the importance of losing well

I'm sick with the flu. It could have been the pig flu. Only god knows. I say it could have been pig flu (aka the H1N1 virus), because for all we know, the pig flu may be as harmless (or harmful) as the normal, seasonal flu.

So here I am, sitting with a fever, feeling like a pig, since all I've been doing is eating and sleeping. Pig flu indeed.

I can't seem to concentrate on anything for long, so I've ended up watching A LOT of CSI:NY's season 5. Earlier in the day, I seemed to be getting better, so I decided to play a little bit of chess on chess.com. 20min game.

Early in the game, I made a horrible oversight that left me with doubled pawns in the center. Trying to maintain material parity left me overstretched, and I quickly collapsed to a well-coordinated king-side attack from my opponent.

Arrrgh, a loss. Losing sucks.

But I realised, losing a chess game left me feeling irritated, but much more energetic than I had been all day. Or at least more motivated to get my chess mojo back, since I was still coughing my lungs out onto the keyboard.

Losing chess games suck. It really sucks. It's painful.

But what allows me to continue playing and enjoying chess is the ability to learn from my losses, and keep on trying. I'm now learning that very early on in the opening, tactical opportunities can open up, especially when your opponent makes a move that looks 'strange'. Even from as early on as the 3rd move.

I also blame my loss on my circumstances. I'm sick, and not fully alert. I wouldn't have made the mistakes I made if I had been well and awake.

I don't blame myself. With every loss, I don't think of myself as a 'lousy' chess player. I see every loss as an opportunity to become a better player. If I can spot the moves that put me in a bad position and my opponent in a better position, then I can learn from it.

Losing well. That is what has allowed me to become a better player. Even though I have a loooong way to go.

Chess VS Bejeweled Blitz

It hasn't been completely smooth sailing for Mr.Popchess in recent times, and he has resorted to playing Bejeweled Blitz on facebook to distract himself. Oh gasp, talking about another game on a blog devoted to chess. It's a nice game, but it's not nearly as awesome as chess.

Bejeweled is a little bit of a one-dimensional game. Align the jewels, in rows of three, hopefully four, and joy!, rows of five. At one minute per game, it's easy to fool yourself that you're actually spending just a little bit of your life playing this simple game. Well. I probably just spent 4 hours on it in the past two days. (Therefore this Blogpost-of-Shame.) Playing Bejweled is hypnotic. It lulls you into a frame of mind that's probably more akin to a mouse than an ape; it also stops you from thinking. Cue cliché: "And when I say 'you', I really mean me."

After hours of mind numbing, I decided to pull myself out of my funk by indulging in some chess training. Naturally, I did miserably at first, but the feeling of stupidity (I was missing moves I usually spot in seconds) kicked my brain into a more active mode. So I tried harder, and I started to spot better moves in less time.

About 20 minutes into the chess thing, I started to realize that I really hadn't been thinking clearly about the challenges facing me. Thinking clearly about chess brought a semblance of clear thought back.

You think effectively and act effectively, good things happen.

You play bejeweled all day... Your mind starts to rot. (And when I say you, I really mean...)

In other news, photo of the moment:

Online vs Offline Chess

I've been playing much more on chess.com recently, long games that take about 20 to 40 minutes per game to finish. It's been a really fun experience (especially when I win :D), chess-wise. But I really miss the 'human' element that disappears when I play online.

I guess it's like the difference between facebook-ing with a whole bunch of people, and actually interacting with a big group. And yes, I'm using the word 'facebook' as a verb. I've tried being friendly with my opponents on chess.com, but it's really not the same as playing chess with strangers face-to-face.

When opponents smile at each other over the chess board, it can mean any number of things. Holy sh*t, great move. Haha, dumb move. Oh god, the game's finished, isn't it? You're cute. You have a booger hanging from your nose. And so on.

Online, there's only so much to be said...

But ah, I have to admit, it's such a great feeling to be able to be matched with opponents who are just at my playing level. I can play chess games with people from Macedonia (a country I'll probably never visit), and feel like they're living inside my head, just because they're anticipating my tactical manuveurs every step of the way. It's a very interesting, addictive feeling.

Now if we could replicate that in offline life..