My first game of chess happened when I was 8 years old. During those days, we would come to our grand mother's place for spending the summer vacation. It was an apartment and there were kids of our age group. (‘Our’ refers to me n my younger sister).We would play all day but in the evenings we were often feeling bored. It was then that the father of one our friends bought him home a brand new chess board, with big lovely chess pieces. Thus, started my attraction towards the game. Soon, after constant pestering, I too had a simple but my own chessboard :-) I learnt the basics of chess from my friends but I was always on the losing side, still I loved playing the game. Moreover, there was a girl in that apartment who was aspiring to be a professional chess player. We would often request her to play with one of us, but she never really agreed to do so.
"Maybe, playing with amateurs like us would have done no good to her game which was getting well shaped through professional training"The chess fascination continued even after school has reopened in June. I was forcing my sister to play with me almost every day. Well, I used to win 9 out of 10 times and that was enough for her to stop playing the game with me :-) I found people one way or the other to play chess with me and I managed to do this till I was 10-11 years old. After a point of time, there were really none to play chess, though occasionally I did play with some friends who came home. The reason was cricket..yes cricket took over from chess.
As soon I started to play cricket on the streets, grounds... or for that matter, wherever there was space, chess went into the storeroom area of the brain. It was always there, but I never visited it. Then, years went up, I finished school, then graduated from college and soon joined a company in the automotive supply chain. Even in college, i just couldn't go n play chess as cricket and hockey stood before me.
Then, how could I revive my fascination for chess? Well, the answer came in the form of sports meet held annualy in our company. There were many events including 'chess'. Now, if i wanted to go and compete, I can finish off work at 5 p.m., then go the chess meet place and play in a relaxed manner. The first day, my opponent did not turn up. So I was asked to come n play the next day. But, there was also another guy who was without his opponent. Soon, we were playing against each other but this was only a practice. I was playing black and was doing reasonably well, when all of a sudden I lost my knight and there shifted the balance as I was one piece short. I lost after 45 minutes but it was a good lesson. One careless mistake and I had lost.
Then, for the next 4 days I beat as many opponents. I suddenly found that my love for the game hadn't died. Like a phoenix, it was back. I lost in the 5 th round (this was a knockout format) because I tried too hard to get one of his centre pawns and in the process opened up gaps in my defence. I had no second chances in that game. As matter of fact, just one mistake, be it silly or a blunder, just one wrong move in chess is enough to make a mess of all the good work done earlier :-(
Hey did I ever mention how I managed to win 4 rounds???
Well, i installed chess softwares in my computer by freely downloading them. Every night, I would play against the computer. The biggest advantage was that there were different play modes like "simple", "clever", "mean". I started by playing at the simple level, realized what kind of mistakes I was prone to make, then slowly shifted gears and was soon playing with the compter at the uppermost level. The gain here is by playing against the PC, you would lose the "fear of failure" , would improve your mental toughness and above all, it will make you feel confident of taking anybody head on.
Well, in the next page I would love to describe the chess notations, different websites where you can register for free and play online chess against anybody from any part of the world.
"Winning a chess game, according to me is secondary. You have to play till the last move without giving up, full of hope. Only that attitude can make one resilient which is an important attribute to enjoy the game of chess"Does it sound true??? to make it come true, start the game now:)
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