My chess story is one of failure. The game is all about losing. You can do so much to survive. But you still lose. And as a child, I quit playing almost as soon as I learned to move the pieces because the game is just failure and mistake and blunder after blunder after blunder..it is literal torture..imagine the thoughts and feelings of the poor pieces, helplessly moved square to square to perpetuate my misery. So I quit..for probably 10 years..and life was great..I was top of my high school class, lot’s of friends and strong relationships, hard worker etc..trying to aim myself to quick college journey and off to make millions…but college taught me to fail again..and then I spiraled down and started to double down on those failures..playing chess again..all hours of the day and night..just misery of me vs stockfish..i continued to justify my addiction by learning gambits to use against friends at the bar..and then the online arenas started to be more accessible..so my addiction 10x’d since I could just sit on my phone all day long and crush noobs and not make any progress..years pass..still doing that — after I flunked my final college class, I hastily got out of dodge and moved across the country and found mediocre jobs where I could meet the duties while playing chess in the background..this led to my first real opportunity..a real Chess Club in my city needed a real Coach for their youth program and I rose to the task..and WOW that felt great..I quit my mediocre jobs and focused on becoming a Youth Coach..but the thing is..only 10 hours per week..could never pay the bills..and lo and behold..the debts accumulated..my stress piled up..and slowly but surely over the next 5 years..i began to hate the failure sport…seeing students upset..seeing students bored in the library after school when they could instead be playing tag outside..seeing students cry because they aren’t getting it as well as the top performers were..and it made me feel like a child leading other children..so I had to stop feeling that way..and now I am back at a mediocre job..play chess on my phone whenever I can..and lose ALOT..more than half the time at least…and all I can say is..Chess is an addiction..QUIT while you still can… — Coach Chad, Austin TX
Coffee for Dessert 