Learning from Chess
A month ago, Chess just happened to me.
I was a bit bored of learning Mandarin on Duolingo. I was doing the daily lessons, but I was not improving. I decided I needed to get serious about it and take a real in-person class.
But for some reason, I still wanted to maintain streak on Duolingo, so kept going through the motions, until I had to two realizations. One, they had Chess as an option. And two, streaks continue regardless of what lesson you do. So, I started doing chess and got hooked - at some point I was doing 10 lessons a day.
I started where everyone else starts. I knew all the rules from before, but knew nothing about tactics, strategies or standard openings or plays.
I knew there were chances that I would be destroyed in 4 moves by someone who knows what they are doing.
I knew I was 35 years old, I was never going to be great at it.
I know I have never had the patience for it - I did not want to think so much before making every move.
Despite all this, I felt the urge to go ahead with it. After some basic lessons on Duolingo, I downloaded Chess.com and lichess and started playing against bots there.
I expected myself to be above average right at the beginning, and bots give you a false sense of hope. I was beating bots who are 1000+ rated.
But once I started playing humans, I was humbled. I kept losing until my rating was 290! I was worse than some 75% of the people who play chess. Last time experienced this level of shame was when I went skiing for the first time, and I saw 4 year olds zoom by, while I fell over sideways on the bunny hill conveyor belt.
I started watching youtube videos on how to get better. If you want to do it as well, here is the one I suggest: Building Habits
During this journey, I learnt a bunch of things about myself which I had to work on:
Putting yourself out there: I stuck to playing bots so that I was in a safe space losing and getting better. But bots were a bit predictable in their moves, so it was not fun. Being ok with losing to other actual humans so that I can get better is important.
Trying to do too much: I was trying to do strategies, trying to think what will happen in two moves, while I was blundering a piece in this move. Keep it simple, only do go further when you get your basics right.
Impatience: I will want to make a move because at some point I give up on analyzing the game out of frustration of nothing happening. Feels good to do something (even if bad) after a point.
Getting flustered: I have been burnt so many times by unexpected moves that when I see an unexpected move, I get worried and then make a random defensive move which is usually wrong.
Being afraid to exchange: There is a fear of making equal exchanges to move the game forward -- what if that is the wrong move? At this point, since I am not seeing 5 moves ahead, it is a valid question, but unlike others, I seem to be a lot more hesitant to take a knight for a knight.
Fear of endgame: Right now, Chess endgame feels silly. While opening and mid game seem to have all these complex threats and attacks, endgame seems like you are fucking around with 3 pieces where I eventually blunder and lose. Might be contributing to me being afraid to exchange pieces to force end game.
Midgame crisis: Opening moves are all standard (I currently use the most basic e4 etc opening). But once those are done, I was like, what's next? And promptly blunder a piece. As of now I am working on not blundering that piece, and will figure out tactics and strategy next.
Are these all metaphors for life?? Maybe? Who knows. I am just trying to get better at Chess.
Learning something new is tough, working to get better at it and seeing results is quite rewarding. A good thing in Chess is that there is a single metric of ELO rating (at least for my current level) which puts you in place and gives you a clear number to optimize for.
Currently, I am digging myself out of this hole (back up to 400 again), and getting better with one simple mantra: keep it simple, and don't make blunders. Everything else can come later.
Update, a month later: rated 700 now. I have not learnt any complicated openings or strategies. Just trying to make moves that make sense, and maybe play some basic tactics. Lets see this carries me to 1000 :)