Things I learned from chess

How it all began. A friend in High School, circa 1988, was good with computer programming. He could program a computer to draw polar equations back in the days. He knew everything about computers. He gave me a pirated copy (because he can defeat the lock) of Sargon II for the Commodore 64. I played it, lost badly. Went to the library to borrow some chess books. When I started working, I discovered Borders Books (defunct now, as ALL bookstores are). And the rest was history. Chess made me who I am. I couldn't imagine living without knowing chess. I couldn't imagine who I would have been.

In this topic line, I'll share what I learned from chess. Enjoy.

White and Black.

Chess has white and black pieces. So simple right?

Judo used to be white gi on white gi. How can you see anything? Like some weird White on White painting I learned in art class (Kazimir Malevich). I thought to myself: wouldn't it be better to have white and black gis?

Decades later, Brazilian jujitsu have white and blue gis. Now it is adopted in Judo, white and blue gis.

Things I learned in chess, so simple yet it took decades (from my temporal perspective) for people to figure out in other arts. Chess is so far ahead.

Clocks

I don't know anything about basketball. But I can reverse engineer history. Basketball has a shot clock rule, invented in 1954.

Chess invented it so long ago with sandglasses (hourglasses) probably.

Elo rating system.

Everybody and their mamma is using the Elo rating system. Even people who ripped its system like tennis UTR® Universal Tennis Rating.

Algebraic notation.

It was already invented as streets in Washington, D.C., USA (as far as I know.)

It din't come from chess. My bad.

Elo didn't originate from chess only. A person whose last name was Elo developed it in an attempt to measure the strength of players in zero sum games, a certain type of game which most board games adapt. I howver undertsand your point. Its amazing how simple things that chess has given to us have a great importance

Algebraic notation came Cartesius, a scientist who thought of it while trying to estimate the location of a fly at his house. Not sure if that's what really happened, but a funny story that I've heard

There is already a Cartesian system of X, Y, Z for 3D space. True story, not folklore.

Yeah I meant that

Speaking of space, I worked briefly at the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) as an administrative assistant. At that time they were changing from longitudes and latitudes on airplane computers  to radians.

As chess players, we are familiar with different coordinate systems.

Speaking of different coordinate systems, the original Chinese Chess notation is the worst. It's basically a "dead reckoning" system. Rook moves 5 steps forward. Knight moves 2 steps forward + 1 step right.

Frank Zane (possibly the greatest bodybuilder, better than Arnold Achwarzenegger) would not give his home address to bodybuilding students. He would give dead reckoning directions, then hang up the phone. You have to prove to him that you can follow directions before he teaches you bodybuilding (ala the Shaolin Temple Grasshopper stuff).

Try a real chess club, face to face, old school.

Yeah otb solves most of these

Competition

Chess gives me an understanding into performance arts. Only the best rise to the top of the mountain. Just like in basketball, swimming, ballet, tennis, acting, singing, etc . . .etc . . .

During OTB play one should quickly learn that first appearances can be deceiving. I've had a few opponents who have made what they thought were winning moves--at first glance, I thought they were too--but after deep analysis bordering on panic, a winning solution was found.

Prove it.

I love the concept of "prove it". If you think you are better than somebody else, prove it. This is probably the most important thing I've learned from chess. If you are better, prove it, don't run your mouth. Get in the ring and prove it.

People run their mouths. America for example. If America is so great, produce a world chess champion, oh, there's only 1. Russia produce them every year.

People don't understand, Russia is an empire, it rules over a whole bunch of different people, a whole bunch different people who loves to run their mouths but can't prove s**t.

Ballet for example, the other thing Russians excel at. Everybody run their mouths saying their dance style is better. Spanish dance, tango, lambada, flemenco, whatever. Break dancing. Whatever kind of dancing. No dance style has ever beaten ballet as the #1 dance style. 

A ballet dancer will beat a break dancer any day of the week.

https://video.vice.com/pt_br/video/breakdance-ballet/56dee50955946ec24640ecf9

Time

I learned that life too is played on a clock.

"Like sands falling in the hourglass . . . so are the Days of Our Lives."

Arrangement.

Chess is one of the first "art" I learned. I liked Art class in school. It's not like math: 1 + 1 = 2. In Art, you draw or paint however you want to.

I realize that chess is closer to life than math. Everything is a different arrangement. That's a perfect way of saying it. From the Greek. Cosmology, cosmetology. Cosmos = arrangement.

That's what everything in life is, a constantly changing arrangement, ever more precise.

Geometry.

I'm really good at geometry I think because of chess.

Even when I was kid and learned chess, I've heard that Albert Einstein is the smartest guy in the world, something like that, E = mc². I knew that is not not true. People hype things up. The laws of physics will inevitably be found. I knew that the smartest person would be a chess player in biology. Poisons and antidotes, venom and antivenom, viruses and vaccines, moves and counters, an ever changing chess game.