My Story: The Brutal Mind-Exhausting Game

Many of us have our own passion, things that we mostly have interest. We also have some things that interest us for a short period of time and later on when we appreciate the beauty in it, we explore that thing more and before you know it you are already spending a lot of time to it and even took the alotted for your time to rest. more and more we slowly feels like it'll become a passion.

As an elementary kid all we want was to enjoy ourselves playing with our friends outdoor running around and exhausting our bodies, the fun isn't limited to outdoor stuffs, we would go watching TV together and sometimes playing dama or anything indoor games, all the games that makes us enjoy we would explore it although I seldom find these things now. It was at the same days where I got introduced into the game called chess along with playing guitar.

I was with my father to buy some stuffs needed in the house and as we roam around I found the "board" yes, a chess board I stared at it and won't let my eyes go, I want to bring it home

- "Pa, chessboard oh"

my father replied " kamao diay ka?' (do you know how to play it)

"di pero gusto ko magpractice "( no, but I want to practice)

osige kuhaa ( okay, get it )

After paying for the things we bought we went straight home and as soon as we reached home I opened the board immediately and yeah, I didn't know how to arrange the pieces haha unlike dama where the pieces don't have the distinct position as long as of the same color of square. My father knows some basic of it so he taught me how to arrange the pieces in the board as well as the moves of each pieces. There and there, at that very moment we played, my mind was still confused of the moves in each pieces nevertheless enjoyed the game, obviously I lost haha. I continued exploring the game and finally I don't have trouble of moving the pieces anymore, I'm already familiar with the moves of each pieces and not long after I challenge my uncle and got mated at 4 moves by the famous scholar's mate, my jaw dropped that time, was it even possible? Well it was haha, we played couple of games, we would play the game the whole afternoon and among those games not even one was won, the ability gap was just too high. But despite of the loses, I learned something. I won't fall for a cheap trick Scholar's mate anymore.

Like any other things, the period of interest diminished and I seldom play the game in my highschool days, of course the ability didn't improve as well, I brought the freezing ability up until now I'm a college student. The best thing is that the urge to learn came back and I'm fascinated with the beauty it gives. there's more to it than what I originally imagined, there's so much variations / possibility for a 64-square board.

The game is so complicated and we can't deny the fact that there are many players who is way ahead than us. Some are gifted where they learn fast and reach Grandmaster in early age, some may even be 10 years old below. Knowing it makes me think there's so much to learn. I consider myself as a beginner striving hard to become a strong player. I still can't beat my uncle though, he's also improving fast haha.

Many have said it is a boring game staring at the board for hours with some wooden/plastic pieces sitting on it but do you call things boring when your mind is active at most and still makes you want to play it? Do you call it boring where there's two brains clashing in the board? Nope! It was the opposite. You are forced to decide for the best and your opponent as well too. That makes it a brutal Mind-Exhausting Game but the fun it gives is incomparable.