Hello again, everyone!

After a few posts that were either informational or entertaining, I decided to share some personal experiences with you guys again. The reason for this decision was that if this is my blog, it should also be about me, right? So, from time to time, it is good to go back to the roots and tell my readers more intimate (but not too much) things.

Inspired by the great blogs of my friends @PokeGirl93 (The Best Chess Stories I Have To Share) and @JustGettingThisOffMyChess (My Road to GM: Growth Mindset), I thought it would be nice to share with you some of the impacts this beautiful game has had on my life and how it has shaped who I am today.

We all know that chess can have many benefits in our lives, such as concentration, resilience, decision-making, etc. But the main idea now is to give you some practical examples of when it has made a concrete difference to the way things have gone. After all, a game that is capable of changing the history of the world (The Butterfly Effect: How Chess Has Changed History) can certainly change the life of someone so insignificant, too.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Grandfather-Granddaughter Relationship

2. Breaking The Language Barrier

3. A Career Path

4. Unforgettable Friendships

5. A New Place To Call Home

6. Conclusion

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1. Grandfather-Granddaughter Relationship

Let's start with what many of you already know, especially the older readers, but which I cannot fail to mention. For those who are not aware of it, I learned chess from my grandfather when I was seven years old.

We never lived in the same city; I grew up in Auckland since I was born, while he lived with my grandmother in Dunedin, which is on the South Island of New Zealand. If you open the map to check, you'll see that they're practically at opposite ends of the country (OK, it's not that big a country, but still).

So, naturally, although I flew there with my parents every year to visit them, our relationship wasn't the closest, at least not compared to my other grandparents who lived in the Auckland metropolitan area and with whom I had contact at least three times a month.

I also have to admit that little Vanessa found them a bit boring and unfunny. They are about 10 years older than their maternal counterparts, so they obviously had less energy for my childish antics. In my mind, I couldn't understand why Grandad [No, I won't say his name] got tired so much quicker than Grandad [Won't say, either].

Then he had the brilliant (and I'm not being ironic) idea of teaching me chess. From then on, everything changed. I really liked the game and started to enjoy spending time with him a lot more. I would ask my parents to spend almost every school and bank holiday there, counting down the days until it arrived. I even used to practice chess on my own to try and beat his ingenious moves and tactics.

He was also the one who gave me my first chessboard, which was made by hand with household tools, and encouraged me to play in my first tournament at the age of 9, where I finished with the silver medal.

Therefore, it is safe to say that chess was primarily responsible for bringing me closer to a member of my family and for establishing a great relationship with my grandfather, which has lasted to this day. Today, due to my job and this busy adult life, I cannot visit him as often as I would like, but I still try to do so as regularly as possible, even though we do not play chess so much anymore, preferring other activities.

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2. Breaking The Language Barrier

Many of you also know that I have lived in different countries when I was younger. Among them were Germany, in the city of Wolfsburg, and Spain, more specifically Las Palmas, the capital of the Canary Islands, an archipelago off the coast of Africa. There is another one, but that will get its own section later.

Anyway, as you can imagine, one of the biggest difficulties I had on disembarking in both places was the language. Although I had tried my best to learn German and Spanish before I moved, my level of fluency was far from perfect when I arrived. And then there is the obvious question when you cannot speak their words properly: How am I going to make friends now?

Of course, I am sure you have already guessed the answer. I had to find a way to socialize without talking too much to anyone. Chess was one of the most important factors in getting to know new people, by visiting clubs and playing with them to feel part of the community, even if it took me months to understand the correct pronunciation of Türm (Rook in German) or Caballo (Knight in Spanish).

Other sports also helped me to integrate better, but let's concentrate on chess here. The two main places I went to were the Schachclub Wolfsburg e.V. in Germany and the Club De Ajedrez Fundación La Caja in Spain. I have to admit that the latter was not visited as often as I would have liked because it was not so close to my home. Also, the weather in the islands was much better than in Germany, so I had other outdoor activities to do. Nevertheless, they were both very important, and I remember them with great affection.

The most interesting thing was to realize that I was not the only one there who used these places for similar purposes. In Germany, there was a blind man who played with us and the chess club was where he felt among his peers without any prejudice. In Spain, some of the friends I made there were also foreigners, still struggling with the language, who had the same idea as me.

It is impossible to know what practical consequences this has had for my life today, but at least I can say that without chess to save my social relationships, those years would have been much harder.

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3. A Career Path

This is another thing I have already mentioned before in my blogs, specifically in The Hidden Links Between Chess And Aviation, but I don't mind telling it again. In summary, when I returned to New Zealand after my internship in Germany, my next goal was to find new opportunities to grow professionally and learn different things before I finished my studies.

I then discovered by chance that one of my professors also liked chess. It all started one day when I didn't understand a single thing he was explaining and had to go to the professor's lounge later to ask for further clarification.

That was when I saw he had a chessboard on his desk and we started talking about it. The funniest thing is that I even forgot to do the questions I wanted about the class, and ended up with a bad grade in the test. Anyway, I recovered later.

The important thing here is that he used to organize some friendly matches in the library, and I started going there sporadically to play against him and some other students. I had no idea about it before because it was usually when I was off campus. After a while, it was natural for us to talk more about my plans and my search for a new job or internship.

Fortunately, he had some contacts who could help and recommended me for a project in the ATC department at Auckland Airport. While it's impossible to know how much of a difference this made or what would have happened without him, it's also true that reality is what it is. Without his guidance and support, I would probably not have even known about the opportunity to apply.

Unlike the first two occasions, chess did not play the main role here, but it was still the key factor that led me to have more contact and a stronger bond with someone who shared a common hobby. And of course, I don't think he casually recommends every single one of his students to people he knows in the job market, right?

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4. Unforgettable Friendships

Now let's talk about the other time I lived abroad, where chess played an even more important role! Of course, everything I have said above about breaking the language barrier in Germany and Spain would also apply to Brazil, but I have decided to devote a separate and special section to this country because I believe there are more interesting things to tell.

I say this because, in Brazil, it was not only the social help that chess gave, but actually much more than that. It was there that I met the most passionate people for the game that I have ever seen.

Although they were all amateurs, many of my colleagues at Pampulha Airport (IATA: PLU, ICAO: SBBH) loved the game so much that they organized monthly competitions between the staff and knew incredible details about chess history, players, famous games and tournaments, styles, and much more.

Thanks to these friends, my passion for the game was fully rekindled. I started playing with them almost every day after work, following international games and competitions, and trying to improve my own skills, since at that time I was just a 900 player who knew the basics and a few dirty tricks.

I also became aware of the most important players in history. Before that, I knew only the very famous like Fischer or Kasparov, but names like Capablanca, Lasker, Petrosian, Tal, etc. were completely unknown to me.

Our bond became even stronger when, in September 2018, just a few months before I would return home, we watched together the games of the Brazilian team at the 43rd Chess Olympiad. Brazil's performance was not the best, but it was fun to watch. Somehow, I wanted to enjoy these moments with them as much as possible, knowing that very soon we would be on opposite sides of the Pacific Ocean again.

It sounds a bit contradictory because, in this section, I talked more about how the friends I made there helped me to develop my passion for the game, and not the other way around, which is the topic of this blog. But anyway, all this happened only because chess played an important role on top of their lives and was the main bridge to connect us. So, my love for chess helped me to get to know people who helped me to love chess even more. Did I make any sense?

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5. A New Place To Call Home

As the last remarkable episode, I would like to tell you that the house in which I now live, the address of which I will obviously not reveal, was purchased only because I saw this opportunity thanks to chess. But how? Ok, I have to admit that this is perhaps the weakest link in this blog, but it is still interesting, so I thought it was worth mentioning.

The explanation is quite simple. After returning from Brazil, I started looking for a new place to live. At that time, I was still living with my parents and bothering them every day with my annoyances (just kidding, they love me).

However, their house is quite far from the airport and I needed to find something closer to my job so that I could spend less time commuting every day. For some time, the search was arduous but fruitless. Until one very special day when a friend invited me to her house for dinner.

I went, and on the way, I had to walk through a park. In this park I saw a group of 3 people playing chess on a table. I mean, only two of them were playing. The other one was watching, I hope you got it. As I was in no hurry, and was even about to arrive at my friend's before the agreed time, I decided to approach them discreetly and watch.

I may be small, but they noticed my presence, so we started to talk and I played a few blitz games with them. They were terrible, I felt like Judit Polgár. Anyway, during the conversation someone suddenly mentioned a house that was available in the area, just a few streets away. Coincidence or not, it was very close to a metro station from which I could take a train direct to the airport, so it immediately caught my attention.

I went there, looked at the sign, saved the number and email on my phone, and contacted the real estate agent the next day. The rest went well and, less than two months later, I was living there.

As I said, the influence of chess was not so strong in this case, but still, if it hadn't been for my passion for the game, I would never have approached or spoken to these people, nor heard of the house they mentioned, and consequently probably never found it.

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6. Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed reading the blog. This article was a bit simpler and shorter than usual, but I still thought it was important and nice to write. Of course, I could have mentioned many other situations, especially regarding my blogging activities on Chess.com, the bonus on my salary that I mentioned a few months ago, and many more.

However, I think the most important thing was to tell more about how this beautiful game, and sports in general, can really help people with social inclusion, strengthening relationships, building communities, and many other benefits.

That is why I am grateful to chess and to my grandfather for teaching it to me. Not only because it helped me to exercise my brain, open my mind, or improve my concentration, but also because it has had a huge influence on my life and my personality.

Please let me know in the comments if you have any similar stories to share and how you think your life would be different if it weren't for your passion for the game. Just please avoid "I wouldn't know you, Vanessa", because honestly, that's not the intention here.

Thank you, and see you again on 15 April!