Chess

The pandemic made me look for online chess and I found it. I play 3-15 games a day now, with people from all over the world. You can have an international flag, but most people choose a national flag. I get excited when I play someone from Africa or Samoa. 

I watch my projections about various countries. I watch what my mind does when I win. I watch what my mind does when I lose. 

I beat someone from Ireland, Hungry and Canada today. I lost to someone from France, Brazil, Mexico. I beat someone from Mexico, France, Sudan, India, Indonesia. I lost to someone from India and Samoa. And on and on and on. I play someone in Russia, USA, Costa Rica, Chile, New Zealand, Poland, Pakistan, Argentina, Serbia, Estonia. I wasn't into geography when I was school age, but I'm fascinated about what is going on around the world now. There are many countries I have not played yet. 

(It's a bit like the world cup, it's all about nations. USA played Honduras last night. They get to play Mexico in the finals on Sunday now for CCL Nations League. USA has players in the top leagues in Europe, on the top teams. For a sport that isn't very popular in the USA, it is getting a lot more popular. The MLS started in 1996, and has expanded quite rapidly. I would argue that's why there's so much parity at the moment, with expansion it's hard to concentrate talent. But my team, NYCFC has just gotten a bunch of new players from South America.)

Sometimes I play a bunch of chess games where it's a tightwire. I've by my hands on their throat and they've got my throat in their hands. Who can be defensive enough to really attack. Being on the offensive really is the best defense, and I can't figure out how to play defensively. Sometimes I'm just on and stomp people, one after the other. Sometimes I can't buy a win. The worldly winds can't control my concentration and the quality of my opponent, or just the luck of me stumbling on an opening I'm not familiar with, or whether or not I see mistakes. I don't look at the analysis too often, they tease it to make you pay for the free service, but sometimes I see I have blunders and missed checkmates. I have started to see those, and I think just playing over and over there's a kind of learning and increased comprehension. 

I try and be like a goldfish when I make mistakes, just keep playing. Sometimes I play it out to the end, sometimes I just resign. Sometimes I win on time, and by resignation. I usually play 10 minute games (Rapid), but sometimes I play 5 minute games (Blitz). I should try a 30 minute game, but I'm too impatient and impulsive. I do like to study the game, but mostly I just like to play.

I come up with theories. I tend to lose more as the day goes on, I'm at my best early morning. But too early, before 330am, and I lose. Sometimes I want to play and I don't care if my ranking goes down. But I want to raise my ranking. Globally I'm ranked #2,129,235 in the 67.5% in rapid chess. My ranking was higher before I got Covid. I see playing as a way of measuring my cognition. 

Since it's online, I don't know my opponents, but sometimes they miss obvious strong moves, and then I start to formulate ideas about that player. One person talked smack in the chat, I didn't like that. You can rate your opponent as a good sport or a bad sport, but that's only on the desktop version. I also play on my phone sometimes. I tend not to play as well on my phone.

Sometimes I go for the win right away, but most of the time I just pluck low hanging fruit and try to exploit weakness. There is no perfect structure. Sometimes I am a bit wild in sacrifice, and I don't lose enough to win. Sometimes I'm left with few pieces, and feel hopeless. That feeling of not having any good moves is quite terrible and I don't quit and linger in that feeling. Sometimes I just quit with a bad move, better to move on.

I play on chess.com but some like lichess.org. I saw a hack so you could analyse your game on lichess.org by exporting it from chess.com. Chess.com wants you to pay for more than a few game analysis. Looking at lichess.org they have over 90k people playing.