Six Valuable Lessons From Chess About Real Life | TheRedPill

Chess is a game honoured by kings and crowned by decades. Unlike the general idea, it is not a game of pure intelligence. It is about catching opponents' playing pattern and getting in a better position than him/her on the board. Intelligence or cognitive abilities are just a tool for the game. I see a lot of threads on "game" which are all about male-female interactions a.k.a getting hot chicks in to the bed.

Today i want to share my knowledge about chess and what did it teach me about life. Agree with me or not life is a chess game which we play each and everyday. This post is not about machiavellian schemes or how to become a day-machiavellian. This is about chess' reflection in real life.

Lesson 1: Time Management

Depends on the type of game you are playing (blitz,rapid or standart) you have a limited amount of time to make moves in chess but in any type you have a specific "time" to act. Chess is the game which made me understand the importance of time management and how every second is valuable through my childhood. In real life, we also have limited amount of time to accomplish things. They might not be seen important or urgent yet what you have to achieve needs to be invested some time in. A project with deadline, a girl you saw in starbucks which will leave maybe in five seconds... It does not matter what type of activity you are doing you need to manage your time wisely. If you wait too much to make move, you will eventually lost no matter activity. (e.g. Girl will leave, your project will not be done/ done poorly...)

Lesson 2: Openings Matter

Chess openings determines or gives you an idea about mid-game, they are important. A poor opening can cause an early checkmate. In real life you also need to know how to make an "opening". It can be a girl you want to met or a business meeting or introducing yourself to a new friend group, an apropriate opening can help you tremendously. Unlike chess real life does not have opening theories such as "King's Gambit" or "Sicilian Defence" it rather has approaches which can be counted as openings. I highly recommend you to have a template of approaches. Like "funny approach" or "serious yet humorous" and so on. You can even add memorized lines in to your template. The template should have some predetermined behaviours, mindset and speech patterns. You can practice your template at home before implemanting in your encounters.

Lesson 3: Use Tactics to Get an Advantage

Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat. - Sun Tzu

Tactics are a crucial part of chess. They can get you out of hopeless positions and even can lead you to win. Assuming that you have determined your strategy, knowing and applying tactics can help you achieve your goals fast and increase your success rate. You can find tactics in this subreddit about sexual game or about real life. "Push/Pull" for instance, just came to my mind when i am writing this. Learn and use tactics to turning things in your favor and gaining an advantage.

Lesson 4: Eliminate Unnecessary/Bad Moves

At some part of game you will need to make important decisions. You will search for possible moves just like you search for solutions in your life. Yet, not all of them are useful. Never make a bad or unnecessary move in sake of making a move. Eliminate bad ones in your mind and go for best move possible and good moves which can escort you through way of success. This also applies to people in your life. Friends, plates etc... Cut any of them loose who are poisinous or hamrful or useless to you. This might sound a little bit harsh but life is not a place for Alice. It can also help you in your professional life. Remember the saying "Work smart, not hard."

Lesson 5: King's Mobility Is Important

Beginners fall for this almost every time. Although king's safety is number one priority, unless you are castling or your king is really defended, cutting king's mobility can put you a dangerous position and can lead a checkmate. This manifests itself in real life as "abundance mentality" or "having options". Always have and consider other options, never fall for scarcity. Having no options is the equivalent of king with no mobility. Less option also means you are cutting king's mobility.

Lesson 6: Sometimes It is Just a Zugzwang

In chess, zugzwang is a position where each move is a bad move and will lead you to lost. Sometimes life is just like that. Things out of your control or things which get really screwed up are positions of zugzwang do not even bother playing them, each move will only cost you time and wreck your nerves.

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Ihatenerds69 7y ago

Your advice is vague and can be rewritten to apply to any game. Chess doesn’t teach anything other than chess. Hungry hungry hippos teaches you to seize the initiative, take opportunities. Football teaches you to see the bigger picture. “Bad moves are bad, cut out the fluff”. Yeah no shit. Use your imagination.

You need to be able to calculate moves in your head - a good memory helps. Everything else is studying openings, games and solving puzzles. It’s a game, and all it teaches you is itself, and there’s only one right move. Any other move is weaker or worse. It’s a matter of calculation. I’m a decent player (2100+), I’ve spent time with the game and fostered a lukewarm relationship with it.

Chess is a pragmatic game - you’re solving a problem, you’re not living. You might as well say that being good at math teaches you to see many steps ahead, keep a cool head, take responsibility for your actions and not be afraid to make mistakes. Ooga, mumbo, jumbo, words of encouragement and great wisdom.

Don’t shove your wokeness and misplaced Sun Tzu quotes onto a game that doesn’t demand explanation. It’s not a blank canvas to be painted, there’s already two colors. Keep it that way and don’t think too much about it - your thoughts would be misplaced.

ThatOneDrunkUncle 7y ago

The best lesson from chess is to fight for the small advantages all over the board. They accumulate when you're forming your attack. Kind of like how in life you have to put the work in every aspect of your life: diet, excercise, relationships, career, mental health, etc. Then you'll have the life you want.

Oh and also, don't give away free pawns

DrBrockStar 7y ago

This cannot be overstated. People neglect other pillars of life for an obsession (gym over finances, job over health) that when they reach the high point of one aspect they realize the other aspect is detrimentally low. Balance and moderation and cross-platform improvement is key.

BlackCraneStoic 7y ago

Chess is a hyperglorified puzzle game that requires a good degree of pattern recognition to play at advanced tiers. To me two player chess is a bore while four way is the funnest most unpredictable form of it.

That said lessons I've personally drawn from it is: synergize, synergize, synergize! The more you're in sync with each respective decision you make in life and aware of present circumstances around you the better positioned you'll be to seize opportunities that'll present themselves to you.

Also it's best to avoid behaving impatiently and impulsively. Sometimes an exchange/opportunity may look good or even obligatory at first glance but if you stop to consider your options said opportunities may leave you in a worst position than you initiatially realized. Always consider your options before making decisions.

cumfortably_dumb 7y ago

I was expecting this post to say, "As Queen moves in all direction, it proves hypergamous nature of women,"

kalo_asmi 7y ago

Late comment but you forgot the most important part: keep your eye on the opponent's King. That's the single most important discipline. Forget your pre prepared openings, forget management, forget reading your opponent's psyche.

At every move, keep your mind focused on the single objective of checkmating (and by corollary, keep your probability/means high/open, and your opponent distracted/weakened from protecting his king.)

1by1is3 7y ago

Good post but you missed an important lesson:

Think 5 moves ahead and always have an answer ready for every reply

You will win every social interaction if you already have an answer prepared for whatever the other person is going to say, and then another answer to their reply to your reply. Thinking like this maybe hard at first but the more you do it, the more instinctual it will get and you will also realize how predictable most interactions are.

Elfclan30 7y ago

I thought this post was going to be pretentious. It was good, though.

djh860 7y ago

I love the time management point. Thanks

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a1004 7y ago

In chess, zugzwang is a position where each move is a bad move and will lead you to lost.

No, in chess, zugzwang means a position where every move is worst than not moving. Your position becomes worst after moving, but doesn't mean you lose.

The opening importance can be related also with the guys asking 'What is a good opener for my friend (she is blonde and petite)?'. He can get a canned smart opening that makes a good start, but if he is just good with opening, from memory, he will get nowhere as soon as the real game starts, even when he parts with a great initial advantage.

eluethero 7y ago

For first part: Zugzwang often ends with checkmate in late-mid and end game, of course depending on your skill level you can avoid it but what i have tried to tell is things in life can be an endless zugzwang, things that do not worth your time.

Second, i never said good openings can win you the game. memorizing is a method i suggested not encouraged. Template thing is said to make your job easy against every situation not just for a petite blonde and it should not be taken as a pickup line.

Thanks for commenting.