Chess and Life

Life is a game of chess!

Chess looks very simple on the outset. It has a simple 8x8 board and both sides start with equal set of pieces. But one astounding information about chess is that the possible number of positions is infinite! There are 8,902 total possible positions after just 3 moves! And there are 120,921,506 total positions after 6 moves!!! No two games will have the same set of moves but can only be similar.
Similarly life also looks very simple. There are almost infinite number of possibilities on how one's life is going to be. No two lives are going to be same. It can be similar but definitely not the same.

Lets just compare on a high level on how just life and chess is so much synchronized. You start your game with opening moves. Openings are very vital in a game of chess. There are lot of well practiced openings. However, a bad opening will not always result in failure; similarly a good opening will not always result in success but definitely opening plays a huge part in the later part of the game. Opening you have all your power, all your pieces are safe and there are hardly any risks involved during this phase of the game. It paves way to lay a strong foundation.

The initial part of our lives can be compared with Chess openings. There a lot of well practiced ways to be successful which includes being healthy, proper education and good care which all points in laying a strong foundation. Although we do have a lot of power within us, we will not be using them to their potential, yet it will remain within ourselves. A life not started well does not always going to result in failure but most of the cases it does and vice versa.

To be Continued...

Dominating Chess Game

This game i had the white pieces. Instead of starting out aggressive, i played a calm headed chess constantly trying to dominate the board by snatching the odd pawn now and then. Middle game proved decisive by me winning couple of pawns while pressuring his king by sending all my troops. My opponent resigned when all of his hope went down!!

Queen out early!

Good example for a game where queen is out early. Although queen is a powerful piece, bringing her too early in the game would prove fatal.

My Chess Game - Pins (With commentary)

You can find many pins in this game. Enjoy!

In chess, a pin is a situation brought on by an attacking piece in which a defending piece cannot move without exposing a more valuable defending piece on its other side to capture by the attacking piece. "To pin" refers to the action of the attacking piece inducing the pin, and the defending piece so restricted is described as pinned.

Only pieces that can move an indefinite number of squares in a horizontal, vertical, or diagonal line, i.e., bishops, rooks and queens, can pin opposing pieces. Kings, knights, and pawns cannot pin. Any piece may be pinned except the king, as the king must be immediately removed from check under all circumstances.

"The defensive power of a pinned piece is only imaginary." - Aron Nimzowitsch

Source: wikipedia.org

The IMMORTAL GAME

This game was played in 1851 between grandmasters Anderssen and Kieseritsky in London. One of Anderssen's masterpieces, known as the "Immortal Game." Black neglects his development, and Anderssen offers both Rooks to show that two active pieces are worth a dozen sleeping at home.

My best chess game

This is one of my all time favorites..



I started with black and played "Counter Game" as my opening move. Slowly gained supreme movement by sacrificing pieces. I had to sacrifice a pawn, a bishop and a horse to finish off this mini masterpiece :). Opponent's rating was 1444 in Yahoo chess.

My guilty conscience

I am very much guilty as an IT engineer in having a major hand for the recent hike in petrol price. Seriously, the industry i am working simply ruins everything! Infact, in the near future, many riots/bandhs etc., are expected. This is the one responsible for increasing our already worse hit inflation. If you see or analyze deeply, you can find out why only IT industry. For those who dont know what inflation is, i can give a brief explanation. Its just every individual's spending power. More the spending power, more the inflation. Inflation should be there but in a very controlled manner. I dont want to speak lot into that.
I have few predictions on how the future of India is going to be.
Growth is good. Growing too much is also fine. But it should be done in a controlled environment. For example, you can extract huge amounts of energy from an atom. But if its not controlled, we know wat'l happen. The growth in India is going to bring in hell a lot of ramifications. For instance, take US. They are also growing, having problems with their economy as well. But again, they have a good design at the top most level. Atleast a design far better than ours. For a country of such immense potential itself, they cannot suppress few problems happening in their economy. Then take the case of a country like India where we have leaders who are ultra illiterates and greedy fellows who for once have never thought about the needs of the public. Exceptions may be there, but on a whole they're just shit.
What i am trying to say is the growth in India is not controlled. Many think tanks have to take major and crucial decisions in the top most level which lacks heavily in our country. Because if you take a minister in the top level, he surely will be a t-kada owner or something in his early ages.
A price hike in petrol is going to affect the transportation heavily. It is going to reflect in all ways. For instance, take the food price. I have seen within one year, the place i used to have lunch have increased their rate from 25 to 33 which when you calculate in percentage is simply not acceptable. The common man is affected here. Rich gets richer and poor gets poorer. This is like a virus and the effects will be very well seen in the near future.
The problem is many IT people dont even know how they have done a damage to our economy. The impact done by us is very huge. We are the ones responsible for increasing the real estate prices. We are the ones who have made this cash flow by leaps and bounds, encouraging banks to offer more loans. The gist here is inflation goes up when there is huge cash flow. And the team lunch/dinners etc - we have simply raised the demand in food and the hotel owners are having any cost they like. In my earlier days i use to order food by seeing the cost on the right side, but these days i hardly care for it. So, the hotel can charge any money they want. And that is going to increase the food price at the end of the day. I am very disappointed to see many people in IT industry not even knowing how the food price is going to increase just because he/she is having a luxurious team lunch.
So, as an IT fellow, is it possible for me to stop this? The answer is NO!. We have swallowed the poison. The effect has already started. The only thing that we can do right now is not spend our money unnecessarily. If possible, try not going for movie in the weekend. Reduce or discourage treats for birthdays, promotions etc., If possible, try totally to abolish this team outing!