Chess

Recently, over the years I have turned from a casual gamer into a true achievement

hunter. As much as I enjoy playing video games and games in general, nothing makes me feel

better than grabbing all the achievements and feeling like that was the proper way of getting

the full experience. In doing this, a slow, leisurely experience turns into a chaotic outburst,

trying to do multiple things at once without putting much thought into it, until it requires it.

Chess, however, was the exact opposite of what I was used to due to the inherent aspects of

the game.

Meticulousness and thinking ahead is the key of the game. Moves that aren’t as

obvious, such as castling or En passant, can quickly put you in a position of winning, or at least a

couple of moves in front of your competitor. Immediately upon learning the rules of the game, I

thought of how bending the rules might change the pace of the game. What if the bishop is

actually the most valuable piece on the board, so sacrificing has some added stakes? But, even

with slight tweaks in the rules, the game still proves difficult to a beginning player. What I’ve

realized is that added handicaps could make the game more playable or at least more

enjoyable, at least to me. Adding a blindfold or taking a shot if the next move doesn’t result in a

capture of a particular piece. There is excitement, though, when you have control of both the

pace of the game and the pieces on the board, especially when the game turns into a cat and

mouse situation. When this happens, the anxiety turns up to 100 for the defending king,

especially knowing the end is imminent. This particular situation proves interesting in that one

player is essentially trapped while the other player chases the trapped player, but the game

doesn’t end until the king is moved into check.

 I had a situation where I was chasing the king and it got to the point where a stalemate

occurred because of no legal moves remaining. So, all that hard work that went into trying to

trap the king and win the game has gone to waste. But this just shows that there are so many

ways of playing the game, with distinctive play styles available at a player’s disposal. Chess, in

summary is one of those games that can be easy to play, but hard to master, due to the

incredibly high moves that can occur.