Chess Skills in Life
Sometimes people say that games are meaningless. When pressed for an elaboration, they tend to say things like, “They are a waste of time!” and “You learn no skills that hold any relevance in the real world!”
I actually disagree with both statements, hopefully politely so. In my opinion, time enjoyed is never time wasted. In fact, I think my job is kind of a waste of time, existing only so I can live. Living, as in doing things I actually enjoy doing.
As for picking up skills that aren't that useful in the real world, I also quite disagree. My reflexes from grinding away countless hours on World of Warcraft, League of Legends, and Dota serve me well in my current field of employment, and I haven’t even brought out my biggest example yet: chess.
In the summer of 2024, my younger sister and I went on a day trip to another Italian city. Tourists in our own country. The plan was to visit a museum, and when our train arrived at the city's main station, we quickly found ourselves a bit lost.
“Ah, yes,” the kind lady at the information desk said when we asked her if she could tell us how to get to our museum. “Outside, at the bus platform, you go past D6, E5, F3, G3, and finally you will find your bus at H3.”
“All right, thank you very much. Have a nice day,” I said with a polite smile.
“Uhm, shouldn't you be writing that down?” my sister asked as she jogged to keep up with my determined pace.
“No need. You see, numbers are how humans remember balance. Letters with a number are how chess players think,” I said. Sure enough, a position from the London had formed itself in my head.
And all the numbers the lady gave us suddenly made total sense. When Black puts the bishop on d6, I'll retreat mine to g3. When Black threatens to play the liberating e5, I play Ne5. Since I haven't played h3 yet, I can maybe dream of the manoeuvre Qf3–Qh3 and land a devastating checkmate!
I'll be entirely honest from this point on. In my excitement, brought about by the imaginary chess position, I mixed up the numbers. I was daydreaming about the following variation that all London players hope to get on the board:
… and as a consequence, I promptly led my sister astray to H7 instead of H3. We never actually made it to the museum, but as it turned out, the bus leaving from H7 took us to a breathtakingly beautiful aquarium, where we saw fish of all colours swim amongst the shiny coral.
After we had enriched ourselves with all that nature had to offer, albeit in a manufactured form, we happily sat down at a restaurant in the same street. There we were served some of the best food we had ever eaten, and, being Italians, that's one of the biggest honours one can bestow upon a restaurant.
“Well,” my sister said, swallowing a bite of ravioli with a dreamy look on her face. “So much for your chess skills.”
“Yes, they really came in handy today, didn't they?”
“I genuinely can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not.”
“I'm not. You see, the biggest chess skill of all is how it trains our flexibility of mind. Whenever a variation fails, we immediately set out to find a satisfactory alternative.”
My sister took another relishing bite of her ravioli. “All right, this definitely classifies as 'satisfactory',” she admitted, with a smile I returned.
