I used to play chess as though I had infinite time. I would prefer to trade pieces, chip away the board until the opponent was entirely stripped of everything except a king and maybe a few pawns. And then I would close in and checkmate.
Yet, chess tactical puzzles taught me that I had been ignoring more direct approaches to the goal. You can checkmate far earlier, and there's a beauty to nailing down the king with a board so full of pieces. It's like you didn't waste your time bumbling about, but you dove right to the solution.
It reminds me of Ender tunneling to the end goal in Ender's Game, strictly adhering to the bare minimum of the rules to win.
Just go for the true target, and never lose focus on that. Nail that down.
This mentality applies to so many things in life - shooting for the true pursuit, and not letting distractions make you aimlessly move about. In my software engineering work, I could do so many things to further analyze an experiment, to try new features, to implement new things - but which of those are truly in pursuit of the main goal?
All steps should clearly be taken in pursuit of the main goal.
--
color complexes are also elegant - seeing the pattern of colored squares that are weak in the enemy, and exploiting that weakness. advancing your queen to a protected spot to further take control of a territory feels so satisfying.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please be considerate in what you say.