Watching a chess tournament and Learning to play chess

Procrastination is so bad, it has a way of making you miss out on good opportunities because your lazy ass self isn’t ready to take any action or isn’t ready for any form of work.

I have been wanting to learn how to play chess for like 7 years but I kept procrastinating. The only thing I knew about chess was how the pieces on the chessboard move and how chess is able to improve one’s memory.

_{My first attempt to arrange a chessboard😂}

I have so many friends and acquaintances who play chess, heck, I have some who don’t just play chess as a game for leisure but as a sport.

I’ve watched my friend @samostically and other of my friends play chess professionally , I have seen them travel to different states and countries just for chess tournaments, before seeing them do all of these I didn’t know how big chess was.

I’ve always wanted to learn how to play chess but I’ve been too lazy to learn it but my perspective changed the day I watched my friend Samuel play a chess tournament where he did well.

I have seen so many of my friends play chess but never have I ever seen so many chess players in one place, playing and competing for a prize. Watching this players do their thing I couldn’t help but fall in love instantly with chess as I was smitten by these chess players. It’s surprising how their brains work so fast, thinking, calculating their every move, and predicting their opponent's moves.

I was fascinated by chess players in the tournament recording their every move compared to non-tournament players.

I discovered they record their time, so if recording their moves is to go over their games it makes sense that they record the time so they know how long they spent in making every move.

In this tournament, I got to see the emotional part of chess, the part where you feel really sad for making a little mistake that ended up ruining your game.

I witnessed the excitement of winning, watching the winners brim with smiles as they took their places on the stage and were given their awards, to them it was a wonderful game but to people who lost it was a different story.

The emotions displayed in the hall were quite intriguing. I was happy my friend was part of the winners and I didn’t need to sympathize with him😂😂 Part of his award was a chess clock, even though I have stared at this clock over and over again I still do not understand how it works but my friend has assured me that we would get to that topic very soon😃

I started learning the basics since I already knew how the pieces move on the board, he moved on to show me the aim of the game through a Gotham Beginners chess video.

To practice I had to download a chess app called Lichess to practice as a beginner. I played my first game with my friend Samuel and he won me in four moves🥲 homeboy couldn’t even pardon me. I was told that the move he made is called Scholars Mate.

Even though he and other players kept kicking my ass I have decided not to give up. This time around I am doing things differently with chess😃

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I found these cute chess frames in my friend’s house, this alone tells you how much the young man is obsessed with chess. Even though I don’t understand why a gorilla and cat are playing chess I still respect the artist's work😃

Learning chess so far has been exciting and I pray it remains this way😃

_{All images are mine except otherwise stated.}

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Loads of Love🥰🥰
XOXO