gatorpressure.com

Chess… and more.

It recently occured to me that it doesn’t really matter if someone is good at chess so much as it matters if someone is a good sport when playing chess.

Last night I was at a friend’s apartment and I saw a decorative chess set, so I asked them if they were good at chess. I think this is my habit, but it is flawed. What does it matter if they are good? I’ve played plenty of games with people of all types, and when I think back, I’m realizing that the skill level of an opponent typically has little to do with the amount of enjoyment all players receive from playing the game.
This quick realization has just finished off a radical change in the way I view playing sports and games of all types. Before I saw sports and games as a challenge. I typically wanted to win, and the better the opponent the more glorious the win. Basically, I wanted to play to win and feel glorious. I wanted that near-immediate gradification. Now I feel differently. From looking back at my experiences in high school soccer, in which we would often have a jam-packed schedule of teams to play, I remember that our coach would occasionally receive or give thanks from lesser teams, because their coaches felt that our hours long trip to play them was a service to them. It probably was, because even though we handed almost every team a loss, they got to play an extremely talented and at times discplined soccer squad.
Reflecting on this and other experiences, I am thankful that my school demanded such a high level of sportsmanship and respect from us as players, because now, almost four years later, it has filtered in and I am reapplying it to other games.
Now, when I play a game like chess, soccer, Halo, Boggle, Tetris Attack, or whatever, I will see it not as an opportunity to get a quick ego boost (or drop) from the outcome, but as an opportunity to advance my knowledge of the game and my skills. I now see gaming as a practice akin to medicine, where both sides (or all parties) can gain from the interaction via enjoyment and improvement.
Now I just need to figure out a socially acceptable (tactful?) way to ask someone about their attitude toward chess; or in other words… if they are a good sport when playing chess.

Posted by David under Reflections, Gaming |