Chess Game: Strategic Positioning and Timing

I do love playing chess though I’m not good at it. In fact I don’t play it with human. I play it with machine. Chess can now be played on cell phone. I play chess on my Java enabled cell phone.

I love to hear names like Kasparov, Fischer etc. Names that have big influences on chess world. I believe that I had known this game since I was a kid. I remember once I played this with my mom.

I’m not good at playing chess. My cousin does. And a friend of his whom I know, even plays better. Do you ever hear blindfold chess? Two people play chess without the chess board in front of them. So how they play? Well they just speak out what they move. Chess has an established notation. The chess board has 64 squares. a,b,c…h on the X axis and 1,2,3…8 on Y. Moves of its piece can be represented by e2-e4, for example. It’s a pawn move, the opening move.

The wonderful thing of chess game is that it teaches us strategy.  How to move our pieces based on our predictions of the opponent moves to conquer the space, the 64 squares. Strategic plan in moving the pieces is the most basic of this game. Move the pieces one after the other slowly but strategically to form a formation  that is, say, developed to finally make a deadly attack. Position of each piece is very important. Much like soldiers in a war combat. Each piece in its position has to give its best support to each other and to the whole formation.

Timing is also very important. Good pieces position in a good formation alone doesn’t guarantee the winning of the game. I believe chess is about moving the pieces strategically to the right position in the very right time.

There’s another thing left to mention. The quality of the pieces. I remember a fragment of Mahabharata epic when Arjuna of Pandavas and Duryodhana of Kauravas met Krishna before the Kurukshetra War. Both wanted Krishna at their side when the war comes. It’s a dilemma, so Krishna then made an offer. He asked Duryodhana weather to take him, one person, as his ally or ten thousands men of his arm forces. Duryodhana took the second choice and in the end he lost the war.

In modern-day we have what we call SWOT (Strength Weakness Opportunity Threaten) analyses. Chess is exactly about this. Do you play chess?