Me And Chess

Me And Chess

I feel extremely happy that India is hosting Chess Olympiad for the very first time. This event, happening where I live, triggered me to recollect my old memory.

During my school days, I enjoyed playing Kabadi, ball badminton, cricket and almost all the traditional games from Goli Gundu to Pallanguzhi. In Pallanguzhi, I could never beat my grandmother. I played cricket just for fun. I neither learnt the techniques nor watched cricket matches with great interest. As I grow up, Chess inspired me the most. It helped me think. I never wanted to master Chess. So, I did not get trained systematically.

During the early days, I used to beat my son. I was happy, not because I was winning but because my son was learning. Then, my son self-learned Chess by reading books and practicing hard. After that, I could not win even a single time. I was happy because my son was winning.

40 years ago, when I went for the ball badminton competition in our district capital, I bought a book on Chess in New Century Book House (NCBH). NCBH was started by key Communist Party members in Tamilnadu, and they used to sell books made in Russia. The paper quality, print quality, and the book cover were amazing. I did not read it fully, as I was taught in Tamil medium school. May be it is due to lack of sincere goal to become a master in Chess. If had keen desire to master Chess, I would have tried hard to read and understand by looking at the Dictionary for every word.

I have attended Chess competition in college. In the third round, I lost to my college mate who was staying in the hostel room next to mine. I saw him mostly with his Chessboard. He will see me mostly with my books. This explains everything. My focus was on becoming an excellent computer programmer at that time.

During college, I started to master my English language skill. I have bought so many books. I became a serious reader. I never read a book on “How to Answer Interview Questions?” and I did not even read any tips on Interview. One of my friends mentioned about the interview question “Which sports or games do you like?”. The expert advise was “Football is a team game, where as, chess is an individual game. Organization prefer team players. So, tell the interviewer that football is your favourite game, but never say chess”. I felt that this is nonsense. I always wanted to be truthful. In my resume, I mentioned chess as my hobby.

I never prepared for interviews. Whatever they ask in line with my expertise and aspiration, I answered very well. For rest of the questions, my answer was “I do not know”. I attended only four interviews since 1989. Lost only one. That too not because of my poor performance because they found a person doing exactly the same job. I was never in customer support, but have solved challenging problems to bring back the high value customers. I have never attended interviews when I was not ready for that job. I comfortably say what I did, what I know and what I desire.?

I do not lie in interviews. You do not have to follow me on this. Feel free to lie if interviewers ask a stupid question to judge the whole you in one single question. I can play very well in team. I never suppress my thoughts and feelings just to play safe in the team. I argue, debate and actively brainstorm when the team desperately needs new thinking.

Be yourself when it is necessary. Flow in the team when your flow is not going to damage the outcome dangerously. If you love chess, say so in the interview without worrying about whether you will get the job or not. If they lose your talent, they deserve it. But do not let ego and narcissism rule you. Be humble, be truthful. To make big wins, we need a great team.

Whether you want to master Chess or ignite your thinking, play and enjoy the game. Whatever you want to master, make sure you learn the tricks.