t have a bias as much about being good at something while young. I faced that pressure before, as many children did, but now as a mid-30s, I realize I have picked up some strong talents that I didn’t have even in my 20s. Even more, I still have things I want to learn at this age and older, and I’m no longer resigned to be told that it’s too late.
Overall, what really did it was small changes over time. Puzzles after dinner, playing regularly, these are all small changes, but these small changes add up over time into something you can look back and be proud of.
It’s my move
Now that I’m playing somewhat regularly, I finally see something that was probably obvious to everyone else: it’s a game. It’s supposed to be fun. If you want to play it, you can! There are people about your skill level, and you will win about half of your games once you find them.
My son has even gotten in on the action. He’s a chess prodigy! Not really; he knows the name of the pieces but otherwise just moves randomly, favoring “eating” pieces so that I shout “hey!” (pretty good for a 3-year-old, no?).
I would for my son to learn chess (Bean’s Gambit Accepted?) but he might not be interested (Bean’s Gambit Declined). He already knows the piece names, and maybe he’ll be really good, but in reality the things I’d want him to learn are:
- Resilience. You will lose. Mistakes are common. Failure is normal. Learn from it. Get back up again.
- Curiosity. There is wonder and beauty everywhere, including why the rules of chess lead to certain moves being a good idea and others a bad idea. If you can appreciate it, you will enjoy learning.
- Reward. It feels good to put in work and see a result.
- Enjoyment. A game should be fun. And if it’s not fun, do something else. It’s ok.
And to teach him properly, I should learn these as well.