Chess and Life: To move or not to move

In 2024, I found myself playing chess more often than usual, I played different time controls, rapid at the beginning of the year, blitz mid-year, rapid again in the second half and a lot of bullet towards the end. I wish I never discovered bullet. Even though all chess games are a way of wasting time if you're not pursuing a career in chess, bullet does more harm to you than waste time. I will write about this when I find the time to.

During this period, I realized that there are many ways the game resembles real life and here are some of the things that crossed my mind.

Foundations: compounding and trajectory

Beginners have no baggage: You begin with a perfect board and the moves you make over time decide your position. At the beginning of your life you're most likely to begin in a better shape except for the unlucky ones who have it otherwise. The decisions you make along the way determine your position in life. This is also the case in areas like jobs, education, etc. Everything you start, it's like you just start in a fresh position, the moves you make along the way put you in a worse or better position in that particular field.

You are your rating: Your Elo doesn't exceed your personal development. You can get more chess Elo rating points on a good day maybe if you play opponents that are not playing well, but if you don't improve your knowledge of chess you'll always lose that Elo when you face good opponents. The same applies to life, e.g., your income doesn't exceed personal development, even if you won some extra money, you will find ways of losing it to a level you can manage.

Life is a cumulative sum: At any point in time, the position you're in is a cumulative value of your past moves. Any move you make puts you in a better, worse or equal position. The good news is if you're in a bad position at any point in time, your position can improve if you start making good/brilliant moves. Your current position in life is a cumulative value of your past decisions. The position you'll be in a month from now is also one, so if you start making better decisions you'll most likely be in a better/slightly better place in a month from now.

Mistakes love company: In chess, it's usually not the first mistake that puts you in a very bad position but a series of repeated bad moves. An exception is if your opponent is clutch, they'll punish any mistakes you make. In life, it's not the first mistake that worsens your life, if you can get up and do better after the first one, chances are that you'll be in a better place. This can be seen in areas like habit building, it's not the first day you skip that breaks your good habits but skipping multiple days will. Or in business, it's not the first mistake that will fail you, but a series of repeated mistakes over time will. But also similar to chess, if the stakes are high, one mistake can put you in a far worse position.

Growth: learning, repetition, intuition

One-tricky pony: If you don't play different variations of a given opening/line you become stagnant. If you learn one line of an opening and keep playing that, your knowledge of chess will be limited to that, and you will perform poorly when tested with other variations. The same applies to life, if you don't keep learning new things/improving yourself you become stagnant and time will come when you barely know what to do when life exposes you to new experiences.

Repetition breeds instinct: If you play a given opening/line over time there comes a time when playing it becomes automatic. And the same happens in life, if you do something over time, time comes when you can do it without even thinking about it. This is usually how habits are formed.

Vision requires training: You can only see a mate in 8 moves if you train yourself to calculate that far. Some chess players can calculate more than 10 moves ahead, if you train yourself to do this, there are high chances that you can find a way to check your opponent in 10+ moves. The same applies to life, some people think about today, others weeks, others months & others in decades, but the only way you can see what you can achieve in three months is to train yourself to think in 3 months. I think this is harder in life than chess because chess is deterministic but life keeps throwing surprises at you. When it comes to life you need to be relentlessly resourceful to surpass any surprises life throws at you in order to achieve what you want in longer timeframes.

Intuition is earned: You can only start seeing good moves if you learn how to find them. Experienced players in chess rely less on calculation, especially when playing games with a lower time control and this is because after calculating for a longtime, they develop the intuition to find good moves. The same applies to life, e.g., in the tech space, it's easier for a person who has already founded a company to start a new company because they have already developed a taste of what works, but if it's your first time one of the best things you can do is to develop an intuition of identifying what works and why but to do this you need a feedback loop from reality which you can only get by solving different problems and learning from them.

Think hard: You have to learn how to think hard and find difficult moves, or every opponent becomes challenging. In chess, good and brilliant moves don't come out of the blue—you have to think deeply about them and train yourself to spot them. If you don't, your opponents will, and eventually you won't be able to beat them because they've gotten better while you've stagnated. The same applies to life. You have to train yourself to think critically and solve hard problems. If you don't, and instead keep doing only easy things, eventually you'll run out of easy problems and everything will feel difficult.

Execution: attention, time, and action

Presence is currency: You're most likely to lose if you play mindlessly (play thinking about other things). I lost a lot of games where my mind wasn't on the chessboard, but played some beautiful games at an Elo level of 2300+ when my mind was really engaged and I was focused. The same applies to life, if you don't put your mind together towards something, you are most likely to do subpar work.

Inaction is also action: To make any progress, you have to make a move. If you sat on a chess board and both of you just stared at each other no progress would be made but the good thing is that games are time controlled so you'll lose on time, but if you want to make any progress you need to make a move. The same applies to life, if you don't take action, time catches up on you and you have to pay the price of inaction. This might come in terms of bad grades, ruined relationships, bad financial position, etc. So if you see your next move, make that move.

Irrationality loves limited time: When the time is reduced, it becomes hard to think about all options rationally. When chess games get shorter (bullet and blitz), even grandmasters run into time scrambles where they fidget, make blunders, miss winning moves - not because they're bad players, but because the time is limited to think through the available options critically and make the best decision. The same applies to life. Pushing important decisions to the last minute leaves you scrambling without time to analyze your options properly. Just like in chess, deadline pressure forces you to rely on instinct rather than careful thought, and that's when mistakes happen.

Time management is critical: When you manage your time poorly you lose. You and your opponent start with the same time and everyone is expected to invest it wisely in all phases of the game. If your clock runs out before the game is done, you lose the game. The same applies to life. Everyone has 24 hours a day, but how you spend those hours determines everything. Spending too much time on trivial decisions or unimportant tasks leaves you rushing through the things that matter. Just like in chess, time pressure leads to mistakes, and unlike chess, you don't get another game—you can't get that time back.

Decision-making: options, sequencing, quitting

Analysis paralysis: If you have too many options choosing becomes hard. There are infinite possibilities of chess games that can be played after the first move and the more pieces you have on board the more variations. This makes choosing in such scenarios hard and you might end up choosing a move that looks good but it isn't good in the long run. This is equally true in life. When you are faced with endless possibilities the fear of choosing the "wrong" thing can be paralyzing which brings us to our next lesson.

Clarity is all you need: Reducing your options helps you find the best moves. I usually find the best/brilliant moves in chess on a board with fewer pieces because there are fewer options to consider and I can always tell which move is better than the other. In life, reducing your options eliminates decision fatigue. I used to waste time debating what to do after work until I restricted myself to one option, working out. By removing the clutter of choice, the right move becomes obvious. If this doesn't click, imagine how much easier it is to find a needle in a small pile of hay versus a massive one.

Move order matters: When playing chess, if you determine an output you want, e.g., delivering a checkmate, capturing some material or securing a dominant position, the sequence of moves is critical. You must play the most forcing moves first, or your opponent may find defensive resources and you'll lose your initiative. The same applies to life, for example, if you want to open a restaurant in a new area, renting a building, hiring full staff, buying expensive decor before validating demand might be costly. Starting with a pop up kitchen to test the location, then following with the other moves is often wiser. If this doesn't click, try putting on your shoes first before you put on your socks.

Letting go: If you have exhaustively analyzed a position and it's losing, it's better to resign. Chess is deterministic and sometimes you can end up in a position which cannot be saved, it's not only good sportsmanship to resign and look forward to another game but also saves you time. This is applicable to life too, if you can thoroughly think through a deterministic situation and you cannot see any way to get good results from it, it's better to let go and pursue other things.

People dynamics: communication, power, empathy

Strategic silence: Showing your adversary all your moves might put you in a losing position. You don't play chess by telling your opponent all your moves, if you do, they will think about them and find ways to punish them or they might lose interest if they see no point in continuing to play. You play by understanding their options, the ideas they have in mind when choosing the best option and choose your next move based on that. I found this applicable in communication, giving out all the details beyond what someone needs isn't usually a good option, but understanding their motives and giving them only the information they need not only makes you a better communicator but also keeps the other party interested.

Tactical empathy: You are most likely to win at chess if you invest more time in understanding your opponent's options. You have to understand their position, their best moves and how those moves affect you. Some of those moves won't be in your best interest but they are coming whether you are ready or not. The only way to find a better response is to understand them first. This applies to difficult conversations with people. It's easy to assume that if you explained your position to them they might understand you and decide in your favour. But understanding their motives first - what makes them think the way they do about the situation will often put you in a better position to drive the conversation in the direction you want.

Misunderstood brilliance: There are things you do in life that are brilliant but people who haven't analyzed the situation really well might not get. Having more material is important in chess, but when you analyze some chess positions really well, you can find cases where you have to sacrifice material in order to win the game. For a person who has not analyzed the position, they'll think you are losing. This is common and applicable in life, especially in engineering, if you think about certain problems deeply, you might end up with solutions that your peers might not understand but if you have analyzed the situation really well that its impact would be significant, you should go ahead and do it regardless of the discouragement. Ben did a great job explaining this here

Importance vs Power: There is a difference between being important and powerful. In chess, the most powerful piece on the board is the queen but if your king gets checkmated the game is done even if you have your queen. There are situations in life where you might be the most powerful, considering things that guarantee power like money, physical strength, intelligence etc, but it's important to also learn whether you are important or else you could be replaced and the group will run smoothly.

Context is king: Even though the most powerful piece is the queen, time comes when some pieces are more powerful than it for example if a pawn can deliver checkmate and the queen can't at that point in time it's more powerful than the queen, moving the queen in such a position is a waste of time and might cost you the game if it puts you in a worse position where the opponent has a forced checkmate. This applies to life and work there are situations where the leader is less knowledgeable and a subordinate should be the right time to call a shot, if a leader isn't humble enough to accept that, this might cost the entire team.

Tradeoffs

Sometimes you have to sacrifice to win: Having more pieces is important in chess but the way you win at chess is checkmating a king. If sacrificing some material helps you checkmate the king or puts you in a decisive position, you have to give up the pieces. The same applies to life, if you define the way you are to win at life, for some people it's financial freedom, you sometimes have to give up certain pleasures or even some important things like time you spend with your loved ones in order to win at life and for people who winning at life is family they can sacrifice making money for family. The difference between life and chess is that in chess the only way to win is predetermined and the same for everyone but for life, it's not determined and it's different for everyone, some people find that definition and some people never find it or even think about it.

To think or to feel?: When I started playing chess, I realized that whenever my opponent made a threat to a bigger piece like a queen I could just move it out of fear without thinking, but as I got better, I learned this isn't the correct way, acting because you are scared without thinking about why you are scared and what options you have often makes you make bad moves. A better way is to assess your options and choose the best move even when you are scared, and sometimes you don't even need to move your threatened pieces if you can make a bigger threat. In life, I found out that I've made most of my bad decisions when I act based purely on feelings and no thinking at all, with time I am adapting to thinking before I act by questioning why I have to do certain things, not only has it improved my thinking it has also reduced the rate at which I make bad decisions.

Closing: frameworks + reflection

Think in frameworks: When evaluating chess games to find good moves, one popular recommendation is to look for checks, captures and threats, and after finding the moves in each category, choose the most forcing move. This simplifies how you think about the game especially if you don't want to calculate longer sequences. The same applies to life, some things become simpler when you think in frameworks. A good example where you can apply this is job interviews, if you struggle formulating your answers during job interviews especially with behavioral or impact questions, framing your answers using frameworks like STAR can improve your clarity. This can also be applied to learning, building mental models of things you learn can help you understand things better than just reading and remembering raw text.

Improvement loves reflection: In chess, the work doesn't end when the game ends. To improve, you must review your games to understand not just what went wrong, but why and ensure you never do it again. This post itself is my form of reflection. It is a collection of lessons I've gathered over two years of playing. Condensing them into one post has not only helped me identify areas of my life that suffered because of the time I dedicated to chess, but also how the game has shaped my thinking. It made me realize I need to restructure my life to get the best of both worlds—starting with this blog post and writing more this year, which is one of the moves I have been delaying.

If you see your next move, play it.