IN MY 27 years of writing about chess, I’ve had many people – mainly non-chess players – asking me what is there in chess that continues to fascinate me. It is actually a difficult question to answer. There are so many things in chess that fascinate not only me but seasoned chess players in general.
Firstly, chess players enjoy a good fight. If you do not wish to match wits over the chess board, then chess is not for you. Chess is all about imposing your ideas and will on others. Nothing brutish about this; it’s all mental, see?
But what was it that the late Bobby Fischer used to say? He competed at the highest levels and he likened winning a chess game to breaking his opponent’s ego.
At our own levels, playing in local chess tournaments, I don’t believe losing a chess game is everything in life. Yes, you’ll be angry with yourself over losing a game but do you bounce back after a loss? Yes, you do. You’ll get on with the next game.
When I was first exposed to chess during my school days, there was a senior who was quite good at the game. A school champion and a school representative in the inter-school tournaments. For practice, he would play with anybody. He would win most of the time but every time he lost a game, he’d just shrug, smile, look around and then ask: “Okay, who’s next?”
That taught me an important lesson. Chess is not a game in which proponents should fret over a loss or gloat over a victory. A win today may well be a loss tomorrow. So, just take the game as it comes and enjoy the dance of the pieces.
To a non-chess player, I will tell him that just like the racquet is the extension of a badminton, squash or tennis player’s arm, the 16 pieces on the chess board are the extension of a chess player’s mind. Instead of a court as the playing field, the game is contained within a 64-square board.
It’s up to you to will the pieces into life. The 16 pieces are at a chess player’s command and there are 16 more pieces under your opponent’s control.
When the 32 pieces are brought together in inter-activity, that’s when the fun begins in earnest. There is nothing static about chess. A non-chess player may look at a chess game as 32 pieces in static formation on a chess board but chess players see it differently.
There are multitudes of possibilities in a chess player’s mind. The patterns that unfold during the game, the strategies and tactics waiting to be unveiled, the limit is only the player’s imagination. All these goals are visualised in the mind’s eye.
Thousands of positions are processed consciously and sub-consciously before plans are accepted or rejected. The positioning of the pieces only represent the end of a player’s thought process.
To the non-chess player, I will also tell him that chess is not an infallible game. Neither are the chess players. If the game or the players are infallible, every game of chess that has been played and will be played will be drawn. There’ll be no excitement. Everything will be so predictable.
No, a chess game is only as good as the players. No chess player I know can claim to be perfect in his thought process. Everybody would like to play the perfect game or the most inspired game but everybody makes mistakes.
Chess players make mistakes all the time. That’s why there are so many 1-0s and 0-1s in a chess tournament. So don’t ever think that chess is a game for the perfectionist or the intellectual or the nerdy. It’s not. It’s a game for anyone to enjoy, you and I included.
So what else fascinates me about chess? Certainly, the players. We have players of all ages (although chess tends towards being a young person’s game). Players age well and if your mind is intact, you can enjoy a game of chess at any age.
We also have players of all backgrounds (the rich, the poor and the middle class), all walks of life, and all races and religions. Once you sit across the chessboard from one another, there is no distinction. What matters most is the contest between minds.
Then, of course, there are the games. Would you know that you can still play through and enjoy the games of notable players who lived in the 19th century or even earlier? What other game or sport can claim this? Very, very few.
Chess nomenclature has allowed us this luxury of documenting chess history and the Internet has opened us up to millions of chess games in the public domain. If I want, I can upload my games but I’m sure that nobody will find them interesting. But it’s possible for me or anyone to do that.
So there you are, some of the reasons why chess continues to fascinate me. It offers the never-ending personal challenge of always wanting to better ourselves, learning to set goals and achieve them, showing us our strengths and weaknesses, and definitely, socialising skills!
(This story first appeared in The Star on 15 Feb 2008)