Hehe, aye folk do think your smart if you play chess. I normally keep it a secert until people know I'm not smart, then drop it in. Rather than then thinking that I'm smart, they realise that chess can also be played by normal everyday plonkers. I'm doing this game a favour, making it accessable to the masses.
BTW, get you and your water cooler, at my work they whip you and if your lucky spit in your face.
It's probably because I am relatively young (16), but there seems to be a lot of social pressure on everyone to go out frequently and drink alot. In addition, intellectually stimulating pastimes are shunned en mass, in favour of football (soccer) and videogames - and often a combination thereof. It is for these reasons that I never mention amongst my peers that I like to spend a quiet Friday night in on chess.com
I think also that people who play chess are maybe not smarter, but just enjoy intellectual stimulation. But it never hurts to have people think you are smarter than you are!!
Chess is just a game. Lets just enjoy it for what it is.
It's probably because I am relatively young (16), but there seems to be a lot of social pressure on everyone to go out frequently and drink alot. In addition, intellectually stimulating pastimes are shunned en mass, in favour of football (soccer) and videogames - and often a combination thereof. It is for these reasons that I never mention amongst my peers that I like to spend a quiet Friday night in on chess.com
Funny, when I was your age computer and video games were considered nerdy. How times change.
I do on the otherhand understand you, I was going through the same thing in highschool. I was hanging out with the "cool" kids but still enoying alot of nerdy stuff on the side.
But hey you should go out and have fun tbh. Socializing is fun.
AtahanT - it's still considered nerdy, only nerdy is now cool, you see.
ya
Who says drinking and chess don't mix, lol.
Here's a good party game for the club end of year function.
The game is one minute blitz, and the winner stays on the board.
Start with the club champion, winner downs a shot of tequila, and takes on the next challenger.
honestly,among my peers,well not realy my peers,i mean among the students in my college,people who play chess are considered as the nerdy..and since i'm playing chess,you can say that i don't have any cool friends...you know how college usually is socially divided...cool and popular students just don't hang out with us nerdy...except in the class,so we can help them to solve their maths problems..uh-oh
It is a game, but at the same time it is much much more. I have periods when i just move pieces and dont think move or 2 in future. Sometimes i just take pieces that are free when i play much weaker players, and i have seen a lot of destroying on my side too. But that is not chess. That is just showing that i know the rules, and time killing.
But just like the other things, if I do something very often, it's just in human nature to try and be better then my opp. After all, when you say chess is a game - that is the main reason you play it. To win. You know, i played football from time to time. My best move was to stumble over ball and fall on my head. So I quit football. I played basketball too. I improved my shooting over time, learned to drible here and then. Had nice passing game, improved my vision and understanding of game. Same in chess. I would get borred or anoyed if I get destroyed over and over again. So i learn thing or two about chess too.
Chess is individual sport, you do not depend on 4 or 10 more players around you. One reason why I love online chess is cuz i can find players similar strenth as I am. I have friends who reached their max in chess, they play for some time now. But I still beat them with ease. Not everyone is made for briliance.
But same as everything, chess can be taken to lvl where it stops being a sport, and becomes an art. An art of human mind. But if do not fell that, its hard to understand. Same as Kobe Brayant 78 points in one game is art, same as Maradona runing over half football field, dribling half of England team and scoring is an art, same as Russian Synchronised swimming is an art - so a chess game can be art. Not art of move, or phisycal condition, but art of human mind. You alwasy compare greats with greats. You can say, yea Messi is better the Maradona, MJ is better then Kobe, Fisher is better the Kasparov. But all of them are the great ones.
You just need to experience a piece of briliance so you can fully understand this. Longest game I played was free game vs my friend on college. We drinked 4-5 coffes, smoked full pack of cigarets and played for full 2.30 hours. I dont remember who won, but I felt great after that game. I knew I gave my best adnd that I did something extraordinary. I understand people who say that chess is borring. It si borring for observers, but for us who play - it is far from that. Same is with me. When i look at any GM chess game, I dont fully understand it, it doesn't seem that interesting. But when I play, and when i do something 10 less good as GM does, but I feal great, I am the king of the hill at that time. And I am not talking about that mediocre games. I am talking about games when I give all that I have, and when I try as much as i can. It is true that that games come less than once/month, but I would not change that for 100 mediocre wins, and I always say, I like more to lose great and interesting game than to win borring easy one.
So you stay in your mediocre, move your pieces cuz you know how, but I will always tend to that greatness that you find so far and untouchable.
I don't think anybody at work knows I know chess.
And if I tried discussing it around the water-cooler, my supervisor would probably ask:
1. Why I wasn't out on the streets working
2. Where the water cooler came from.
I don't think it would really impress anyone; we're a blue-collar lot, and stupid people can't do our job.
1. Why I wasn't out on the streets working
2. Where the water cooler came from.
rofl
Many people think there is a certain snobbish element to chess. Often even the way we are asked to participate reflects a learned status, "Care for a game?" or "Shall we play?" certainly conveys a different connotative quality than "Got time for a game of checkers?" or "Who's up for Monopoly?" As if we expect chess players to be always aesthetic and aloof, usually learned and possibly asthmatic.
Chess players do nothing to quash this idea. Let's face it, we like people to think we're smart because we play chess. We like to drop comments into conversations at the water cooler: "Well, I was on chess. com the other night and came across an interesting article on just that..." our co-workers are suitably impressed; we hang out with chess players -- a brainy lot to be sure-- so whatever opinion is expressed next must come from an informed source. The secret we all share is "What could be farther from the truth?" For one thing if someone is an excellent chess player, I mean a real world class player, he probably has been buried in tactics so long that he is completly in the dark concerning current events. For instance, he might be mildly amused if you tried to persuade him that the earth is in fact not the center of the solar system.
But back to us: the bunch who rides on the smart guys coattails. I base this on nothing more than my own observations, and concerning this here they are:
I started playing chess almost fifty years ago and by all accounts should be much better than I am -- and that's okay, I do not bemoan my lowly state; I revel in it. I have never read a book on how to play, nor do I intend to. I leave that level of play for others. What chess has always been for me is a focal point: like baseball or darts, something to pass the time while I'm having a beer after work or otherwise socializing with my beer drinking pals. I have lost many, many more than I have won; if you don't believe it just challenge me and you too will join the legions who have defeated me.
Mediocre chess players of the world, you are a magnificent proletariat. Keep up the good work, and for heavens' sakes don't let the word out that we are not a brainy, artistic and sensitive lot. The world needs to believe.