Chess is a pretty competitive game. It is all about winning, at least about not loosing considering that many professional players are apparently all too happy with draws. I myself, however, can often not help myself and walk open-eyed into a loss. This position is from a game I played last night at the Internet Chess Club (ICC). I am Black and my king has been driven into the corner by a few checks. Here is my thought process: "I don't think White will be able to checkmate me with just the queen around to menace my king. However, he might be able to check me repetitivley and force a draw. I may be able to escape out of check via h4 (the board is shown from Black's perspective) but that looks kinda risky. There is not enough time left on the clock to start some serious calculation, so the instinct has to decide here: safe, drawish, and boring or risky?" Needless to say I went for the risky but more exciting option which, as I saw in the postmortem, gives White the chance to execute a mate in 3 moves.

In the end, I lost the game. On one hand, I should have learned from it that it is better to play it safe. On the other hand, White did not recognize the mate in 3 either and I managed to equalize first, then to blunder in the king and pawns endgame, and finally to loose on time. And I had fun. So I am afraid I will never become a chess master, because my main drive for playing chess is to have a good time, and not necessarily to win. Said that, I don't think my chances to become a master-level player would be that high even with a well developed chess killer instinct. Furthermore, I also have to admit that I do curse myself a lot when I make terrible blunders, so my ability to loose and still have fun at the same time seems to be somewhat limited. But in the end, all that really matters to me is if I had a good time.

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written by Dan, January 10, 2008

Having a good time is what its all about... I had to take a break from the blog, mainly due to the fact that I was getting away from playing... now i'm back and hopefully I can have a healthy balance of both.... nice to see you are still keeping the faith!

I agree with you... even though I may never become a master... It doesn't matter, because I love playing chess and I'm happy to just be playing!

Cheers!

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written by Sciurus, January 10, 2008

Hi Dan, nice to have you back! Well, I took a month off blogging and solving tactics problems. Have fun playing chess!

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written by guest, February 21, 2008

I don't see how you would had seen that easy mate. Follow the progression of at least 3 to 5 moves

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written by Scudley, February 28, 2008

The plays the thing!

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