Four Chess Principles I Use On and Off the Board

I play chess for fun. Certainly no grand master, nor will I feasibly have the time to commit to the serious study and attending of tournaments.

The horse is my favourite piece to move via my mobile app or browser window. If I can fork the king and a rook I sometimes trash talk in the chat window if one is available.

My affair with chess began during the pandemic, around September 2021. A hobbyist war gamer and board game player, I dipped into this game to scratch an itch - and scratch an itch it did. Over the past few months I have clocked up nearly a two thousand games.

I think about moves and replay past games in my head as I do chores. I watch videos on youTube, about chess. I even have a little puzzle book I read when feeding my infant.

Maybe its some psychological lifeline to escape the stressors of my life, but I do feel chess has brought both joy and wisdom to my life. As well as frustration, lots of frustration.

As I’ve tried to drill in the core principles of the game, I find myself considering them in my day to day life too. Like a middle-aged and much less exciting version of Kung-Fu or the Karate Kid.

Never Resign

“Never give up. Never surrender.” - Commander Taggart played by Tim Allen in Galaxy Quest

This one is self explanatory. Its not over till its over. Especially when playing blitz (short games that have 3-5 minutes for each player to complete all their moves. If you time out you lose). Especially as a rookie no matter how bad the situation, there’s a very good chance your opponent might timeout or make a cracking blunder that can swing the game.

Unless you are an expert, then you don’t really know how bad things are. As well as potentially denying yourself the full lesson you could learn, you also could be giving up not realising how much opportunity is in fact right around the corner if you keep stumbling forward.

Make good moves

“All that matters on the board is good moves” - Bobby Fischer

Note I didn’t say “winning moves”, just “good moves”. There are a few principles. Here is an article from chess.com that has a good overview:

https://www.chess.com/article/view/the-principles-of-the-opening

Sometimes its hard to read an opponents intention or you might not have a plan yourself. So often its best to just default to making a good move such as developing your pieces - so it is in a place where it will be more active and offer more opportunities - or moving something valuable out of harm’s way,

In life, sometimes the road ahead is unclear and I sometimes don’t have a scooby what my next step is. But I do know basic principles that if I follow, will open up more opportunities and will avoid a lot of unnecessary trouble down the line.

You know the ones: Eat Well, Exercise, check up on friends and family etc. You might not have an end goal in mind, but if you generally try to make sensible moves day to day and not reckless ones you’re going to be in a better position one way or the other.

Consider the entire board

“he can not se the wood for the trees” - Sir Thomas More's Confutacion of Tyndals Answere

Often I get tunnel vision and get so involved with the minutia of something happening in one corner of the board I fail to see an opportunity elsewhere, or worse don’t see an attack coming until its too late.

It is easy to get hung up on the smaller details of life and forget about the bigger picture, or even important details in your peripherals.

When I began solving chess puzzles that often involved taking in the whole board and noting the position of all the pieces in play, I started to notice myself finding check mates a lot sooner that I often missed in the battle of gobbling up each other’s pieces.

I began to wonder where in my life I had become so focused on how I was going about making a living, and not what - and who - I was making money for. So I am currently looking at making some small changes that could have a big impact on my life, because I took a step back and examined my life as a whole and not just a segmented part within another segment.

All thanks to a few beginner chess puzzles.

Always Check on the King

This fourth point is really an extension of the third. In keeping the goal in mind (trap the opponent’s king) I found a lot of opportunities, especially when pieces are still in play and thus blocking his escape.

I realized I had been playing chess mostly as a war of attrition trying to grind my opponent down by chipping away at his material and time. I was neglecting the real goal of just trying to achieve a checkmate.

Obvious to you all, but not to me until I really examined how I was playing. So now I always keep an eye on where the opponent’s king is. Looking for opportunities to force him out of hiding or pin a dangerous piece onto him.

Likewise, how often do we get caught up in inter personal drama and unnecessary tasks that began as steps to a destination but now have become our home.

Even if you don’t have a big life plan, maybe its just to make things suck a little less this week. If you keep that in your mind, a lot of smaller stuff can fall away and leave your mind free to consider the best way to serve You.

Summary

This entire article is a bit off-key for me, I do hope that someone takes enjoyment or comfort in what is essentially a rambling shower-thought.

The key points, for those have already forgotten are:

1. Never Resign
2. Make Good Moves
3. Consider The Entire Board
4. Always Check on the King