Chess progress.

I’m where I am.I don’t know what else to say now. That’s philosophy wrapped up!

I have no idea if I’m in a good place or a bad place. Althought, I could help you by saying I’m not in my dream job – whatever that would be – and I’m not in a big house, and I’m not in the top 5% earners in the country. I’m not the one in charge at work either. You get the picture. But I might not have visited the local chess club if I hadn’t followed the path I’m on either.

Chess is tough. It just looks like a game, but it’s much more than that. You almost get to see inside someone’s head. And you expose what you are to your opponent. Weakness easily visible to a stronger player and it affects what you do next. Sometimes, your position feels hopeless – because it is – but if you spot a move, you might last a little longer, ot even turn the game around.But that hasn’t happened yet. Or has it?

For the last two weeks I’ve been playing two on-line games with two new people I met at the club. The games have been slow and annoying. There were times when I enjoyed it, but mostly I’ve been beaten up and defending. And then it happened.I found a move!

After an initial pawn push down the middle from white, I was having real problems. White’s rooks were lined up on the E file to attack my king. Even worse, the pawn on D6 was a real checkmate threat. In short, white was pretty confident on the win. Then I foundNC6! White’s pawn is hanging. And by that, I mean it’s undefended. He probably didn’t need to convert it to a Queen to kill me off, but it will fall next move. I’ll probably lose my night, but he’ll lose at least one rook. This move changed my whole day!

I’m not going to anaylise this game anymore here. What I will say it that his move was around 0930 and it’s 2135. My opponent is thinking!

We might not be in the place we want to be. Most of us aren’t. Many people are in very tough situations.But we have to find a way. And none of this is easy. I’m luck in my game because it started on Jan 7th and it’s Jan 19th today and only move 18. All of this takes the pressure of and gives me time to think. And suddenly, just for a moment I feel a little smarter. It won’t last long, but I’ll take this as a positive life lesson. I made a good move. Time for the next one!