Intro
Here I’ll share some practical ideas I’ve came upon from playing in chess tournaments over the years. While these ideas came to me from chess, this isn’t a post about the game itself. It’s about life, and how the same principles can be applied to make it better.
To get the most out of this post, you should probably know at least the basic rules of chess (i.e., how the pieces move). I’ve tried to make it possible to follow along without much more knowledge than that. If you don’t understand how chess is played, you might want to skip this post.
Offense is the best defense
Chess:
This is a broader rule of strategy and it’s especially true in chess. If you are being defensive, too afraid of losing, the best you can hope for is a draw. And that’s if you are lucky and the opponent is equally timid.
There’s a saying in chess that the best way to play for a draw is to play for a win. In this sense, truly, offense is the best defense. If your opponent is too busy defending, he is typically not gonna have the resources to launch an attack at the same time.
Real Life:
Of course in real life offense is not endorsed. What we want is a metaphorical kind of offense. Something with the same energy, a proactive approach.
You don’t want to be defensive in life, to just respond to what’s thrown at you. The best you can hope for is the equivalent of a chess draw — mediocrity. And that’s being optimistic.
Don’t wait for the opportunities to come knocking at your door. Seek them out, create them. Take initiative. Help someone in need, even if they didn’t ask. Go the extra mile.
Dynamic Vs Static Advantages
Chess:
There are two types of advantages in chess: static and dynamic.
Static advantages are long-term, concrete, and measurable — for example, having more pieces than your opponent (a material advantage).
Dynamic advantages, on the other hand, are temporary, abstract, and harder to measure. A dynamic advantage might involve having better piece activity or superior piece placement.
Dynamic advantages often come with static disadvantages. For example, it’s common to have fewer pieces than your opponent but to have them placed in more effective positions.
In my experience, it’s easier to convert static advantages into wins. Even after a small inaccuracy, a static advantage tends to remain. In contrast, a dynamic advantage can disappear in a moment, often without you even realizing it.
At first glance, you might think static advantages are superior. Yet modern chess engines have shown time and again that this isn’t actually true. In the right hands, dynamism has tremendous power. Machines often prefer positions where they’re down several pawns, a knight, a rook, or even a queen. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how many pieces you have or how powerful they look. What matters is trapping the opponent’s king.
And incidentally, winning dynamically is the most satisfying way to win in chess.
Real life:
In life too there’s the static and the dynamic.
Consider this example. You are running a business and are given two choices. You can get one million dollars in 10 years, or fifty thousand dollars in your hands right now. Which would you choose?
By choosing the fifty thousand, you can put it to good use right now, and potentially have way more than a million in 10 years. Conversely if you choose the million, your business might not even survive long enough to receive it.
It’s not just about quantity. It’s also about timing and context. Just like in chess: having the right piece in the right place and the right time makes the difference between victory and defeat.
Practicality is just as important as objectivity
Chess:
The objective evaluation of a position (i.e., how the best AI evaluates it) matters little if you don’t understand why it’s evaluated that way. Likewise, it doesn’t matter much if you don’t have time to figure out the complications. Even if a position is objectively good for you, it doesn’t make much difference if you fail to follow up correctly.
A factor to always keep in mind is practicality: how easy the position is for you, and how difficult it is for your opponent. You can often get away with lost positions if they’re practical enough. Additionally, if a position is easy for you to play, you’re more likely to find the best moves quickly and build a time advantage.
Too often, players go for the most “objective” openings, the ones endorsed by engines. Yet doing so can be suboptimal, as good opponents will be well prepared for them. It can be far more effective to choose a less popular (and slightly less objective) opening, as long as it isn’t too speculative. The element of surprise should never be underestimated.
Real life:
In life, the “objective” represents the ideal — the thing we should be doing. Think of the perfect diet: zero indulgences, no pizza or burgers. Or the perfect fitness habit: exercising for 8+ hours a week.
In practice It doesn’t have to be exactly like that. Doing 3–5 hours of exercise a week is much easier to maintain. It takes less willpower, and willpower is a limited resource. Plus, it’s still better than nothing. In other words, it’s more practical for most people.
In chess, you don’t need to play a flawless game to win. You don’t even need to make fewer mistakes than your opponent: you just need to let them make the final mistake. Life works the same way.
So don’t do what you should be doing, do what actually works for you, in practice.
Calculation
Chess:
One of the most important skills in chess is the ability to calculate variations. This is where there’s a huge gap between humans and machines. AI can calculate thousands of variations in a matter of seconds, something no human could ever hope to compete with.
Calculation is basically running a simulation in your head. Using logic, you try to predict what your opponent will do if you play a certain move. Then you find a move for yourself, and then for your opponent again. This can go 10+ moves deep in grandmaster play, but for amateurs, it usually stops at 3–6 moves.
Real Life:
Running mental simulations can be helpful in countless scenarios outside of chess. For instance, when choosing between two different options. Based on the data you have, you mentally simulate what will happen if you choose option A, then do the same for Option B. Finally, you compare the results and make your decision.
It’s like running a mini AB test in your head. It’s not the same as running an actual AB test, but it’s way faster to implement.
Of course, this isn’t always accurate, and you shouldn’t make your decisions solely based on such predictions. Yet it’s still an extremely valuable tool. This is because it makes you think empathetically. It makes you put yourself in other peoples shoes, and try to see things from their perspective.
For example, when thinking of topics for this blog, I might ask myself: How will people receive this? Does this offer value to readers? How would I feel about it if I were one of them? I try to predict the future consequences if I go forward with a particular action.
By asking such questions, I reject a lot of ideas that initially might seem appealing, but on second thought aren’t that great. I also might find I haven’t given some ideas the weight they deserve.
Confidence is crucial
Chess:
In chess, it’s not enough to be skilled, studied, or talented. None of it counts if you don’t have the right mindset.
Some players are naturally more confident than others, and this alone is an advantage on the board.
There’s a phenomenon in chess known as the Magnus Effect (named, of course, after Magnus Carlsen). It explains why Carlsen wins so many games from equal or even inferior positions. His opponents often make uncharacteristic mistakes they wouldn’t make against anyone else. There is a certain respect towards him, like he sees something they don’t. It’s as if people refuse to believe they have a good position against him, play too cautiously, and eventually lose.
There’s real power in confidence. If you keep a straight face, you can sometimes get away with mistakes that would otherwise be fatal. Seeing you calm and unconcerned, your opponent might not even suspect something is wrong, and not even look for the punishment. (It’s similar to poker: the value of a good poker face.)
To perform well, you must have confidence, even if it borders on arrogance. It’s better to slightly overestimate your chances than to underestimate them.
Real life:
In life, too, confidence is crucial. If you don’t believe you can achieve your goals, there’s a 0% chance you will.
But how does one gain confidence?
Confidence naturally comes from results. It’s hard not to be confident when you’re the best player in the world by rating and statistics. The challenge, of course, is getting those results in the first place.
In such a case it might be helpful to start with easier goals, to show yourself that you can do it. Getting a few early wins can build the momentum necessary to tackle harder challenges later.
Intuition isn’t everything (but it’s still extremely useful)
Chess:
Intuition is having a feel for the position. It’s something that’s gained with experience and pattern recognition. In the case of top players it’s something to marvel at. It’s very common to see a top player find the best move in a matter of seconds, even in extremely complicated positions. It almost looks as if they don’t have to think, as if they look at the board and just know what to play. Very often, their intuition is correct.
Not always, though. In chess, there are times when everything seems to be in your favor, and yet after a closer look (and some calculation), you realize you have nothing. This is why you can’t rely solely on intuition. If it fails even the best players, how likely is it not to fail you or me?
But let’s not disregard it for not being 100% bulletproof.
Consider a scenario where you have no time to calculate and need to make a move fast. Your options are:
a) rely on your intuition, or
b) run out of time and lose.
Of course, you’ll go with intuition in that case.
Intuition plays a crucial role in that it helps you find candidate moves. In other words, it helps you choose which moves to calculate. If you didn’t do that, and you tried to calculate every possible move, you would sooner go insane. There are roughly 10⁴³ possible legal positions that can arise from the starting position of chess. That is a BIG number.
Intuition is like an advisor giving you important, yet incomplete, information. Combine it with good calculation, and you can make really solid decisions.
Real Life:
Intuition plays a quite similar role in life. It can help draw your attention to things that are potentially good. For example, imagine you’re interviewing people for a job. Your intuition might guide you — but just as in chess (and even more so in such a case), you probably shouldn’t make the decision solely on intuition. You might for example single out a few candidates based on intuition, and then take a closer look in order to decide which one to hire.
Intuition becomes more relevant the lower the stakes are. In low stakes situations, it’s pretty safe to make decisions based purely on it. For example, when deciding on an outfit for your Friday outing.
Yet, I believe it can be useful even when the stakes are higher, as long as you have the right approach towards it. As long as you don’t make the whole decision purely off of it, but rather use it as a guide. As long as you recognize its limitations, and complement them with more concrete methods.
Quality Vs quantity
Chess:
How do you evaluate if a piece is good or not? Principles will tell you a good piece is an active piece: it might be centrally placed and covering a lot of key squares. Notice I said number of squares, meaning quantity.
While this is a good principle to follow, it’s not always true.
There are countless of examples where a player has a seemingly amazing knight that, in reality, is not doing anything. It sits in the center of the board, well supported by pawns, and impossible to dislodge, yet it contributes nothing. The opponent simply plays around it, avoiding the squares it controls.
Or imagine this: a very active bishop cutting across the board, “sniping” through the opponent’s position — yet hitting thin air. The opponent places all their pieces on squares of the opposite color, and suddenly that bishop is useless. It doesn’t matter how many squares it controls if nothing ever steps on them.
Now picture a different situation: a knight retreating to the most passive square imaginable, tucked away on the back rank, covering only one square. Yet by guarding that single square, it prevents checkmate. That one turn of safety buys enough time to organize a counterattack — and you eventually win. That humble knight is the real MVP.
Such passive moves are counterintuitive. They’re the exception, not the rule. But that’s also why they’re so powerful. They’re hard to find for you, and even harder for your opponent to anticipate. Spot one, and you might turn the tables. Miss it, and you might miss a golden opportunity.
Real Life:
There are probably a million real-life examples where this concept applies. Here is one:
In urban design, engineers often have a bias toward efficiency. They become too fixated on numbers: square meters of housing, square meters of parking, and so on. They try to exploit every inch of land available. But in doing so, they often neglect the quality of what they create.
They might propose replacing a charming older building with a larger high-rise apartment block. On paper, it’s a win: more square footage, more capacity, more “efficiency.” But by demolishing the old building, they lose something essential. The quality of the place deteriorates. It feels less friendly, less inviting. People become less happy living there. The neighborhood loses its history and its diversity, it becomes just another cluster of concrete towers.
And beyond the numbers, think of the human cost, the people displaced from the old, beautiful building that once felt like home.
Outro
Chess is nowhere near as complex as real life is. Perhaps it’s that reduced complexity that makes such patterns and concepts easier to identify. Even so, one thing is for certain: its depth has not ceased to fascinate people for centuries — and that’s not going to change anytime soon.
if I made you even slightly more interested in exploring the fascinating world of chess, I will consider this post a success. And who knows: maybe you’ll find a parallel I failed to mention here.
