Meditation

I have loved chess for as long as I can remember, though I only began to grow stronger during my high school years. I have been playing online since the early 2000s, and over time I have seen things change. Unfortunately, I never had the time to join a real chess club, and I am forced to play almost exclusively on my smartphone. I have not been on Chess.com for long — I used to play on Lichess, but due to a misunderstanding involving multiple accounts, I was eventually banned.

What has deeply frustrated me in recent years is a kind of generational shift — practices that, in my view, are unfair even if not formally forbidden by the rules. Until just a few years ago, such players would have been stigmatized and — if not expelled — at least morally condemned.

I find it deplorable when someone keeps playing with a rook or even two pieces down, waiting for the opponent’s blunder or for them to leave the board for reasons beyond their control. Equally distasteful is the habit of letting the clock run all the way down instead of resigning.

All this seems to portray a world in which I no longer recognize myself — a world driven solely by competition and rating points, the spiritual equivalent of money. Back in my twenties, my aim, and that of my flesh-and-blood opponents, was to create beautiful games — to feel that inner fire from a brilliant sacrifice or a solid, aesthetically harmonious position.

Now chess seems to have become nothing more than a slightly nobler version of online trading, whereas in my time it was both science and art.
But above all, it was a steadfast refuge — for me the firmest of all — for minds tormented by the tragedy of being.