The Soul of Chess: A Brief Philosophical Dissection

The Greatest Game

I was discussing chess with my girlfriend one night…well, I was going on a rant about what I liked about it, and she in her patience smiled and nodded until I was gasping for air. But in that rant, I summarized to her quite clearly what I liked about chess in a way that was both esoteric and in a non-chessplayer-friendly way.

Basically, I said to her that what I liked about chess was what you don’t see. The subtle stlyes, the philosophies behind the moves that are grossly oversimplified by their mere notation – Like when you ponder a move, and you imagine the other choices you might make, and what your opponent might respond with, and you measure the potential change in the dynamics of the board…All that stuff is equally real, in fact, it is the driving force behind whatever move you make. THAT is chess. It’s all Threats and Objectives. The bulk of chess remains unseen, ephemeral, intangible…in the world of ‘what if’s’ and ‘could’ve beens’.

This fact is evident when, say, a beginner and a master both look at a particular position; they ’see’ the same thing, but only on the physical level. They are actually on two different planes.

So really, when you become good at chess, and are familiar with all those delectable nuggets, like zugzwangs, and pins, forced mates and zwichenzugs, you begin to see this amazingly complex, mathematic, chaotic and to some degree, beautiful element which is the soul of chess, trapped in its physical body, much like us.

The Greatest Chess Site Ever (or at least, up until this point)

Chess.com

If you are a member, or want to be, look me up: LlordLlama. For nearly ten years, I was a member of Instantchess.com, which has probably to this date the best speed chess engine. But after sometime (a couple years ago) Chess.com sprung up and took chess sites to the next level.

At Chess.com, there are blogs, and team play, and tournaments, and articles published by the greatest players currently dominating the scene. There are instructional videos, and training tools…the list goes on and on. But the most important thing chess.com offers over instantchess.com is how it fosters communication between members, whereas instantchess.com is really meant for anonymous play.

Most of it is free, paying will get you more options. But if you are a nerd like myself, then this is your digital playground. And the good thing about a digital playground is that there is no digital sand to be kicked in your face!

Chess is Universal

Finally, chess is analogous to so many things: Life and Death, War and Peace, etc. Hungarianknight here at wordpress posted a blog titled Everything is Like Chess, a list of comparisons between things that are like chess and chess. While he/she may be accused of going a tad overboard, I am in no mood to dispute the list, since I agree with much of it.