To peruse: Alekhine

https://matthewsadler.me.uk/lessons-from-the-masters/analysing-alekhine/

Omg. His website is such a goldmine. I'm so glad I came across him, I really am. Heh. I was losing faith in almost all chess folks but here is a man after my own heart tbh. Interested in knowledge and how things work and not looking to be petty or mean lol. I never realised I'd have to actually define that out loud, but here we are. 

Sometimes when you feel jaded with the world, it's nice to know there are souls out there who live their lives in an honorable way. It means a lot to me, and lately even more I guess. 

Only in the darkness do you appreciate light I suppose. How dramatic of me, eh? :D Well, a more tempered articulation might be nicer... Let me see... A dusty room needs a broom? Idk...something. Buuut... I digress.

"As soon as I sit down at the board, all those old competitive feelings flood back and the bad games hurt just as much as they did before!"

Heh. Yeah. This is so true. I never found chess as a kid and I'm glad I didn't tbh. I cannot imagine how much it would consume me. Or simply destroy me. Plus there's a lot more to life which people should experience, I've firmly believed that. Esp when you are young. You don't want to be old and one day realise all you did was play a game. I don't think it's bad, but when I see a lot of these chess guys it just makes me sad cuz it feels like all they can value is some hypothetical rating and I mean... Hmmm. I think none of them reach a tempered view of things. To understand that a thing can be important without your entire self worth hinging on it. 

When I first started playing it was simply cuz I was using it as a tool to get rid of my fear of failure. A fear that had controlled my life for as long as I could remember. Vestiges of an insane upbringing that was so achievement focused. But maybe it wasn't even that...sometimes I think so much of my inner world was completely neglected in favour of things I could do... that somewhere I felt like not being good at something is the end of the world. Holy fuck dude. And it was so tough to battle that to be honest. Took 20k bullet games to temper it. Which is not to say that losses don't hurt they fucking do. Part of why I don't play rapid cuz I haaaate it still fuck. Just that one mistake you make and you want to throw everything at the wall, turn up the table and cry, vent, whine all cuz you can't turn back time and stop yourself from making that mistake. Why can't you turn back time? Ugh. 

And it's true. I don't play rapid cuz it's so stressful. I hate to lose, I hate making mistakes and I know I have to battle this soon enough but by godsss I don't want to lmfao. 

The beauty of chess to me lies in not just sequences that are harmonious, it's the precision of the game that makes me wet. I think it's the same reason I like intricate art, geometric art and MC Escher. Every line has to be just so, every perspective just right, every shade, colour, texture has to be precise. And spill a tiny drop of ink and that perfection is ruined. 

But then again, it's just a perspective and it need not be absolute. That's something I learnt quite late in life. There should not be absolutes, cuz you never know enough. Quaint.