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Remember my article on coffee and summer afternoons? This one is a bit like that. It’s just something spawning out of my head, without much thought, without any preparation. In a way, it serves a somewhat therapeutic function. Then again, isn’t all writing like that? Isn’t all writing a giant middle finger pointing upward, toward the cosmic joker? So, treat today’s article as the workings of the unconscious mind. Yes, it is about chess – and five reasons why I like chess – but deep down it’s just about me being frustrated with the world right now.

5 Reasons why I Like Chess

1. Chess Is Fair

   How many things in life can be absolutely, 100% fair? Most of life is grossly unjust. Much more often than not, it doesn’t matter whether you work hard enough or are smart enough. It’s all about knowing the right people, being born the right gender or in the right country, or having a rich daddy. Chess isn’t like that. You can blame nobody for your own shortcomings. If you lost a game in chess, you lost because you weren’t paying attention. You have nobody to blame but yourself, and that’s a great feeling. Chess is justice, and that’s why I like chess.

2. Chess is Mathematical

   Perhaps that’s what makes it just, too. I like chess because it can be measured and calculated, at least theoretically. In practice, good luck counting the 10¹²⁰ different chess games that exist. This is the so-called Shannon number. Let me put it in an easier way – read reason number 3, below.

3. Chess is Outrageous

   If you want an easier figure to show you how many different chess games are possible, do this: take all the grains of sand of every beach on Earth. Multiply this with all the hairs of all the people in the world. Then multiply this with all the atoms in the universe – yeah, that’s not a typo. The number you will get is still lower than the number of possible chess games. Think I’m kidding? The number of hairs of all humans: 10¹⁵. And the number of grains of sand on Earth: 10²³. Number of atoms in the universe: 10⁸¹. If you do the math, that’s 10¹¹⁹!

4. Chess Brings People Together

   You don’t need to speak another person’s language to play chess with them. Chess is the language. Your opponent can be a grandpa from Argentina, a young boy from Mongolia, or a middle-aged Chinese woman. Your opponent can be disabled (in fact, you don’t even need to see the chess board to play a game); or s/he can be unemployed; or rich. Everyone is equal when the only thing separating them is the chess board.

5. Chess Is transcendental

   The beauty of chess is that, for all its mathematical essence, it’s truly beautiful. Patterns and combinations come together in an incredible dance of meaning and beauty that it’s aesthetically gorgeous. In a way, I always thought of chess as being a giant Easter egg – a glitch in the Matrix, if you will. Playing it and enjoying it is, indeed, like giving the finger to the cosmic joker. Inventing chess is tantamount to becoming self-aware.