I’ve started playing chess!

I have a job interview over Microsoft Teams at 1500 today. This is the second one, after the first went quite well. But unlike the first one that lasted 30 minutes, this one is for two hours. Writing this is an effort to distract myself. At the moment, it’s not working, but we’ll see how I get on.

Like most people, I know most of the important rules of chess, but don’t know how to play the game. Playing is easy and losing is even easier. That’s if you can find someone to play, which is no excuse at all. You can play chess on your phone these days, or on your computer, so why would I not play? I’m rubbish at chess and don’t want to lose, that’s why. But for some reason, I’ve started playing and I enjoy it.

The first thing about the game is that’s it’s universal. You can play anyone around the world. This is similar to music. When someone suggests playing a game of chess, I want to be ready to say “yes”. I also want to be able to give them a good game, if not wipe them off the board. After all, everyone needs to know they have a skill they can use to rise above other people.

As with many things in life, excellence is an unrealistic goal. I think I’ll aim to be where I was with my running. There are loads of people behind me and pleny of people miles ahead of me. And at this time of life, I’m never going to run faster. That’s when I decide to try jogging again. What I need is to start doing things where I can improve. My brain will get a workout using new neural pathways and energy and I might even get a little dopamine kick knowing that I have a skill up my sleeve. Better than that, I have something to do when I can’t run, or need something to distract myself. This is all good.

Overall, I’d say that things are going well. I can beat the easier computer opponents. There are times when I almost know what I’m doing. Real people are a new challenge all together. I tried playing a few last night. Suddenly there’s jepardy. Even worse, I see my entry rating of 1200 going down. But the thing is that people on chess.com are people who want to play chess and the best I can do is play and learn. There’s winning an there’s learning. Those are the only two outcomes. And with a bit of luck, I’ve been learning enough to be match fit at 1500 today.