5 Chess-Related Things To Be Thankful For
Hey y'all, Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you are enjoying this holiday! Today I'll be discussing with y'all 5 chess-related things to be thankful for, in my opinion. Why chess-related, you ask? Well, simply put, this is a chess blog, so I'm gonna stay on that topic. But of course, we all have much to be thankful for outside of chess, like friends, family, technology, food, and life in general. Hopefully, y'all agree with me there. Even when life gets rough and if you're in a dark place, you always have something to be thankful for, and I think it's important to remember that. Just being thankful for something can be your light, your guide from the lows of life. On this day, Thanksgiving, take the time to think of what you might be thankful for, I encourage you to do this and I believe it'll make you happier 
Also, I rarely do this and probably won't again for a while, but I encourage you to check out @Roger436's blog (without Roger I probably wouldn't be a top blogger), as well as @DrChessWizard's blog (he's planning to blog more frequently now and offers educational content if you're into that).
Alas, I have taken up much of your time as it is, so without further ado, let's look at 5 chess-related things to be thankful for on this Thanksgiving day, 2021.
5. CHESS CONTENT
I dunno about you, but I would have been sooo bored in 2020 during the pandemic if not for chess content like live chess streams on twitch. There were some days in the Summer of 2020 where all I did was watch chess streams on twitch. When the first edition of PogChamps started, I watched nearly every moment of it. If I wasn't watching a chess streamer on twitch, I was very likely on chess.com silently reading blogs and articles to pass the time. Sometimes I would watch chess YouTube channels as well, just not very often. I don't watch as much chess content these days, but it remains entertaining and I won't forget how it gave us all one of the best moments of the year...
Looking back on the past year and a half, I'm very thankful to have had this chess content to keep me entertained during the pandemic when I had nothing to do. And when I wasn't just playing chess myself. I'm pretty confident that I'm not alone on this one. I don't know what I would have done during the pandemic without this content.
4. THE CHESS COMMUNITY
The chess community is a wonderful thing. Sure, there are some parts of this community that aren't so great (such as the chess elitists and cheaters), but hey, there's always gonna be something that keeps a community from being perfect, that's just how it is. Overall, the chess community is awesome. Especially those of you who are here reading this 
To me, part of what makes Chess.com so much better than all the other sites out there is this community aspect of it. You've got the clubs. You've got public forums. You've got blogs. You've articles. You get it, right? There's just so much on here! If you have a question about something related to chess, you can just post a forum and ask, and you'll most likely get an answer. If you play a fantastic game or achieve a new milestone, you can post about it and share it with the community. Ignoring the trolls, and some people who just don't like being kind and relevant, everyone is very supportive and uplifting of one another. It's a lot of fun interacting with people on here, and for people such as myself who don't have a life, it's the best way to interact with others. I'm thankful for the chess community, giving me a way to talk to people who, like me, love the game of chess.
3. OTB CHESS
If you haven't played OTB chess before, you are missing out. There's nothing wrong with playing chess online, for sure. But playing chess OTB is a totally different experience, where you battle your opponents at a physical chessboard with actual pieces, where your ratings mean something more, and where you can compete for the glory, honor, and prize money.
I love online chess, but OTB chess is better. Personally, if I hadn't started off playing OTB, I would have never known about this amazing world of chess and my life would be completely different. I'm thankful for OTB chess, giving me something to compete in and look forward to. 
2. CHESS.COM
Ah, yes. Chess.com. You just knew this would be on the list. Where would we be without it? You certainly wouldn't be here reading this, that's for sure. Thank goodness we have Chess.com! As @Roger436 would tell you, I'm seemingly never offline. Sure, part of that is because I don't have a life. But most of it is just that I love playing chess and interacting with others on here.
During the pandemic last year, I did spend a lot of time on Twitch, as I previously mentioned. I probably spent even more time on Chess.com playing chess, interacting with others in clubs, making friends along the way. Then in 2021, I started streaming on Twitch, and that would never have happened if I hadn't had those interactions with people on Chess.com. It's also because of Chess.com that I'm a Top Blogger and can publish these blogs for y'all.
Even though I probably spend way too much time on here, I'm thankful we have Chess.com, a site on which we can play chess, interact with one another in the chess community, and access all other forms of chess content. 
1. ANYONE WHO HAS SUPPORTED YOU IN CHESS
This is the top chess-related thing to be thankful for on my list, and there's a lot here. Anyone who has supported you in chess. For me, the first that comes to mind is God, without whom none of this would be possible, without whom I would not have the ability to play this game as well as I am capable of. Praise the Lord for all He has done
Then there is my family. It was from my family that I first learned chess. My cousins actually introduced me to this wonderful game when I was 8. Soon after, I joined a chess club, improved dramatically, and the rest is history. Then there are my parents. I'd never get to any tournaments without them driving me there and paying the entry fees, nor without their confidence in my ability to not lose every single game I play, despite me regularly claiming I will.
My parents also pay for weekly lessons with my coach. Before taking lessons with coach, my rating had been stuck for about a year. It didn't take long for my rating to start gradually going up though, and that's a credit to coach, not me. Sure, I have to put in some work, but I always had to put in work with my previous coaches and I still got stuck. But he was able to elevate my game and has always been able to help me with my game.
Another example of someone who may support you in chess could be irl friends. I have a few irl friends who always ask for updates and seem to actually care how I do in otb chess tournaments. That, and when I'm on a long road trip, they give me someone to talk to. 
If you have irl friends who support you in chess, don't let them go, they're good friends. Trust me, I have a few friends who don't care about me playing chess whatsoever and would rather talk about their own life instead, so it's important to not take the friends who do care for granted.
Finally, there is the chess community, and I've already given you my thoughts about this, about how supportive the community can be. For me, I have my fan club, where I often give y'all updates on my journey to NM. There's also this blog, where I post about most of the otb events I play in.
I'm sure I'm missing someone, and I apologize if I am. But anyway. All of that is to say, I am thankful for everyone I mentioned above for supporting me in chess, asking about and listening when I share how my chess life is going, and also just giving me someone to talk to about chess. Thanks, y'all.
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!
Thank y'all so much for reading, I truly appreciate it! let me know in the comments below what you think about my list of 5 chess-related things to be thankful for. What do you agree and/or disagree with? Share your thoughts below, and let me know what else one could be thankful for.
I hope y'all enjoyed this post! Again, please leave a comment, I love reading what y'all have to say, and as you probably know I do my best to respond to everything. As a reminder, my next blog should be coming out around December 5th, with 3 others coming later in December.
I'm also going to be active on YouTube, posting some reactions and analyses on the upcoming World Chess Championship games, so be sure to check out the Lightning Reports YouTube Channel, and I'll do my best to bring y'all some enjoyable content. Just yesterday I posted a 4-minute video of my favorite clip from the WCC Opening Press Conference, and earlier I posted a video about the same topic covered here, as you can see below
On that note, I'll end this post here. Thanks again for reading, please leave a comment, and I hope you have a fantastic Thanksgiving! Oh, and remember. Strike some Lightning. I'll cyall in the comments! Happy Thanksgiving!
