EARLY STRATEGY WILL WIN THE GAME
I’ve never been much on sports. When I was in the 10th grade, some of the older students started a chess club, and I joined it. I had learned how to play chess in the 5th grade. I would play at lunch time, and any other spare few minutes I could find. I checked out books from the library that taught how to play better.
So the chess club decided it would sponsor a high school chess tournament. You had to win two games against your opponent to advance. Well, I won pretty easily all the way to the semi-final round. My opponent was an 11th grade guy, who was pretty smart. He came over to my house for the first game, and we sat down to play. And he was one of those thinkers. Our first game went for two hours. And I lost it. He came over a few days later to play our second game. And I guess I played well, and I won it. So, I went from sadness to excitement,
So, we had to play a tiebreaker. He came over again, and we sat down to play. We began pretty basically, and after 20 minutes or so, it hit me that I was playing poorly. He was making all kinds of attacking moves, and I was running away, and I knew that it wouldn’t be long before the game would be over.
And then it happened. He made a move that was not an attacking move. And it wasn’t a defensive move either. Maybe he was setting up for something down the road. But as I studied the board, I realized that I had put my pieces into very strategic positions early in the game. And even though he’d been chasing me around, everything was ready. And in 5 or so moves, I had won the game. I went on to the final round against the valedictorian, and though I was worried, I went on to win the victory.