Die Dame

Playing chess along the River Main on a Sunday:


There is language in life, the everyday words we think in and try to express our ideas to one another with. Then there are things which reveal aspects of our personality beyond language. Things like music, art, style, and taste. Chess is also one of these things.

Chess tells you a person’s world view and intelligence in a matter of moves, things like:
1. What is the best first move?
2. Do you value your pawns?
3. What is a worthy sacrifice?
4. Fight for position or for some scheme?
5. Play with reckless flair or conservative defense?
6. Have an overall plan and strategy?
7. Take as much time and care in the beginning as in the end?
8. Have a mission and philosophy to guide you from start to finish?
9. Are you just making a move because it feels right? Or because it looks right to your peers?

There are people you could ask these questions to in language and not get anything close to the answers you would expect. Yet the varying levels and consequences of these points and thoughts become conspicuously apparent in chess. It is interesting to see how people react to the game, and to know that you yourself are somewhere on a line with it, and to know that sophistication is limitless.