Bringing Chess Skills into Real Life

Hi guys, I've been playing chess since elementary school and I'm new here.

Just thinking of sharing what I've learned from playing chess or any tactical games: You can bring it into real life!

Yeah, we all heard about how brainy games improve our intellect, we just never really figure out HOW.

The key is in how we perceive which factors are in play

for example, when you got yelled at something, our natural response could be one of irritation, anger, or intimidated. But, if we override our limbic brain that causes these reactions and carefully examine the situation, we can always look for something that our chess skills could be of merits.

Consider these: the situation, what he/she says and what he/she ACTUALLY wants things to be, and other variables. First of all, we should consider our materials, what we are capable to do, and how we wants things to be depended on the situation(whether to continue what we're doing, plan to do it later, or dismiss it.

Try it, you'll be surprised how this affects your relationships with people. If you don't want to feel anger, irritation, etc., simple, just treat the situation as a chess game. The difference is that you can choose whether you want to win, draw, or lose

Good luck!

You must not let your opponent know how you feel.  -  Alexander Kotov

No, you are absolutely wrong on this matter. You are trying to connect things that have no connection.

Chess doesn't teach you psychology or improve your EQ. Nor chess will give you more success in social life. It is quite the contrary.

If your Boss yelled at you because your job was not completed on time (because you played too much chess), or if your wife complained at you for playing too much chess, and you tried to defend yourself by implementing a thought process or strategy the way you handle your chess pieces (as if you are being in check), may be you should consider a zwischenzug!

Seriously, if we don't know which skill that will work best in chess (to improve our rating), same thing is true in life. What we think is a good move can be just tactics without strategy, which is a noise before defeat.

What is this?

The OP talked about anger management. When somebody yells at you, if you don't want to feel anger, irritation, etc., simple, just treat the situation as a chess game.

Don't you think that this is an irony? Chess players incidentally have low EQ (Emotional Quotient). Look at the best chess players out there. Look at the massive use of chess engine to cheat. Of course, you can bring your skill in chess to cheat without being accused into your life.

Some sports teach you sportmanship, dignity and even heroism.

Art martial is a good analogy to chess, where both are about fighting each other. But art martial brings better things to the life of the practitioner than chess.

Umm, yeah. I didn't mention you should learn some psychology skills first. What I meant was the thinking mode. You can't do castling in real life you know

Ah, first it's not just anger management. The application is limited only to your imagination

We should not buy into other's labels folks. Think for yourself. You weren't born knowing how to play chess, just as you weren't born being social savvy. I've learned both, and both  provide a lot of things that could be applied to one another

Since this is a chess forum, I think you guys would like these of Pavlina's articles:

What if You Have Many Different Interest and Cannot Commit to Any of Them

How Your Mind Really Works

free.your.mind

This is actually the hallmark of a genius, you know

Everything the mind can conceive, it can achieve.

I know you didn't see the connections yet because I didn't provide much pointer to the connections. So much the words can deliver!

Ok, One skill I give you:

Most of the time people never really meant what they say. When someone ask you a question, "Why did you do this!?" He/she may not care at what your answers are(unless it's somewhat touching their heart, like it's because your family member is diseased or something), if you answer "because ..." which is unacceptable to them, you'll still get yelled. So, instead of letting your brain process the question, you shift your attention to how you could make things better. Perhaps by saying "I'm sorry" and simply take the garbage out immediately. It seems simple when I say this, but the mechanism is waaaaaay more complicated to be explained, not to mention the building blocks of the assumptions provided herein.

One thing for sure if you want to succeed at anything:

Practice! Learn! Do it Every Bloody Day!

Oh yeah, please don't turn this into a debate, I came with a warm atmosphere and I would like it to remain so(well, it's not like you can make me angry or anything )

You must not let your opponent know how you feel.  -  Alexander Kotov

Hehehe of course I know about psychology. But your topic was "Bringing Chess Skills Into Real Life".

May be what you meant was "Bringing Life Skill Into Chess". That will be more appropriate.

Wow, I fail to notice where is the difference. Sorry, it's 2nd language here.

It's off topic, but can you explain the grammatical background of the sentences? Your sentence, "Bringing Life Skill into Chess" spoke to me like this:

First you have life skills(whatever the definition is for you), and there is chess, then you use your life skills to improve your chess game, or so it seems.

For mine, I think you get the point. Thanks for correcting me though.

Bringing chess skills into real life makes perfect sense.  Chess helps one to look at the whole board (your life), analyze situations, conditions, how to create situations that lead to less drama for yourself... I think others in this thread are just not getting what the OP is saying.

Hehehe never mind, I was just seeing the irony there. Of course I understand what you meant. There is nothing wrong for example to approach life by the way you approach a drama, if you were an actor.

You don't need to be worry of any problems you experience in the movie, because it is just a plot by the film director. You just need to do what you have to do, and get a good payment at the end. That's how you should live your life.

So you have learnt from playing chess or any tactical games something that you can implement in real life situation. And you have the key to share to us on HOW it can be transformed successfully.

The fact is even the best chess players can not "learnt" anything from chess. Many have problem with their marriage life. This is because chess players are introvert people. They are busy with their own mind. They shake hand, sit for hours, then shake hand and leave. Do a test, more than 80% will be Introvert not Extrovert.

Isn't it funny if we don't have chess skill but have to teach these great chess players how to live their life, by means of chess skills?

C'mon, Robert James Fischer, don't be stupid, you have to apply your chess skill into your life. Don't overreact, evaluate the position first, look for imbalances...

The truth is, people approach chess the way they approach their life. Chess is good for individualistic people. Those people whose success should be independent of others. In chess, if you're good, you will be number one, even if the tournament director doesn't like you.

To certain extent, your personality can be seen from the way you play your game. Now, can you change your personality by training with chess? For example, you are a pessimistic person, don't like to take risk, can we change it by playing like Kasparov for a year?

Oh yeah, let's turn our otherwise friendly, dynamic relationships into tightly wound arguments over little nothings. I just can't wait.

Don't give me that yap about "learning fundamental psychological elements first" either; trying to apply super rigid rules into your social behavior is - EQ-wise - simply retarded, furthermore it points out exactly how narrow your psychological horizons are.

I believe that chess is largely self-referential. What that means is that the things you do to play better chess mainly help you just in chess and not anywhere else.  I used words like largely and mainly because I still believe there are possibilities for exceptions. For example, just as it has been proven that video games (simulators) improve one's reaction time in the real world, so can chess develop/enhance reasoning, memory and strategic activities because you use them so much.  

One brings things from themselves and from outside to chess and that helps them improve their chess skills.  Things like one's desire to solve problems, their individual approach to conflict (either direct or roundabout), and other skill sets and inate abilities, personality, etc... I don't beliveve that these are gotten through the game.

I have heard of coaches who want to sign up an entire grade school class for chess lessons using arguments like:  "well, it helps them build real life skills, etc". But the ones that stick to the game are the ones that are naturally drawn to it.  They find something they enjoy so much that they stay with it maybe even to the point of obsession.  Which can be true for any of the other activities and sports that are introduced to children.  Should we say then that we should not introduce all kids to chess?  Absolutely not.  We should continue to introduce all these games and sports to all the kids so that they can be exposed to the different possibilities and find out where their interests are.  We should not, however, use a disingenous argument to do so.  We should rather call chess for what it is:  a very interesting game played by lots of people for many different reasons that maybe can help develop the "brain muscle" a bit.

As a side note, the most important move that the chess coach can teach is how to lose AND win graciously.  And that's something that is an extremely beneficial skill that you will use all your life in all other endeavors.

Let's stop right here. Your tone indicates you are 100% sure of the truth. Are you?

I teach chess and write for a living. I decided to write a mystery novel because I had a publisher will to put it out. The main character plays chess and uses the tactical and stragegic principles to resolve the case. There is a great deal of detail throughout the story and I could never have pulled it off if I didn't play chess.

Okay, let me get this clear, I don't write this to any of you(aside from the fact that I stated I want to share something in the first place), I write this for myself.

In fact, whatever you wrote, you write it for yourself. Of course what you expect is not learning anything, you expect something else, and that something depends on whatever information you already have.

I cannot help you if you don't let you help yourself(not that I want to help you in any way)

Funny(not really), none of you asked any questions, did you?

You(not all of you. perhaps some of you is wondering but not expressing it, I dunno) must(maybe) think you already know it all, perhaps. What leads you here is not because you want to learn something, but to spit what you "learned" and satisfy some aspects of yourself.

I know(not really. perhaps not) you just browse mindlessly for some interesting threads, drop by in one of them, and write down whatever thoughts popping into your head. You call that thinking? Sorry...(this is NOT an insult)

Do you get it? If you respond to this, then you're affected by what I just wrote, if You don't, you're still affected in that you don't(might not) want others or myself know that you even read these words. If we're now "fighting" whether any of us is "right", then you're definitely going to lose no matter what. Checkmate!

Okay, sorry.

Back on THE REAL topic, whatever I say(read:write) is only information. Symbols! Example: The visual symbol "S" in and of itself has no meaning. But our ancestors wrote it, gave a meaning to it, and the meaning is passed from generations to generations until you were born, your mom/dad taught you alphabet, and they say syllable "essss" while giving you the visual symbol of "S". You, if your brain is not damaged, linked both stimuli and drew conclusion that "esss" means "S".

If I say S is a snake, would you agree? I doubt it.

It's already a pain in the ass understanding these words, bukankah begitu?

Oh, maaf, bisakah anda berbicara bahasa Indonesia?

Watashi wa Ari desu. Anata wa baka desu. gomen ne.

(Never mind those words, they have no meaning for you anyway)

How do you expect you could understand the meaning behind the word's meaning?

You can't, writers know this. They don't expect the reader to fully grasp what they actually mean. In their mind they might see REAL Pearls, Beauty, Flashes of Light floating in the Oceanic Sea of Wonders, stuffs that will keep you in euphoria for days, yet in the reader's mind what projected could be just some sort of blurry lights or something.

This thread is some sort of experiment, honestly. Neither I pull any punches, nor can any of you punch me.

Now, since EVERYTHING is subject to interpretations, let me give you some possible conclusions you could come up with by reading what I just said:

1.I am nuts. A crazy freaked out paranoid asshole that believes nothing is true.

2.I want to show off about what I know in psychology, languages, philosophy, brain technology, chess, and mnemonics, my experiences in lucid dreams, how long I spent my time in the state of nihillistic, and how far did I do self analyzing  <-Okay, it's very improbable that you can imply this far(not saying that it's not possible)

3.I'm a big fat skinny awesome liar(no I'm not )

4.I play tricks with you

5.I'm irritated by vuspesVelox's post and some other posts(got you! )

6.I am a nice person that wants you to know the truth(whatever "truth" is)

7.All the above/combinations of these

8.Some other conclusions, I don't have all the variables you know. I'm not God.

Notice that I used the word "I" in almost every point?

Yeah, because for you, YOU ARE the center of the universe. No kidding.

Really, what "sane" person got angry just because someone else put on angry mask while voicing out loud noise to him/her? The "angry" person could just be having a bad(hair)day, or just lost a chess game, it's NOT about YOU! But of course, it's not your fault. You never know that they are not angry about you(or have they ever truly dissatisfied with you, or with themselves? I vote the latter)

In reality, perhaps these conclusions are more probable from my point of view:

1.You get angry because you just got hit by your mom, you lost your keys, you dropped out of school, etc.

2.You're deprived of sleep lately so you cannot think clearly

3.You have learned something that are RELATED(read that? RELATED) to what I wrote. (You learned psychology? Which? Here's a branch of psychology:

http://psychology.about.com/od/branchesofpsycholog1/tp/branches-of-psychology.htm)

Wait, I haven't finished number three yet: You don't(might not) think that what I wrote could be of use for you and/or it threatens what you already "know". Therefore you shut down your learning mode(growth mode) and turn on defensive mode. Possibly.

4.You just lost an important chess game and are in a bad mood. So you want to bring others down into your level.

5.You have some experience with this kind of atmosphere, and this kind of atmosphere brings back the memory of people of throwing tantrum and insults. So you expect this one to end up the same way and want to "contribute" to that end.

(What do I mean by this kind of atmosphere you ask? I can't conceive it with words. I could even write a book about it but you still don't get it)

6.All of that(If this is true, please don't kill yourself)

7.Some other conclusions, I don't have all the variables you know. I'm not God.

Think about it.

(my definition of the word "think" is most likely different than yours, so I don't expect you to.)

One last thing, I promise I won't reply to this thread anymore. I won't even read this thread anymore.(How do you "think" of that? You still have that impulse to reply, don't you? Please, by all means, express it in whatever way you prefer. Either reply, or don't. Or you can come here to Indonesia to kill me for contaminating your mind. )

I apologize for interrupting the thread, but what the heck is an "Emotional Quotient"?

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_intelligence

Something Robert James Fischer lacked of

I love this  I hope George 1st can join the fun

Go ahead. As you said, nothing can make you angry. So forget about "fighting" and such. Just enjoy the ride, we are here to have fun... Psychology matters just draw (certain) people attention.

And you have missed a lot of things there I believe, for a reason you may have no idea about. You haven't yet realized that those psychological things writen in psychology books are "rubbish".