96 - Vince's Gambit ♟️
Hey there, !
This is the only ‘games’ related post this year (I checked!)! And it’s only about one game :D (kind of…)
1.
I played my first game of chess just before prep, I think.
I wanted to learn how to play chess because a) I was a nerd and b) Dad was really good at it. I wanted to be just like him, and be smart and good and awesome; playing chess was my road to being smart and good and awesome.
I honestly don’t remember much about those first few weeks? Months? Of learning chess. I was probably a very young boy - around 4 or 5, and begging at the altar of Knowledge to bestow upon me the intelligence of a higher being through the medium of Chess.
And even though I was a young age and remember very little of my time as a child, I remember that, with regard to Chess…
Dad would wipe the floor with me. Over and over again.
It was merciless. It was no holds barred chess - if I made a mistake he’d punish it, no takebacks. It’s part of the competition, y’know? And I always made mistakes…
I think this was a lesson in tough love, or overcoming adversity or something, but maaaan it sucked at the time. I think I passed on that trauma to my sister who I tried to teach to as well (at the young age of 7), but instead proceeded to stomp her because it was super easy to (I don’t think she’s ever played chess since then).
2.
The short Asian kid at primary school, who got to school far earlier than anyone else in the morning and did math workbooks for fun, was not really going to be choosing a sporty after-school activity; he joined the chess club.
I learned a lot of actual skills about openings, general tactics, rules of thumb, endgames (we did a LOT of endgame stuff) and how to actually play with some purpose. That was a really great time - and it was nice to be somewhat valued for being smart rather than being physically impressive.
Our teacher was a guy named Mr. Thomas, a Jewish guy who was extremely good at chess - he played blindfolded, he played fog of war chess with people (you don’t put down the pieces unless they move), he was able to simul us all at once (I mean, not super hard for him, but still a cool feat!). We went to the library after school every Tuesday, and he’d have about half an hour of teaching us a tactic or a concept, and then we’d pair off and play each other.
This was the weekly battle we looked forward to most. The timed matches of 15m were great matches - even if you sit there trying to look 3 moves ahead, the clock still ticks on, meaning the end of your games were often incredibly tactical, rushed, and full of errors. The adrenaline of seeing your time ticking down to 0 seconds, or battling with 10 seconds on both of your clocks, is insanely stressful but incredibly good practice for acting under pressure.
Sometimes, you play someone easy, and you wipe the floor with them. Sometimes, you play someone way higher level than you, and they systematically dismantle you, piece by piece. It’s hard to stay arrogant in a place like that - you could be humbled so quickly.
Nevertheless, it was so fun!
3.
I think chess is one of the only things I got super competitive about in my life.
Chess tournaments were always big things for us. All the schools would come together and have these big chess tournaments, and essentially it was a day off every few months to go and compete in chess.
We’d get in a bus, rock up to some other school or hosted event space, and then spend the day playing Chess. It’s essentially what you may have seen in Queen’s Gambit, except a little more modern - you still report your scores etc., but they had software to pair people up and make sure that it was all skill-based matching.
I remember being the most annoying little shit when I was young at these Chess tournaments - there were certain games where I would just talk and banter incessantly with the person across the table from me, or run around the hall after my match without any regard for the people who were still playing. Stupid.
I loved the battle, and I revelled in playing Chess against people who I didn’t know, who were usually better than me (but sometimes, I was better than them!) and the fact I’d only see them every so often to square up and fight again. The joy of the fight, and the disappointment of a loss was starkly felt every single time; it was a wonderful, crazy world that I could immerse myself in.
And then I quit.
4.
I didn’t quit for any particular reason - it was probably the same reason that I stopped playing violin - Year 12 :D There were more important things to worry about (UNI! JOB! POTENTIAL HOMELESSNESS AND FAMILIAL SHAME IF A BAD SCORE WAS ACHIEVED!).
But I still wanted to scratch that itch - the competition, and the gaming. Boardgames became my new obsession - finding the ‘game’ part of it extremely satisfying, as it also helped feed my natural extroversion by playing games in person and having the table talk + gaming was really great fun. I delved into the realms of 4 player games, strategy games, party games, word games - all of the above! Most of this has been previously documented - e.g. my love for the YouTube series Tabletop by Geek and Sundry, and how it helped fuel an ever-growing obsession.
During this time of having ‘quit’ chess, I started playing some online correspondence chess with friends who had moved away. It’s essentially asynchronous play using the Chess.com app - we play a variant called Chess960, which randomizes the pieces on the back rank, meaning you can’t just rely on opening theory to win - you have to analyse the board as a whole, as it is.
At the same time, I was acquiring a whole bunch of 2p games that would fulfil a similar role as Chess. There’s Onitama, which is chess-like, but the gimmick is that your pieces move differently every turn. There’s Tao Long where you set up your pieces / dragons to perform different effects, to try and destroy the opponent’s dragon. There’s Hive, which is bug-based game where you have a number of different pieces that move in slightly different ways based on different insects, and can be played without a board.
There’s a series of games designed by Kris Burm, including GIPF, YINSH, PUNCT, DVONN and TAMSK that I’ve bought the collection of - a whole lot of weird and wonderful design ideas. I was in the UK a while ago and bought a really nice abstract game from a small publisher (that doesn’t ship to Australia) called Mixtour that uses small little wooden…’cups’ that you have to try and manoeuvre and stack up to 5. There’s Shobu, where you have 4 boards of pieces, and every move you make will affect the board on the other side.
I absolutely love the design of these games as they all have really interesting ideas and potentials. I wanted to play them all…until a sneaky lil’ thing called COVID dropped in…
5.
As the pandemic came down like an oppressive mask on the face of social activities, I found that I had to retreat to different past-times, and it opened up the world of online chess.
And man, has it FLOURISHED since I was gone.
The online chess world has become awash with influencers, Twitch competitions, grandmaster memers, live streamed tournaments, chess TV (like Queen’s Gambit), and really great educational chess videos online. Niches get a lot of airtime in their own little corners of the Internet due to lower barriers to entry and slowly gain traction until they become mainstream.
The way I returned was through YouTube - through those long nights of COVID, watching chess memes, opening theory, traps, puzzles and recaps of famous games. AlphaZero content was at it’s finest back then, and I was fascinated by the power of AI in playing Chess…and Go…and literally any game ever now? But that’s a whole other post, I think…
There’s nothing like a YouTube rabbit hole to help recommend different channels - so here are a few of them if you’re looking to learn:
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GothamChess - one of my favourites at the moment; he has a very millennial teacher-like vibe which is good, and he knows how to explain things really well. Just because you’re a grandmaster (like Hikaru Nakamura, who is also really hype online) doesn’t mean you’re a good teacher (like Hikaru, who is better at just…playing the game).
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Eric Rosen - a trap master who can show you what not to do and how not to fall into traps (or maybe set some of your own?). There are some very aggressive, weird openings that he found that he posts on his channel - well worth looking into.
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agadmator and MatoJelic - really distinctive styles where they both show famous games and talks about why it’s famous. This could be because it’s a great example of an opening, or a really insane sacrifice, or a funny game for whatever reason.
6.
I know I’ve talked mainly about International Chess, but the 2p aspect of gaming caught a bug with me, and I have a few little stories here and there that I wanted to share as well :)
Dad’s side of the family absolutely LOVES chess (the Chinese variety) - it was one of the main things they found they could use to pass the time, and Chinese Chess is it’s own beast of a game. I remember learning how to play on a PDA in a small Hong Kong bus from my uncles, not really understanding all the pieces but finding it fun to have something to talk about with them. Also, Chinese Chess has a really cool piece called the ‘cannon’ which can only capture by jumping over another piece (but otherwise moves like a rook). Crossing the ‘river’ in the middle of the board means that your pawns become ‘soldiers’ (?) or generals (?) - they can’t come back across to your side of the board, but they get better manoeuvrability.
Learning the puzzle of a new game was great, and all my uncles found it fun to help a young kid rise up the ranks and join them in playing chess. It also gave me a little bit more of an appreciation of the old uncles playing Chinese chess, huddled around boards at the park, whiling away their time together in the world in the pursuit of a great game.
In high school, a friend of mine (Kento!) taught me how to play Shogi - Japanese chess - which has a whole different set of quirks. The main two differences are that a) once you capture a piece, you can ‘drop’ it as your own piece and b) every single piece can transform into another piece when it gets into enemy territory. We played a lot during cold, wintry, lunchtimes, finding out own little alcove of the school to play chess in (though I don’t think we finished many games - these games can go for a long time due to the ‘drop’ rule).
While reading the Terry Pratchett book ‘Thud‘ I found out that the titular game was based on a Viking chess game called Hnefatafl, where you play an asymmetric game of either being the king (who has to escape) or defenders (who have to try and capture the king with a numerical advantage). Really interesting concept that has recently gained more of a revival - unsure why…
More recently, I took inspiration from some Twitch competitions I saw - especially on Hand and Brain Chess - where one player is the ‘Brain’ - telling the ‘Hand’ what piece to move, but not telling them where to move. It’s honestly such great fun - especially when the Hand and Brain have high disparities in how they play!
Now you know a bit more of the Nerd Side Of Vince - the Chess Stone in the Vince Infinity Gauntlet. It’s a beautiful game, and I love how it has shaped my life in terms of gaming and competition.
If you found this interesting and want to learn, let me know, and I’ll teach you!
Chat soon :)
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✔️ Real Life Recommendations
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Loki - a wonderful new mini-series from Disney+ that has followed WandaVision and Falcon and the Winter Soldier. It’s a funny, story-ful romp through time and space with a great cast (Tom Hiddleston and Owen Wilson!), and is probably the best out of the recent 3 mini-series to watch. Many cool story implications of playing with time, some great flashbacks to previous moments in the series and a fantastic style. If you have Disney+, well worth a watch. If you don’t have Disney+…also well worth a watch ;)
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Blackwing pencils - Steph bought me these a while ago and I’ve recently rediscovered them while cleaning up my room - they are some extremely pleasant lead pencils (not mechanical, just normal) that are a pleasure to draw and write with. I’ve been using them again to take notes, and after picking up a pencil guard from Milligram at EOFY sales, I’ve started bringing it around more often as I don’t worry as much about the point being broken!
🚌 Adventures on the Information Super-Highway
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Is Education no longer the ‘Great Equalizer’? - was it ever? I guess when you had “no education” vs. “forced education” you’ll have better results. Excerpt below:
There has been almost no increase in the increment to individual earnings for each year of schooling between K and 12 since 1980. It was roughly 6 percentage points per year in 1980, and it still is. The earnings increment for a B.A. has risen from 30.4 percent in 1980 to 50.4 percent in 2000 to 56.4 percent in 2017. The gain to a four-year graduate degree (a Ph.D., for example, but an M.D., J.D., or perhaps even an M.B.A.) relative to high school was approximately 57 percent in 1980, rising to 127 percent in 2017.
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Monetizing stupid - one of my favourite new newsletters of finding people who are exploiting hella stupid niches for big money. This article details a fin-fluencer who uses astrology to determine crypto-currency movements. Amazing! See this tweet:
mercury retrogrades generally signify an inversion or return. applied to markets, it can mean a reversal in direction.
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Ventscape - a weird little experiment where you can connect to ‘Ventspace’ and rant about life. It’s like Snapchat but for text, and you’re all in this one big forum space. It comes and goes, but it’s an interesting concept nonetheless!