Check ......Mate???

I recently took to playing chess again with a wise friend. After a few sets, I came to the conclusion that there are lotsa parallelism that can be drawn from chess to life. In chess, the engagement process you go through with your opponent covers many facets. Some may say the objective is to win, others like me chooses to make as little mistakes possible ;-).

Charting out moves can entail the study of set pieces, your opponents thought process, gestures and preferences of engagement. We engage with each others move and study each others preferences. Now had these things be documented in a blog, one can perhaps study the transcript and put together a profile and study that profile.

In life, I suppose this engagement (like a chess game) is done concurrently with many people. I suppose in engaging with people, some (like playing chess) chooses to study and analyse their opponent(Like Bobby Fisher) thru well documented set pieces, while others just move at the spur of the moment, making the least mistake as possible. I am not sure whether the study of transcript of move/set pieces is a healthy approach.

The same wise friend did provide me a very sane advice, "You can plan your move some of the time, but not all of the time"."You live sometimes by making the least or no mistake at all (in chess)".

I get to thinking - in my recent casualty, what mistake have I done?. I am engaging in this game, suddenly, the opponent cries fowl and comments immediately to the umpire that I maybe cheating, perhaps. Being the party who avoids confrontation and slightly hurt (you only engage in chess games with someone whom U know), you walk away immediately. However, this leaves a void of non-closure. I am normally critical and analyse my mistakes that I have done onto others as I do not want to repeat nor cause conscious distress again to others.

But as my chess mentor would say it, "You learn thru mistake, sometimes not necessarily yours, but nevertheless, you learn". "It is never too old to learn".He also added "The trick is to know when to drop it or walk away from the game irrespective of non-closure"

I agreed while thanking him...uttering Cheque...Mate!!