Why I Suck at Chess (and other things)

Chess carries with it the stigma that if you are beaten at Chess, then you are dumber than the person that beat you. Conversely if you win it proves you are smarter than the person that beat you.

As such, playing chess pushes me into a state of insecurity which builds my desire to have the game over with. Curiously, I never had this kind of destructive anxiety doing math's or physics exams, where the answers are known and and you can say in this restrictive field whether you are quantifiably, and objectively smarter or dumber than someone.

But Chess is much more personal, and facing down some fuckhead lifts the stakes to a place I'm not comfortable with. I get frazzled and not so much as lose my wits. I lose my desire to play all together.

I'm usually an intuitive thinker. I can put together pictures and stories from abstract chunks that aren't in any particular order. I know the broad strokes and don't care for the detail. This should make me good at recognising the shapes on a board of chess. However I find I'm just fucking terrible at it. The most surefire way to beat me in Chess is to move a piece, leave your finger on it and consider every possible move I could make before sliding it back and trying out another piece. Not even I consider every move I could make. Often opting just for the most exciting one (like attacking your pawns with my Queen)with nary a thought for repurcussions.

But even though I play Chess in an artless, impatient manner where you would think I was used to losing, I still care about winning Chess.

I think back to my childhood basketball days, when I used to play for the Jades team, I had no fun. The Jade's cared about winning, the team I was on. The coach would get frustrated with my apprehension to shoot (even at a young age I was overly conscious of the opportunity cost of losing offensive possession if I shot) and was often benched (although I think I had a superb passing game). In practice sessions though I could shoot fine, do layups and was fit and fast enough to keep up with the competition.

I got my points average up from 0-2 per game when I switched to celtics (whom were less green than the Jade's) and got a coach that had policies like 3 dribbles and you pass it. He made sure everyone got a game and didn't care so much about winning. I played 4 seasons with them and would eventually take shots in the game. I quit basketball shortly after I landed in a team that cared about winning again.

I'm actually a decent enough streetball player now though (dislocated shoulders aside) grabbing boards despite being not tall enough to be a center, and sinking outside shots (occasionally) enough to warrant man on man defence. I'm far more confident and enjoy it far more because in streetball winning doesn't matter. There's really no ego in it because you know you could be going up against pro's or stumbling on some pissweak singaporeans that decided to throw down on their muffin munching picnic, if you lose you lose if you win you win. You just need to play though, if there's no team to play against everyone's practicing free throws.

But Chess I can't get past the implied intellectual slight hinged on the outcome of the game. People think I would enjoy chess. But truth be told I've never been motivated about winning or losing, I have cared because what I ultimately get motivated about is everyone having fun. In streetball I equally dislike a game that my team shits all over the opponent than a team where I get shat upon. And usually unbalanced teams result in mixing it up so good players play against eachother and weak players play against eachother. But Chess has no 'just for fun' avenue really.

The only way I can concieve chess being fun is if you play 10 games in the time it takes to play one with Liam. That way you could conceivably win some and lose some due to the gung ho way you play. But I suck at chess and sucked at basketball because I was made to care about winning, and that people could only have fun if they won.

In basketball the bad coaches I had completely ignored that it was a 30 game season and it might be fun to lose the game you finally nail your jumpshot in. And down the road this might lead to winning.