Making chess difficult for myself
I've being playing a lot of chess on chess.com, but I've become weighed down by pretending that it's difficult, and "in some sense" important. I mean, what could be easier, and what could be more trivial? It's a very simple world. Sixteen military men, with very constrained way of moving, try and capture the opposing King. And it's a very forgiving world. The captured King is immediately released, put back in power, and the attempt at dethronement begins again. It's, surely, nothing to get upset about. After all, it's really just a game, isn't it?Then why do I get upset when my K gets dethroned? I think I take it as a global reflection of the very essence of my being. I think things like, "I forgot to consider the mounting attack on the h2 square *again*, and my King got overwhelmed, what an idiot!" Or, "I couldn't figure out a good mating attack; he dethroned my ruler while I was dithering around with crazy sacrifices and daft moves, what an idiot!" These post-game observations are useful, I think, apart from the "what an idiot!" clause. That, surprisingly, leaves me feeling very down-hearted and thinking, or shouting out loud, "I'm giving this game up!", again.
So, if I'm to continue with chess, I need to find a better reaction to my losses, one appropriate to a relaxed, dilettante idler. Something like, "I hung my Queen on the long diagonal, again, because I forgot about the Bishop, how amusing", rather than scaring the neighbours with loud expletives and repeated shouts of "No! No! No!", followed by the sound of the curtain rail crashing down. Yes, I actually did climb the curtains! Not one of my better moments.
Retreat and make camp
So I've decided to retreat from playing chess to make an assesment of my situation. It's a good time to do it as I'm actually back at 1200, which to those who know nothing of online chess means nothing, so let me explain. On chess.com when you start playing chess you get 1200 points to start with, and for every game you lose you lose points, and for every game you win you gain points. I hadn't played chess for several decades, not since I was a kid, and although I usually managed to beat my very dilettante, and very idle, school mates, I went into chess.com wondering if I would win a game.I said to my curtain rail, "It's chess.com, all the world's best chess players are gonna be on here looking for matches 'cause they can't find anyone local who can give them a good game, I'll not damage you if I lose... honest...". Fortunately, my worries about being repeatedly torn apart by Kasparov manques were unfulfilled. I found that everyone and his dog play on chess.com, and I can at least beat the dog! Also, you quickly sink to a level where you win as many matches as you lose, which is all very equitable and nice. In fact, I found you can alter the settings, and (say) play only people below your rank, and win more than you lose. Being extremely small minded I, of course, did this and lived in the false glow of being victorious more than not... never mind if I'm only playing rejects from Crufts.
Some "experts" on chess.com say you should actually do the opposite, that is, only play against stronger players to improve your game more quickly. But I reckon they are the same "experts" who only play significantly weaker players, thereby guaranteeing a steady rating increase, and guaranteed ego inflation every time. So I'm using the old tennis ploy of playing people almost, but not quite, as good as myself (on paper!) That is, people I'm likely to beat three sets to two, thereby boosting my tiny ego slightly more than deflating it. Unfortunately, I found that you can have really bad days, weeks, and months, when your form plummets and so does your rating. So this time, after three savage defeats from lesser dogs, with my rating on the brink of going below 1200 (again!) I've decided to stop, and look around, before my 19th Nervous Breakdown.
Where now with chess.com?
Those 1200 hundred hard earned points were gained over a period of two years by playing over a thousand games of 15:10... that is, games where each player is allowed 15 minutes to make his moves and is given a ten second bonus after making a move. This is quite quick in serious chess circles, where tournament games often last well over an hour. But it's one of the slower options on chess.com, and therefore one of the best options for my slow brain. Still, because it's a quick form of the game, it's to be expected that you will hang make daft moves simply through time pressure. In fact, some experts on chess.com are big enough to admit that even they hang pieces now and again. I keep reminding myself of this, while looking guiltily at my curtain rail, when another slipshod game has slipped into my game archive.
I say it took over two years to get back those 1200 points, but that actually includes almost a year off! I became so frustrated with the game, and worried that it might be addictive, so I packed it in. But a year later after reading an article that, just about, convinced me that chess isn't the moral equivalent of hard drugs, and missing the fun it had provided, I took it up again. At the moment, frustration has risen to high levels again. But instead of just packing it in, I want to reflect on the situation and re-integrate chess into my life in a more balanced fashion, one reflecting the benign state a dilettante idler, rather than an obsessed addict.
As a first step I have decided to halt all games of chess for a few days, except for my three ongoing correspondence matches, and instead to think and muse some more on where I go from here. Anyway, that's enough on my chess travails for one day, but I'll, no doubt, be giving these matter some though over the next few days and weeks. So tune in if you are interested in how one dilettante idler continues in his chess career, or not. Now I'm twitching to play some correspondence, so I must dash.
P.S. I stole the title for this article from "The Dilettante Society", who recently held an event called Stop Pretending Art is Hard, the flier for which encapsulates the dilettante idler spirit.
