Church Duties and Chess

This week was one with a lot of church activities. My wife and I take offices in our church, and it is fulfilling. Our minister had to visit us, and we did the visitation in my brother’s home, allowing us to hang out and eat dinner together. On another day, we had to drive to another locale, as we were assigned to perform church duties for a baptism. Baptisms are nice because it entails individuals who have made a choice to really surrender to God, and there could have stories behind that journey. On another day, we were assigned to perform church duties at another locale, and we just got to hang out with other brethren.

One thing that I got to do via these church duties is play chess. I used to play as a kid for fun here and there. I was very much a novice and only knew the rules and objectives, but that’s about it. In community college though, I hung out with friends in the game room, and besides regularly playing pool, I regularly played chess. I was only able to see the board better, but otherwise was still a novice. From then until now, I played very sporadically with a game here or there, but nothing consistent. However, recently, I really got back into chess via Facebook. I don’t know how it got there with their algorithms, but I watched chess matches with the likes of Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura, Wesley So, Indian chess players and so many others. I still watch them on a regular and casual basis, and I definitely picked up some things from watching professionals and the best chess players in the world. I couldn’t tell you what the London System is or the Sicilian Gambit is, but I did observe their approach to the game. At one of these church assignments, someone brought a chess board, and I played two games. When I used to play chess, it was a matter of taking pieces first then checkmate. Watching the pros though, it is about positioning with a focus on checkmate or endgame battles. When I played the first game, I got checkmate rather early, but I was after checkmate instead of pieces along with being cognizant of getting my pieces in play and positioned early in the game. The second game was more tactical and reached an endgame, as we traded queens around midgame. One move really changed the momentum of the game. One thing I noticed though is that every single move was important. There wasn’t an “I don’t know what to do” and just randomly move a piece. I ended up winning, but it was a fight until the end.