Monday, September 19, 2011

Decision making and Chess.

Perhaps the greatest lesson with universal application that chess can teach us is decision making. If I told you the theme of the puzzle, if I said there is a sacrifice on H7 or there is an end game win from this position, many good chess players can find the solution.

The real difficulty to chess lies in recognising the clues before the opportunity slips away. And to do that your mind needs to be clear. You must not only look at the things you like but also the things you do not like. You must not add or subtract to the issues facing you. You need confidence and have the courage to make decisions when the door of opportunity presents, for the door will surely close again. That is the nature of opportunity.

In real life, just like in chess, you will not have all the facts before you at the point of decision making that can make a difference. In chess you can see the board but you cannot see your opponents mind. And so the need for anticipation from clues. Hence competitor analysis, profiling etc.

Do you see the problem now? Once all the facts are known the game will already be won or lost. The way to play chess, is to make good decisions as you go along but you generally need to make it before all the facts are known or you'll run out of time ie developed judgement. (Apart from the very obvious answers of course.)

Take this understanding and apply it to all the issues that have been raised on this blog.

ps: Jimmy complains that I do not allow him or his friends from discussing on my blog. Actually I did try to reason with him and his friends at one point but that was fruitless and a waste of my time. I think the reason is because they have hidden agendas or just have too much fear, anger and hatred in them to be able to reason.

So I publicize his and his friends blogs as often as I can. I even encourage my readers to go to his shoutbox to see his and his friends "reasoning". So there is no need to invite him here. I have done enough to help him get readers. Here we want a quiet place to think and reason.

For your ease of reference, please find Jimmy's site here. Happier now Jimmy?

Note: So you may find that chess engines or certain postmortems have limited use. They give answers after the fact.

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