The Study of the Sport of Chess

One Christmas while visiting family on my Dad's side we stopped at an antique shop. Inside there was a lot of stuff I wasn't interested in; I was probably around fifteen or so. I walked around looking at all the stuff and my eyes fell on a chess set of carved wooden pieces. I have always been interested in chess so I had my Mom get it for me. It came with a checkered board made out of light and dark wood. I kept that set for many years before I lost the pieces. I still have the board.

Years later when I was in the Air Force, I bought a couple of books and studied the sport of chess. I bought two books co-authored by Yasser Seirawan and Jeremy Silman, "Play Winning Chess" and "Winning Chess Tactics." The first book taught me the history of chess, how the pieces moved, how to control the center in the opening, and keeping more space than your opponent. Space is the number of spaces your pieces can attack. There was more but those things are crucial in tournament play. The book had examples and I would set up my antique chess set and move the pieces along with the book. The second book focused more on tactical play. Using sacrifices and combinations to acquire a lead in piece captures, a better position, or for checkmating your opponent.

I had a Super Nintendo Entertainment System at this time and bought Chessmaster 2000 for it. I played that game until I could beat it at its highest level. It took me about a year of studying and playing to get real good.

Although this post is about the study of chess, you can use the same desire to learn anything you set your mind to. I thought one day that I would really like to know the ins and outs of chess so I researched it by finding material about it. In my opinion I found the best books to teach what I wanted to know. Think about what you want to do the most and research it. Maybe it's a job you want in the future or you want to learn to sew. Whatever it is, you will find that learning about it is very enjoyable.