(Edit: replaced ‘Decide’ with ‘Choose’ for the emboldened passages – this was the intended word decision choice.)
Step One: Cut a hole in the box. Choose what you are going to do today.
Growing up, I was the chess geek of the city: I was the inter-schools chess champion for 7 consecutive years and intra-mural chess champion for 8 consecutive years, beating kids from older age brackets, beating chess coaches. I’m talkin’ shiny chess trophies, with pictorial evidence of me receiving them, a me with even shinier braces. I’m talkin’ exciting chess stories, of trash talkin’, of being behind in pieces and position yet squeaking out a stalemate (effectively a draw, psychologically a win), of rook sacrifices where I’d invite my opponent to find my trap only for me to unleash it anyway.
(I was so passionate, I’d study the tournament games of grand masters, and I’d cry when I’d lose a game. I’d cry like an early teenage wimp. It was all kinds of not sexy. I remember the first game I lost where I didn’t cry… I was confused as to why I didn’t… somehow… I came to terms with the fact that chess was just a game.)
Yeah – I was that kid.
So let me share with you a chess life lesson – you lucky people, you. Gather ’round, folks! Don’t be shy!
Off the bat, you have white and black pieces, where the white side goes first – this is usually seen as an advantage. Regardless of which side of the board you end up on, most popular opening moves involve securing the center squares, usually by putting pieces there, then defending them – think of it as a strategic land-grab. As you go about controlling the center, you cunning and greedy braces-laden skinny white kid (…with glasses), you end up opening up lanes of mobility for your previously land-locked little change agents.
And this is where the chess-talk stops. (I just shed a tear.)
By choosing to go first, you set the tone of the game your day. You choose where you want to go by giving yourself the mental space to get there (you probably can’t help a quick visualization of getting that thing done), inadvertently preparing the pieces required to get there (your subconscious works on the ‘how’).
Good morning.
Your move.
(I’m welling up here… somebody must be chopping onions…)