CHATUR

SUNDAY, MAY 04, 2008
@HOME

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CHESS
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First of all, to make things clear & final, let me state this saw,
which is understood by all chess players, masters & amateurs alike:
"I like chess, but chess does not like me." HAR!
I do not have an iota of talent for the game.
Nevertheless I have achieved something - I earned a chess gold medal
for playing well at last board (HAR!) in inter-university
collegiate team competition. I was a former varsity player for our school team.
My playing strength oscillates from 1800-2100 (CLUB PLAYER)
I have beaten a national master in blitz (He gave me 5-2 partida!) &
in real slow game a master cannot guarantee quick victory since I can be MAKUNAT
just as I will give any grandmaster difficulty at 5-1 BLITZ... MAY TIRA DIN AKU...
Most importantly, I have accumulated CHESS WISDOM - something even its masters do not necessarily have...

In reality, I personally do not possess or I LACK the FIRST & FOREMOST
requirement for chess-playing or requisite quality/identifying mark of good chessplayers:
STRONG WILL(POWER) - I'm the NERVOSO type!
Many people tend to associate chess-playing with thinking/the brain/
"mental"/intelligence. But in reality it is more of a warrior game - game of the NERVES/HEART or EGGS.
It is the game par excellence for fighters or mind warriors or mental gladiators.
It requires FIRST & FOREMOST STRONG EGGS/BALLS/NERVES, the COMPETITIVE URGE the WILL TO CONTEND & WIN & the DESIRE TO CRUSH ONE's OPPONENT/RIVAL
[When I was younger I even felt pity for a losing opponent & allowed him to equalize HAR!]
I assure the unfamiliar reader, chess-players are HEARTLESS individuals
The better player, the more merciless. Of course, this does not mean chessmasters are unloving/uncaring individuals... But over the chessboard, they will checkmate even their own special loved ones! Indeed chessplayers have BIG EGOs & TREMENDOUS SELF-CONFIDENCE or BILIB SA SARILI...
Fischer claimed daw he would checkmate even his own mother!!!
I would say a person with ordinary memory can excel at the game if he/she has that "KILLER-INSTINCT"
I would say the correct basic formula is CHESS ABILITY = 50% WILL + 50% MEMORY
Chess-playing is not really different from fighting a war, legal wrangling, transacting trade,
courting a girl, closing a business deal, passing a job interview etc etc
CHESS, LIKE LIFE, IS A STRUGGLE...

CHESS AN EDUCATIONAL TOOL
I truly believe CHESS is a n EXCELLENT TOOL of EDUCATION
for CHESS IS THE BEST MEANS TO EXPOSE ONE's WEAKNESSES.
You may not LEARN anything directly from it but playing it competitively will expose your weaknesses:
Laziness, procrastination, inaction/indecision, lack of energy/initiative, weak will,
stupidity as in unthinking/nonreflection, etc
& CHESS inculcates thinking/foresight, self-discipline, self-control, concentration, patience, etc...

CHESS IS MORE THAN JUST A GAME.
It's surprising but chess is more than just a boardgame, it is a lot more...
It has a complex & colorful history & is associated with important human events & famous personalities.
In fact, I believe it even has an occult/mystical aspect.
For example the Kalmykian & FIDE (?) world chess federation President Irsan Ilyuzhinov claims
it originated from outer space, maybe from extra-terrestials!
I believe that whenever a chessboard is open especially with two players present
"spirits" hover over them, maybe the spirits of FIGHTING/STRIFE...
NOTE TO GHOST-HUNTERS: Try bringing along a chessboard & set it up in your contact session. I'm quite sure you'll attract unseen forces - unruly as in contentious types o terrifying nga lang!

Before the Fischer-Spassky world match which popularized chess
my aunt's Olongapo curio shop already carried expensive kamagong chess sets but
my brother who was studying in St. Louis Baguio (the cool climate
was good for his asthma) brought home one summer vacation an inexpensive medium-sized
wooden set & Fine's Chess the Easy Way & I learned the moves.
But we, my sister & I were "PIKON" & normally ended up overturning the board & hurling the pieces. One of of our normal childhood antics was to make GULO/ruffle each other's damitan when quarreling
So, the chess pieces ended up with a broken bishop or ear/nose-less knight.
We were too stupid & immature to understand & learn the ART of bloodless fighting...
[I believe BUSH & MCCAIN do not know/play chess 'coz if they did
they would not have gone to VIETNAM & IRAQ to kill people...]
CHESS is precisely the highest & finest development of human warfare/battle/combat...
Just as MONOPOLY or some other game would be the businessman's game, chess is the warrior's game.
CHESS has also been refered to as the philosopher's game or the royal game.
CHESS was developed in ancient times as a model of the actualities of the battlefield or fighting arena
It is an Indo-European/Aryan game that originated in Old India.
It was known then as CHATURANGA & had different form & rules. It evolved thru time
& moved out to PERSIA (as SHAHTRANG). Muslim Arabs brought it as SHATRANJ Westward & it even reached MUSLIM SPAIN. [The CRUSADERS learned it from their ARAB foes & it became "CHRISTIANIZED" - KING with CROSS, the ELEPHANT for example, became the BISHOP with its "NOTCHED-SMILE" representing the BISHOP/POPE's MITER (originally a pagan head-gear symbolic of the fish-deity DAGON.]
[By the way, one of the former world junior champions & a friend
of Bobby Fischer was the GM REVEREND FATHER William Lombardy, a Catholic priest.]
I always heard an old pthisical chess club habitue refer to the bishop as ALFIL.
Later, I understood the term when I saw in the QUR'AN the SURAT UL FIL (VERSE OF THE ELEPHANT)
MUSLIMS NOTE: Muslims learned chess first before Christians. Salahuddin Al Ayyubi (SALADIN) liked the game. But now Muslims are at the bottom of chess competitions if at all they are represented/present.

JEWS had several world champions... Steinitz. Lasker, Fischer, Kasparov
One of the better MUSLIM leaders of the past, the Baghdad Caliph(?) HARUN AL RASHID
had his own chess "stable" - he took care of & supported professional chess players.
Chess was a favorite game of the Knights Templars. Jews - ZIONists or otherwise consider it
as the JEWISH national pastime. Rich Jewish businessmen-patrons of chess included PIATAGORSKY, the ROTSCHILDS... In this archipelago, a Spaniard (or Mestizo?) spy for the Katipunan, Fernando Canon was among the first "masters" in this country.
Canon even played daw in an international tourney in Barcelona, Spain.
Rizal had his own ivory chess set & even won a tourney in Germany(?)
World-champion Alekhine visited Manila in the 1930's.
THe first ASIAN IM? (Cardoso?) was from this country & so was the 1st ASIAN GM (Torre).
SuperGM Anand learned CHESS here.
A strong Mindanawan Muslim player once told me he believed chess pieces corresponded to exact locations in the battlefield - that in the past there really were foot-soldiers, knights & other men in formation in the field. It seems war theorists realized the stupidity & futility of killing humans & just modelled fighting... So chess was born...

M'ranaw culture includes chess (chaturan?) so much so that the chess term "shahmat"
had entered their communication/language... Ask genuine M'ranaws about the word...
Chess came to this archipelago thru two routes - via the Espanoles & via the Moros...

HOW I GOT BITTEN BY THE CHESS BUG
One semester/breaktime before sophomore year (1973?) I returned to Olongapo from Manila for a brief vacation. I visited my grade school & my former classmates who were now also high-schoolers. I was invited to join their beach party. At the beach, I was told proudly by the crowd that an old classmate, an Ilocano-Pangasinense was their school chess champion. He was not a special student (I was the VALEDICTORIAN) but he was a "silent" type. I remember in 6th Grade, he was fond of relating stories about German Nazi movies & he imitated the German lingo "Achtung Achtung ANEYN DI ESPELETAYN KEPA BORDON"! - He also saw the same B&W film with a train & wailing sirens...
Also I got this joke-puzzle from him:
What sign was an illiterate man reading when he uttered "ISE KRE AM POR SA LE?" (Ans: Ice Cream For Sale) He wanted to play with me but I declined since I was not really fond of playing chess. Later after noon/lunch, the two "class sweethearts" B & S were encouraged to play against each other. I watched them play & noticed that the girl was cute/attractive... I kept stealing a glance at her pretty face... To my COMPLETE SURPRISE, the game ended not too long with the girl beating the boy!!! I was DUMBFOUNDED!
It never occurred to me or I never imagined that a male could be beaten by the weaker sex in any game or competition. THAT WAS REALLY SOMETHING NEW, AN EYE-OPENER FOR ME. Suddenly I became interested in CHESS. It offered something I was ignorant of or did not know anything about. It was a "fair" (as in "JUST" as in justice) affair!
I remember very well, the girl, SMF, went home early & was fetched by her family car, a TOYOTA sedan... I watched with "sad longing" her departure... I don't know if as a budding young MAN (developing glands!) I had fallen in love with the smart CHINITA girl or with CHESS... & mixed up the two... That is, my pubescent crush-@-1st-sight on her became associated with the game of CHESS & my fascination shifted to the game... That fascination "never cooled" I wonder if there is a psychological principle that can explain this possible transference/shift...
But from that moment on I was "possessed" by the CHESS FEVER...

THE FASCINATION WITH CHESS stayed with me until I graduated from secondary school (ADEMU) & entered college (UPD). I began to devour anything & everything I saw about CHESS - books, magazines, pictures, etc. I borrowed all the chess books in our high school library:
Znosko-Borovsky's Art of Combination, New York 1924, Botvinnik, etc.
Even bought NBS Reinfeld How to Win Chess Games Quickly (BUT COULD NOT DO IT! HAR!)
I read the articles in the Philippine Panorama(?) magazine, solved puzzles of Bulletin Today...
I imbibed myself with chess trivia. Memorized faces, names of chess personalities & openings...
But note that I did not really play chess competitively... I was just obsessed with CHESS as an object of interest in/of/with its own intrinsic nature... even minus the human factor...
Of course I was also awed by the "masters"... Anything CHECKERED always caught my eye/attention... I was hypnotized everytime I saw checkered patterns of floor/bathroom tiles, bedcovers/tablecloth, etc...
In 4th year HS I joined the chess club & began to PLAY...
CHESS always held a special place in my mind...

It was about the/this (same) time that MATH also caught my ATTENTION (Via GEOMETRY)... I need mention that I was also learning MUSIC (piano-playiing)... CHESS, MUSIC, MATH...

TO BE CONTINUED