A New Journey After 30-Year Hiatus
Hello everyone. My name is William, and I'm from Jakarta, Indonesia. This is my first blog in this website. I am still not sure how often I'll update the blog. Every several days. After a month. Three months after. Probably.
The thing is, I'm new to chess. The last time I played chess was like 30 years ago, and that was during my 4th grade. When I played back then, it was not even serious game. Just something to do because my friend came and needed someone else to play chess with. I didn't even understand what I was doing, just moving here and there, and the game done after several moves (much later I learned my friend was pranking me with Fool's Mate). Or watching the game run really long between my other friends, only for them to declare a stalemate. I didn't find it interesting, so I never even considered learning more into it.
Let's jump 30 years later. I just celebrated my 40th year anniversary. I have a wife and a son, and a rather stable job. The thing is, this is around the time I encounter mid-life crisis. There are things I begin to seriously reconsider in life, and for some reasons I come back to chess. Maybe because I start thinking of mental practice through late adulthood. That, and losing friends one by one. From simply drift apart, or death.
Anyway, you all ever watched a sci-fi movie where the protagonist just leap ahead to the future by 30 years? That's exactly what I feel after trying to play chess again after 30 years. I have not been following chess world during all those years. Some serious culture shocks indeed.
1) The Russians are not as powerful as in the '90s. Kasparov and Karpov were all over the news when I was in 4th grade. Where are they now?
2) Magnus who? The best player in the world is a Norwegian guy now? I didn't even know Norway was that powerful in the '90s.
3) The. Indians. Are. Insanely. Good. I dare to say that the Indians nowadays are the Russians in the '90s. The Indians have strong chess culture, and they're rising fast everyday.
4) Chess online. Holy moly. Back then playing chess means visiting your friends, hoping they're available. That, or hanging around nearby street vendors (kaki lima), taxi drivers (ojek and taksi), or local nightwatches (hansip). The closest analogy in western world is the chess hustling culture. Imagine playing chess while your opponent chainsmoking non-stop for the next an hour or two, while sipping mud coffe and snacking banana fritters, and casually doing illegal moves to screw you up while giving not-so-friendly trash talk when you're playing too slow or making stupid blunders. Oh, and may or may not involve betting some money too.
5) Speed chess. What the heck did I just watch? Back then I thought chess was too slow. While nowadays chess is extremely fast. I suspect speed chess is popular as youngsters nowadays have even shorter attention spans. The speed chess is very entertaining indeed, especially when emotion runs high. Personally, I think this could reinforce bad habits if your chess foundation is not that strong. But of course, it is fun and enjoyable, and for many that's enough.
6) Chess in Indonesia is still slowly developing. We have Grandmasters yes, but the numbers are not growing that much even after 30 years. If any, the chess stigma in the '90s may hurt our chess development. Many parents are afraid their kids will be exposed to excessive smoking when they play chess. This stigma is slowly changing, give or take another generation or two. Young people have different perceptions on chess of course. Magnus is handsome. GothamChess is cool. Botez sisters are beautiful.
Notice that I don't give a shock on AI development. That's because even as a primary schoolkid, I already suspected AI chess would continue to perform. That's the only thing on chess my prediction after 30 years is completely spot on.
And now it comes back to me. I'm still the below average player from my 4th grader time. But this time, I begin to enjoy this game. I start looking around for any resource available. The real challenge now is that I'm a full time office worker and a father with a baby boy. My time is limited. Nothing too fancy then, chess.com is my friend. The resource here is very gargantuan. In fact, I'm actually overwhelmed with the whole information available here. I found out later the 1-1-1 chess plan for busy people is the simplest plan for me to follow.
I also begin contacting local chess experts for mentorship. Americans have USCF, Indonesians have Percasi. Some of them are playing here in chess.com. Good Indonesian players like pak Ridwan and Ayongg. I believe to refine my extremely poor skills, I need to find good mentors. Reading books and watching videos and playing random games are fun, but without the right guidance, I'm facing an uphill battle. I don't want to improve my skills too slow like, I don't know, a clueless medieval peasant playing chess between harvest.
Actually my plan is not that crazy. This is like how it used to work in Indonesian school extra-curricular activities (maybe North American schools with strong chess club traditions could see the parallel). You join a chess club as a freshman, your skill of course is still very basic. The first year spends all the time drilling the basic while the mentor guides you. Maybe as a sophomore you'll start representing the club while playing the other school. Junior and senior years are the time where you become the core team, maybe even the team captain if you are that good to play at local, national, or even international level. Give or take, this would take 3-4 years at least. After that who knows? As long I keep enjoying playing chess, I'll set another goal. I play the long game. The next 30 years would be a very interesting time, indeed.
William,
Jakarta, 01 September 2025
