This Is Why We Fight

I remember this game like it was yesterday. It happened a little over a year ago. I was part of a league that played 45+45 Classical games on that other chess site that we'll call "Li Who Shall Not Be Named".

Get it? Li-who shall not be named? Li rhymes with "He", which fits with the Harry Potter reference, and...

...I'll show myself out.

But first, let me tell you about this game I had no business getting a draw in.

I was burned out from this league. This was the final game of the season, and I was over it. Scheduling classical games with people all over the world sounds like fun until you have to Google what "UTC" is. And even after you read the definition you're still like...but what time is that in my time zone?

I will never forget the first time I had to schedule a game with a guy overseas. We're on Slack and dude flat-out refused to respond to me in non-UTC. I would be like, "Okay, it's 4pm here now, what time is it for you where you are?", and dude would be like, "1200". And I would be like "12pm?" and he would say, "UTC" - and I'm like, "Bruh, what even is that? Can you just tell me what time it is there?".

He refused to do it. Funny, looking back - I am actually glad he didn't. It forced me to learn UTC and be a little less typical American. At the time, though, I was not feeling it, LOL. This had gone on for the full 8-weeks -- not to mention that I was also participating in the Lone Wolf 30-min classical games as well, so the burnout was real.

Side note - I quietly wonder if I had been winning all of my games, would I have said I was "burned out"? Probably not. Funny how that works, right? You're only ever burned out when you're losing more than you win. Same rules apply to Blitz and Bullet. You're only ever playing too much Blitz and Bullet when you lose. 

Actually, at my level, it's too much even when I win - but my point is, nobody says that to you when you win - only when you don't win.

But I digress.

I'm playing this Classical 45+45, final game of the season. My buddy Tim texts me as we're in the middlegame. He asked if I was still playing. If I was he was going to drop in and watch. I was still playing, but I was getting my ass kicked, and I don't know about you - but nobody wants to get their ass kicked in front of a live studio audience. 

"No need to watch this one, bro. It's basically over. I screwed it up".

It wasn't until I reviewed the game for this blog post that I realized I was playing the Bishop's Opening/Urusov Gambit. e4/e5 is my bread and butter, so the fact that I was getting my ass kicked, as white, having gotten my favorite setup, was just embarrassing. I didn't want to finish the game and was not too far from resigning.

Tim goes, "Keep fighting".

So I did.

The game went a total of 69 moves. I am not sure where we were at the time Tim texted me, but I think it was around the time I allowed my bishop to get trapped.

Tim pops in and watches the rest of the game. The game got worse and worse and worse. Suddenly we reached this critical moment:

Black had me dead to rights, but because they played d2 here, it allowed me to get them into perpetuals, and I escaped with a draw.

Tim texts me after the game, "THIS IS WHY WE FIGHT!!!"

I was so happy. Happiest I have ever been after a draw. Easily my best result of the season.

I am learning - my journey is not about wins/learns. God isn't going to ask me what my elo is when I stand before Him to give an account for my life. And if He does, I'm going to say, "I'm 2000 points away from being better than Magnus". Which is true now, and will probably be true then, LOL.

My journey is about growth. It wasn't about the result. It was about the fight. That game is one of the most important games of my young chess career. Because I didn't give up, even when I wanted to.

Thank God for friends like Tim Greene. If not for him, I would have resigned. I know I would have. This game was about learning to persevere.

You never hear a tree grow. You put an acorn in the ground, water it, give it sunlight, and a tree sprouts up. But you don't hear it. You go away, come back in a year, and there's suddenly a tree where the acorn used to be. That's chess growth. You never see it forward. You always see it backward. Heck, as I was writing this blog, I had to look at a game I haven't reviewed in over a year. I cringe at my play in this one - which is another way of me realizing how much I have grown since that particular acorn went into the ground.

I can kick that Omar's ass. But why? Because he took the L's that made me better. I need to remember that when I am losing/learning today. You rarely (if ever) see the growth in the moment. You see pain in the moment - but that pain has purpose if you don't waste it.

Note to self: Chess is pain, but use it. Don't worry about outcomes. Trust the process. Don't listen for the growth - you're not supposed to hear it. Keep fighting. Keep improving. The wins will come, I promise.