They're Blessed To Suck At Chess
Do you have a natural talent?
Think about it for a few seconds before realizing that you probably don't. Am I right? Ok, I know I am, but if I am wrong, you can correct me in the comments.
Anyway, here is the good news: You certainly have a talent! The bad news? It's probably something so irrelevant and stupid that either you don't even know about it, or if you do, nobody cares enough to help you make any money from it. But why am I opening a chess blog saying all this nonsense?
Alright, here comes the explanation. Apparently, I have some sort of talent for writing chess blogs. My first two texts were very well received by the blogging community! I even got 1st place in the qualifying round of the blog competition I mentioned last time. How much do I get paid for this? Nothing.
While I have been given some natural talent for chess blogging, a little (very little) for playing chess, and also a nowhere-near-enough-to-make-me-rich for judo, other people get a lot of talent for something actually worthwhile. Oh, I forgot to mention that I am also able to move my ears without touching them. Yes, I can do that! No one cares enough to pay me either.
So, today, I've decided to expose how God - or the universe, or nature, or genes, whatever suits your beliefs - is very unfair. Come cry with me as we look at some people who have been more fortunate than us. They were given absolutely no ability to play this useless board game but were highly compensated with something valued by society.
While we laugh at their horrible chess skills, they laugh at our bank accounts. Shall we call it a draw? Let's get started.
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Table of Contents
2. Bill Gates
3. Usain Bolt
5. Conclusion
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We start with this lucky guy who has the talent to make perfect crosses and long passes from over 80 metres out on a football pitch. Enough to make him the right back for Liverpool FC and earn around £720,000 a month, according to The Mirror.
To make ourselves feel better and to pretend that we are not pathetic failures, a burden on the planet, or a disappointment to our parents (hey, I'm just kidding, life is beautiful, take it easy), let's at least have some fun watching how bad he is at chess.
In 2018, Arnold played a friendly game against Magnus Carlsen. OK, we would all lose badly to Carlsen, but I would like to think it would not be so shameful. Check it out:
What lesson can we learn from this? Mine is that people who make money kicking a ball around probably don't care enough about where they place their pieces or how ridiculous their pawn structure looks.
But should we judge him, given that he devotes his life to another high-level sport and was probably nervous about playing the world champion? Yes, we should! Come on, man, that was so ugly!
I wonder how Arnold dares to celebrate Champions League, FA Cup, and Premier League trophies when his ELO is probably below 1200. Can he sleep at night knowing that he cannot even see an obvious fork?
Why didn't God make me a good footballer instead of awarding me the honour of being the best chess player in my primary school and beating my father when I was 11? I wouldn't mind not being the next Marta, but at least you could have given me enough skills to kick a ball properly!
PS: His teammates Mohamed Salah, Cody Gakpo, and Dominik Szoboszlai also enjoy playing chess.
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The next lucky bastard on our list is Bill Gates. He was given the talent to be a great programmer and the ability to spot good opportunities to make a lot of money. I don't think it's necessary to explain who he is, but in case you don't know, we are talking about the founder of Microsoft. His net worth is estimated at $160 billion, according to Business Insider.
Someone so gifted must be a very good chess player, too, right? Not at all! Look at the aberration that was his game against Magnus Carlsen during the talk show "Skavlan" in 2014. What makes it even worse is that he had two minutes, while the world champion was only given 30 seconds.
Jokes aside, I'm not sure I'd be able to do any better, but let's take advantage of the fact that it didn't happen to us and make fun of him, pretending we'd at least survive longer.
If you are not patient enough to watch a 1:30 video, here is the PGN of the game with my comments. Just don't expect a decent analysis of an indecent game.
In this case, however, I am not going to judge poor rich Bill. If I had 160 billion dollars, I would probably spend it on much cooler things than trying to get better at chess. Like... I don't know... getting better at checkers, maybe?
I'll never come close to having that much money, so I've never really thought about it, to be honest.
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The next two people I will talk about have never played Magnus Carlsen (thank God!), and I could not actually find any recorded games of them, but I am still pretty sure that they are terrible chess players, or at least very bad at recognising problems in their pictures.
Let's start with Usain Bolt, the fastest man in history, who holds the world record of 9.58 seconds for the 100-meter dash, set in Berlin in 2009. He has also won 8 Olympic gold medals and 11 World Athletics Championships. Not even @JustGettingThisOffMyChess has that many medals in The Blogger Awards v2.0. Truly impressive. (Sorry if you didn't get the internal joke, but I think the people who judge this blog will.) According to Forbes, Bolt has an estimated net worth of $31 million.
And why do I say that he is not a good chess player? Well, look at this picture of him "playing".
Have you noticed something very wrong? And I am not even talking about the nonsense positions of that knight on the would-be f1-square or that odd rook on the would-be b1-square.
On closer inspection, there are two much more absurd problems. The first is the "classic" inverted board. We all learn as children that the square to the right (h1 or a8) must be light, not dark. A beginner's mistake!
But there is something even worse! He is playing without a king!
Why is life so unfair? When I was a child, I was always so proud of myself because I knew how to set the board correctly. My teachers used to say that I had a brilliant future because I could castle.
Then I grow up and realise that it is all pointless if you can just run fast. I envy and hate you, Usain Bolt!
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Last but not least is the famous actress Kristen Stewart, best known for her role as Bella Swan in the Twilight film series. I'm aware of the hatred she suffers and believe that many will claim she doesn't really have the talent to act. But that's not for me to judge. If she makes money out of it, I think Hollywood will understand better than I do. Her net worth is estimated to be around $70 million.
According to backstage reports, Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson (who plays her love affair in the film) both played chess, Monopoly, Scrabble, and many other board games between takes.
This is a picture of them playing. Let's take a look at it before we analyse what it tells us about her abilities.
First of all, unlike Usain Bolt, she at least knows how to set the board correctly. Well done! But let's take a closer look and notice two other things.
Firstly, Robert is obviously playing as Black, as the black king is closer to him and he has many white pieces (presumably captured) on his right, but off the board. So Kristen is playing as White.
Now, count the number of white and black pieces on the board. She is being completely crushed! Although it is difficult to see the exact position, it looks something like this:
But I assure you, she will not lose! And how can I be so sure? Let's just say that it's impossible to be checkmated if you don't have a king. I think she learnt from Bolt.
Frustrating, isn't it? We spend so much time trying to win our games with a king, while these geniuses show us how far ahead they are. I suppose that explains why they are more successful in life.
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To summarize what I have told you and the knowledge you gained by reading this blog, I am dropping here a comparison table between them. Who do you think is the best player?
In my opinion, analysing the data, I’d say if they all gathered together to play a tournament, Trent Alexander-Arnold seems to be the favorite to win it. Bill Gates would finish second. The game Usain Bolt vs. Kristen Stewart would probably be the longest, as I don’t see any of them being checkmated too early. But most importantly, they would all have fun playing! And that’s the final message.
I could conclude with something stupid like “don’t waste your time with chess”, but I will try to be a bit more serious. Of course, this whole text was just a fun way I found to present some celebrities who also enjoy chess, even if they don’t play at the highest level.
Because regardless of how good or bad we are at something, what matters the most is to spend some time having fun with our hobbies, learning and growing with the experience, or simply enjoying our free time with activities that make us feel good.
See you next time!
