On the chessboard it is a coincidence offside, every blunder is for your own account

It is a rattling Saturday afternoon and in the Hilvertshof shopping center chessmaster Hans Böhm (75) is eating an ice cream. Right hand loosely in the bag of his jeans. Six tables, twelve chessboards.

Children, adults. All passers -by can sit here in Hilversum for a spontaneous simultaneous competition at a thinking sports day organized by local associations. Böhm takes a look at the setup, and then moves a piece with that right hand. Sometimes he says something: « Good move. » But more often: « Okay … » or, surprised: « That ..? »

That is the entire repertoire. On my plate – on which I set twelve – there are disturbingly many these. Already after a few moves I have lost my horse. « Well, you have another one, » Böhm puts into perspective.

In group 8 in primary school I had a teacher who gave chess lessons to whom that wanted after school. Master Rein. He hung a plate with magnetic pieces for the chalkboard, and often played simultaneously against our Wednesday afternoon class.

Since then I have only played sporadically (family weekends, rain, landal houses), until my children fought each other in the back seat during a drive on Chess.com. Why didn’t I do that either?

I downloaded the app – certainly not the only one. The platform has grown spectacularly over the past five years, from 43 to 200 million users. Thanks to the Netflix series The Queen’s Gambit (2020), The Coronapandemie and Viral Tiktok movies, that’s how I learn from the beautiful The chess revolution (2024) by Peter Doggers, which tells the history of this culture phenomenon tasty, from ancient India to AI developments.

The newest move comes from Duolingo language platform, which suddenly also offers chess courses. Free, unlike the lessons on Chess.com. For the time being I kept it with the lessons of Master Rein who gradually came up again. Weak pawns, pawnoffer, the Sicilian defense, the Scottish version, and especially this Cruijffian wisdom: « As long as you don’t make mistakes, the other does that. And then you win automatically. »

Workout for the brain

So online chess started as a grindstone for my concentration. Being sharp, avoid blunders and strike as soon as the other person committed one. A workout for the brain. Would that be why millions of people continue to play a game every day in which artificial intelligence has already more than defeated us? Peter Doggers is extensively considered the turning point, Kasparov against chess computer Deep Blue, in the late 1990s. « I Sensed a New Child of Intelligence”, The world champion then wrote after the first series of competitions in 1996, which he narrowly won. A year later he was completely brought by one move that felt ‘human’, followed by the equally illogical refusal of a pion offer. From that moment he played ‘in great crisis’ – and lost. Human weakness towards human computer behavior.

« I felt a new kind of intelligence. » That also makes chess so fascinating online. They are duels purely between ratios, reduced to a flag and a nickname on a screen. Yet that anonymous intelligence has a strange intimacy. Every move reveals something of someone’s character.

I Sensed The recklessness of a Mexican who quickly moved pieces and gave up as soon as his lady was taken away. I Sensed The perseverance of that French chess player who plushed into the bitter end, all giving it to drag out a draw through a stalemate. Was it a man, woman, teenager, child? Along the way in the Paris metro, or in the garden of a Norman village? Poor, rich? In this global chess café, no one is more or less than the next move.

As with every new hobby, fanaticism was lurking. Moreover, Chess.com kept the illusion that I could do it pretty well, because it linked me to opponents with a similar score. Party after party I saw my rating climbing thoroughly. And oh, the kick if I defeated someone from fifteen points higher. The adrenaline in the declining timer with the other (I played blit From ten minutes), which you barely save from the deadly shot.

Until I played some online jars against my brother. He is listed three times as high, perhaps because he has been in the classroom for longer with Master Rein, or because he is visually established above average as an illustrator.

Anyway: I Sensed The same frustration as in the past opposite his incomprehensible playing style, in which he seems to give away pieces, and then relentlessly refers to moves as thunders in clear sky.

Then the virtual board of 64 boxes and 32 pieces will be a time machine to the board at our home, which seemed very precious. The white pieces were ivory sculptures on pedestals of green felt, the other red shiny, like a fire truck. That my brother almost always won will be the cause that one of the horses was soon beheaded after I, reclaimed, wiped the pieces from the board again.

Aftertaste of defeats

Ever Tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail Better. Under that motto by Samuel Beckett – which is particularly in the context of creative writing, I collapsed even more fanatically. After each lost party, I immediately clicked on the revenge button. Time and again I saw my rating figure plummeting as a gambling addict his bank balance. Only a monster victory could wash away the aftertaste of those defeats.

When I sweared out loud after a Ukrainian had hunted me in the corner, and one second before the final signal, I started to wonder what I was actually doing. I missed my tram stop several times, sometimes wasted a complete hour plus a supply of thinking capacity on boosting a false number – the umpteenth daily meter of your condition – with all the useless fluctuations in the mood that accompany such abuse measurements.

How do you get out of the spiral? Maybe by looking back quietly. On Chess.com you can have one party analyzed for free daily, but even without the virtual coach you often see afterwards which fatal blunder the decline used.

My first reaction: shrink. Click through, never think about it again. But what happens if you are welcoming all the emotions that go with it, and pelt low by layer? No longer: how stupid, but how interesting! A bit interesting: I went so in my own plan to conquer that tower, that I did not realize how the other person prepared a sneaky chess mat. How interesting: I was so reckless by conquering that lady that I no longer looked at the maneuvers across the street.

With every chess flater I was able to find equivalents from real life. On the board: to merge in that one plan for a chess mat, under pressure from a countdown clock, that I lose one piece after the other. In life: in the car, with wife and daughter on the way to her sports competition, keep stubborn on my route, while we are almost too late, and the time rises with every new wrong turn.

On the board: hit a queen too eagerly, and therefore open my defense. In life: during a work drink so much would like to make that one witty remark, that I totally miss that someone wants to get rid of something personal.

If I finally, in the reconstructions of losing parties, I will ultimately encounter a variant of shame. I am not only defeated, I also learned something about myself that is painful. I Sensed The ambition that made me reckless. I Sensed A lack of empathy in the perspective of the other.

Cup-under

There is something else to be added to Hans Böhm. The physical space, the watching public, the social interaction. On the other side there is a clod of three children behind one plate, excitedly consulting after each counter -move. I am especially enjoying their pleasure and I don’t realize that Böhm is already with my neighbor. Under the rising panic, I make blunders that I would never commit at home with my iPad on my lap.

Soon my second horse also died. A stupidity that even those children across the street would never commit. Afterwards I recognize the feeling. It has to do with the social situation. This is just like when I get the turn of the public in discussion panels and all my irrefutable argumentation and irresistible formulations drift away from me as a raft from the quay-and I go a cup-under. Too much busy with the environment. Being intimidating me by reputations and setting. Insufficient rest and concentration. Vanity, not to mention. It started with that: I had that first poor horse open with an outdoor jump, from a misguided urge to originate from the grandmaster original.

Don’t do it anymore? Better failure? So that I ultimately make the ideal of Master Rein, no longer make mistakes and wait until the other does? I doubt it. As long as you continue to see mistakes as learning moments, you still stay inside that spiral of loss and recovery. You learn better tactics, so that you can restore your mistakes in the future.

I had the first poor horse open with an outdoor jump

The point is that you always continue to make mistakes. That is also what I am against the way Becketts’Fail Better‘Has Verhapeld to self -help mantra or coffee -making deposit. A motivating slogan that stays neatly in neo -liberal logic. Failing as a stepping stone.

Samuel Beckett’s worldview, as is apparent from Worstward Ho (1983), the source of the quote, is a lot darker. Beckett does not argue for an optimistic perseverance in which you will ultimately triumph, he suggests that failure is inherent to being human. Better failure is to learn to tolerate better that you will continue to fail. And for that, chess, with the right mentality, is a teacher.

Of course Master Rein was right: those who make no mistake wins. After all, the coincidence is offside on the chessboard. Every goal or blunder is for your own account. Chess reminds me of playing Bach on the piano. Every error is irrevocable and cannot be hidden, which is often possible at Beethoven. Chess is sisyphus labor. With every higher rating you also get better opponents. You continue to fail, but in an increasingly interesting way.

Character level

In the meantime I use Chess.com mainly as a character mirror. Quick chess, with the countdown clock, show you how you react under pressure. I try to limit myself to a few jars a day, the value of which increases and, with a good party, the beauty.

The most beautiful chess mat is not the fastest, but the one you have prepared the most precisely, by closing escape routes, reducing the defense and making sacrifices that make it shut off the fall after moves, so that the genade stroke gives the same satisfaction as placing a point behind a sentence of 64 words in its place.

« Well, then it is in three moves, isn’t it? » Böhm has just shifted his runner to C4. I don’t see it immediately, but smile something and ask: « Shall we finish it immediately? » Afterwards he gives a hand, and a book with historical parties. Of course, nobody here had only the slightest illusion to win or even get a draw. Every passer -by comes here to feel how that is, to be blown away by such a primal force.

« Another ice cream, » someone from the organization asks him, on the way to the children’s sign. « Oh, Lékker! »

The children stand for longer. If the canvas also falls for them five laps later, a collective ‘Ooh!’, Like a magic trick. They are impressed for minutes. They try to reconstruct the party, put back pieces, try alternative scenarios. Playing pleasure, without any thought of a rating figure.

I also want to learn to lose so well.

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