On Chess & Dating part 1: Introduction and Mindsets

Hi all! ^^

I've been waiting to write this blog entry for quite a bit, and I promised to do so for at least a year. Couldn't find the time, but here it finally is ^^

When I was writing this text, I realized that there was too much to say about this subject to stamp into one blog entry (that is, I came to 9 pages of plain text alone, and that includes removing all things I found of less importance). So I've chosen to cut it into several segments. This is the first.

Chess and dating have much, MUCH more in common than you might think at first sight. You always start out with your preparation, then comes the opening, followed by the middle-game and the endgame, and eventually you will want to get to mate the other person (yip, pun intended; credits to my friend Stenrosen for finding it haha ^^). So let's have a look at all the similarities when we break the game down into its parts.

Before I go into more detail about the several different mindsets you will want to adopt, I have to state something obvious yet very important: most people have a few basic clues how to play chess but are frankly totally oblivious to the depth of the game. There are lots of deeper layers to what the ignorant eye may see as “just a simple game of chess”. As a rule, the better you get, the more obvious things will start to look. That also goes for dating: there are many people who want to get good at it (even and indeed especially if people say they don't) but don't have the slightest clue what they should be looking for. In both cases, novices may find themselves get occasional success (which is a very pleasant feeling) but have no idea what they did right, or why they did it right.

Beginner's luck may be all it takes to motivate a person to learn more, spend more time studying and applying, and get really good at something. The same is the case when you want to learn the piano. If someone teaches you a simple melody (Flea Waltz, for example), you'll likely feel really awesome about yourself. And that gives you much more motivation than having to do all kinds of practices like “play the A-flat major chord”, “play the scale of F-sharp minor.”

Quick success is the best motivation to wanting to learn more.

The Mindset

There are a few mindsets that will inherently sabotage your efforts at winning. The first thing you have to keep in mind is that too high expectations will ruin your game from the beginning. Like in the piano example above: you can't expect to start learning how to play the piano by the deep dark works of Rachmaninov or the chromaticism-overdosed works by Chopin and immediately get it right and play like a concert pianist straight away. No. That's not how it works, no matter how much you love the pieces.
Every chess-grandmaster once started out as an apprentice who had to learn the moves. And every “born” leader once started with minor successes which boosted their self-esteem and their motivation.

You can't expect to win every single time, and people who do expect to win every single time will inevitably sabotage their own efforts right from the start. There are numerous bold players who sincerely believe they can win straight from the opening, and can find winning-lines and refutations to every effort their opponents make. This very often means that they make moves that are “too much”: they brainlessly go after what they want and end up with less-than-satisfying results. Especially young players are good at this: they want to force matters where there's nothing to gain and end up losing far more games than necessary.
Dutch grandmaster Robin van Kampen, for instance, used to play youth-championships like this (back then he was an aspiring and obviously very talented international master) and paid the price dearly: he lost multiple unnecessary games by trying to force his way through. He learned from these mistakes of arrogance and ended up becoming a settled grandmaster.

If you aim to play your best game and make the right moves, you trust to get a fair chance at winning. That's really everything you can possibly hope for: a fair chance to get the most out of the games. But you have to allow yourself to get that fair chance by first adopting the mindset that you're not a bull chasing into the red cape. You have to make the appropriate moves to gain the best possible results.

(And would you consider yourself superior to your opponent anyway, then try to provoke them into making those fatal mistakes by allowing them the opportunities to take the wrong turn. Or torment them into succumbing and eventual surrender. But don't go chasing the pigeons on the San-Marco Square that aren't to be caught, because you'll embarrass yourself and likely lose much more than just that single game.)

Another mindset you have to have: the warrior's outlook. You're laying siege to your opponent and try to find a way through. You have to have the confidence it takes to play the game, and you have to strive for the best possible outcome every game. You want to play every position until the bitter end, much like Carlsen, until there's really nothing left to fight for anymore. In every potential situation you'll strive for the best thing to do.
In martial arts, you fight until you know for certain that the fight is lost. And should you lose, you're ready to admit defeat: call it quits to fight another day. There's a dictum in martial arts that really applies for every aspect of life: 

You have to be prepared to get your ass kicked in order to get to proceed. Andy Warhol, for instance, was first thrown off by some institution which called him “a born loser”. But that only reinforced the vow he made to himself to get that specific part of his life (in this case, becoming an art-enterpreneur) handled.
And he did.
He became a grandmaster in this area.
That's perseverance for you.
That's character.
That's chasing your dreams.
And if someone with such a frail IQ like Andy Warhol can do it, why on Earth shouldn't you be able to achieve your goals?

Discipline, perseverance, character; all those characteristics are what defines a great warrior.

The glance of determination

What's also involved in the warrior's outlook is that you're prepared to go over your mistakes, analyze them, understand what happened, and keep that in mind for the next game you play.

The warrior's outlook – whether it's chess, dating, job-applying, martial arts, music-making, or whatever things you may come up with – will lose you games for certain (after all, losing some games is unavoidable in the long run regardless of how skilled you are), but in the long term the results are more than worth it.

And the third mindset, which I've shortly touched upon above: defeat or disappointment is not the same as failure. There are people who do feel this way, and I don't blame them. What matters is how you cope with defeat or disappointment. It's very often said that “in times of crisis, your true character will emerge”. When everything is going absolutely fine, being confident is easy. When everything goes horribly wrong, that's the moment to prove that you're really confident and ready to deal with whatever setbacks come your way.

People will laugh at you.
People will despise you.
People will look down on you.
That's none of your business. That's theirs.
You are on your own awesome path in life.
And if they don't want to join your path: that's their loss.

Well, that's the first entry in the Chess & Dating series. I hope you enjoyed it; I hope you can make the most of it; and of course I hope you'll have an awesome life ^^

Love, Simone