WHY I PLAY CHESS...

I play chess because 29 years ago, trapped inside my auntie typical Terengganu’s wooden house at Kampung Ladang due to heavy monsoon rain, I learned to play a war game that soon become an obsession, an addiction and took a life of its own that I now can barely able to control.

I play chess because when i was young (read:stupid) i thought this is the cool way to impress my pretty schoolmates...no success, some even until now don't know i am exist.

I play chess because chess game allowed me to unleash that primitive primordial urge in me, Homo Sapien, to kill...to torture..to strangle my fellow human rival (although most of the time, i am the one who at the receiving end), albeit only in a game.

I play chess because chess is the only world where the more queens you have, the less headache is your situation! Unlike the real world where more queens equate to more profit to Panadol company. The best part is in chess it is not wrong to have more than 4 queens legally!

I play chess because chess teach patience...we need to wait our opponent to make his/her move before we can make our move...we need to wait for tournament (1st round) to start, normally half an hour late, the earliest, from schedule...of course, as at now, we have been waiting 57 years, and counting, for Malaysia to have our own GM.

I play chess because as an adult (read: wiser…hopefully) chess teach me valuable skills such as detecting traps from miles away, innocently creating traps to my unsuspected victim, maximising limited resources etc... skills I found useful now to survive in a jungle called adulthood.

I play chess because it is the game i can play theoretically forever. Chess is the only game that 50 years from now…if I am still alive and hopefully still passionately and intimately in love with chess…I, then an 88 years old payer, can play/fight as an equal against 20 years old kid… Cannot say the same for say …88 years old rugby player.

I play chess because chess make it possible (thanks Mr Internet) for me to play chess against my fellow citizen of the world that locate at Jeddah or Jerusalem , or to play against freely floating astronaut at Space Station to prisoner at some maximum security prison… The force of chess and internet already tore down invisible, divisive wall of race and religion. …exactly what politician wished they could do it but failed miserably.

I play chess because chess is democracy at its purest. Each side got its own equal firepower, equal move, equal time, equal set of laws. Player with best campaign or preparation wins. No veto, no politic. Simple.

I play chess because 29 years ago, I used to think with chess, it is possible to make some good money (good money, not coins, ok)…now I know good money in chess belongs only to World top 20 players…definitely fortune is not smiling to one obscure world number 68,509 (read:me!)

I play chess because it teach me that making a first move is advantage, profitable...but me being me, only ever willing to make the first move in chess...and prefer to 'play it safe' by allowing others to make their first move outside chess...and which later i regret it.