How Playing Chess Daily Benefits Me

I got introduced to chess at a fairly young age. I must have been around 7 or so when its rules were first explained to me.

Immediately, I got hooked. In chess, there are an endless number of strategies with which to play, and even perceive, the game.

The rules, in themselves, are not complicated. When my older son was 6, I was able to explain the rules to him in a single day, and from then on he's had no trouble with the game (except with the occasional en passant miss, which for those of you who play chess, feels awkward and unnatural for good reason: it was only introduced in the 16th century as a way to speed up the game).

A little bit of a history lesson here: chess was invented in India in the 6th century. At the time, the game was known as Chaturanga, and the rules of Chaturanga were a bit different from modern day chess. As chess eventually made its way to Persia in the 7th century, and then to Russia and Western Europe in the 9th century, its rules started to change in order to speed up the game and make it more tactical in nature (fun fact: until the 13th century, pawns could only move one square from their starting positions!)

How one game can bo both so eloquently simple and endlessly complex, is what amazes me about chess. Every chess game is unique. You can blitz out your first few moves based on your desired opening, and yet each game will still feel different based on multiple factors. These include: the time control, who you're playing, what's at stake (the rating differential), and so on.

When I moved back to the US (from India) in 2019, I resumed playing chess after a long hiatus, and since then I've kept up the practice. Over the past year, I've tried to get myself to follow a daily routine, which includes spending 30-45 minutes of playing chess. Since my business, TradingLeagues , is based in India, finding time to do the things I want to do on a consistent basis can be challenging. Despite these restrictions, I try to play 2-3 Rapid games every single day in a 10 minute/0 second increment format.

Here are a few reasons why I play chess on a daily basis.

Getting into flow

In business, the best work occurs when you're in a flow state. Productivity is at a high, efficiency is at a high, and even morale is at a high in group settings. We've all been there, right? Things just feel good. In chess, I've found the same principle to hold true. When you feel good about a game - you're calm, composed, and there's just the right amount of healthy, internal pressure to win - the likelihood of winning goes up. One of my goals when I play is to get into that flow state. When it happens, it feels magical and you end up surprising yourself with highly intuitive moves and tactics.

In my opinion, getting into flow is essential for success - in chess, in business, and in life. It may very well be the most important determinant for success. So, I'd like to think that as my ability to get into flow gets better with chess, I can apply that skill to other areas of my life.

Science seems to agree - playing chess improves our ability to get into a flow state.

Mastering time management

In chess, I have found that there are two ways of thinking about time management.

1. At the absolute level, ensuring you're playing at a desired pace so that you give yourself ample time to finish the game. Generally, I think it's a good idea for me to get to the mid-game by the third minute (in a 10 minute / 0 second Rapid game).
2. At a relative level, it's important to pay attention to your opponent's time management. If I feel like my opponent is blitzing out moves, I may want to speed things up as well in order to not fall too far behind with time imbalance. At the same time, however, it's important to simply play your game.

As an entrepreneur, the importance of time management is plainly obvious. Without proper time management, you're doomed to fail, end of story. What may go unnoticed is the core concept of sticking to one's strategy, regardless of what a competitor is doing. Mastering these mind games, getting a good sense of time, and being aware of internal and external pressures, is a skill that I try to cultivate - both in chess, and in life.

Deploying psychological warfare

In chess, when you make a critically bad move leading to a much worse position, it's known as a "blunder" - the equivalent of an unforced error in tennis. The difference in chess, however, is that you're dealing with a very small margin for error. Committing one blunder is all it takes to lose a game.

While it may be tempting to try to play "perfect" moves, in reality, simply cutting back on blunders is a surefire blueprint to success. Less blunders = more wins.

This is a recipe for success in all walks of life. It's not about perfecting each decision; instead, it's about not making stupid decisions.

Which brings me to the topic of deploying psyhological warfare: when you don't make blunders in chess, your opponent often slips up and makes a blunder. The opponent sees that you're not making mistakes, which causes them to make a mistake.

I guess you could call this a win-win situation.

Sharpening the mind

The most potent reason to play chess - of course, apart from a pure love of the game, which is an absolute requirement - is that it sharpens your mind.

Science has shown that playing chess can improve your ability to concentrate, your decision making skills, your memory, and my favorite which I can attest to - the abilty to see from someone else' perpsective.

In other words, playing chess makes us more empathetic.

For me, at the core level, it comes down to the discpline of finding time to play games daily. That, in itself, is a discipline - and knowing that by playing chess, it is benefiting my mind and putting me in a better position to succeed across all arenas of life.

The bottom line

I play chess because I enjoy it, just like I enjoy working out daily, building my business, and spending time with family and friends, amongst other things. At the same time, it's not just about doing something I love; it's also about knowing that by spending this time, I am improving and getting better.

If I'm able to carry out an activity on a consistent basis with no regrets, that's a win in my books and an easy decision to subscribe to.

If only all decisions in life were so simple.