What Makes Chess Significant?
Looking at it from a broad perspective, I consider the greatest significance of chess to be as a model for effective decision-making in life.
In fact, this significance - of simulating life in a way where the constraints of the game give us a system for more complex situations - could theoretically be applied to any game.
However, I find chess to be one of the best models for developing and honing an effective decision-making process for these reasons:
- The game is finite, with a very clear metric for results (ratings). This gives us an especially strong feedback loop for determining the objective quality of our decisions.
- There is one very clear objective (checkmate), but there are also various sub-objectives (types of advantages) that must be achieved to attain the primary objective. This again gives us a clear metric and structure within that metric to measure our progress.
- There is a healthy competitive element, where we are competing against others at the board, but, as chess is 'soft solved' as a draw by computers, it is primarily a battle within ourselves, as we know that, if we achieve a certain quality of play, we will not lose the game.
Continuing on that line, we also learn not to get too attached to the result, by understanding that we can do everything 'right' and still not win, because our opponent also had a certain quality of play.
- The journey of skill acquisition and honing in chess is very similar to that for other practical life skills (driving, public speaking, marketing, data analysis, management, and the list goes on).
I've been one of the more outspoken people of late on the limitations of chess - specifically, the 'ceiling' on how significant a board game can be in solving the challenges humanity faces and will face.
Why the change of tune, you may ask?
The big breakthrough happened for me two days ago, when I understood that any finite game has an infinite number of possible thoughts behind those finite options.
A better understanding of our thought process (for our moves) is the fulcrum to improving it.
As I reflected on the ineffectiveness of my own voluminous learning in poker, I came to realize that the scope for human learning in a finite game is, likewise, limitless.
However, if we only rely on our own experience, we are likely to miss a lot of things, or even draw very incorrect conclusions (as I did in the past, when faced with negative responses to positive actions).
The way to translate lessons from games to real life is for those connections to be made explicitly, rather than just assumed or intuitively felt.
Only then, can we reliably transform our experiences playing and studying chess into a model for success in life (the definition of which is a good subject for a separate post).
