Enjoyed this - a lot resonated. I’ve become interested in chess in the past few months (nothing crazy - just going from “knowing the rules and not being 4-move checkmated” to “above the 50th percentile on Lichess”).<p>A good move in chess is _elegant_. It’s impressive when you’re playing a game and have to give your opponent credit for trapping you in a way that you didn’t see coming. Conversely, there is no better feeling than when your opponent makes a move you _knew_ they would make, and you have a better move to counter.
I started playing whence I was about 15 years old, taught by my childhood-neighbor friend. After playing for about 4-5 years, we drifted our ways. Unfortunately, he passed away around turn of this century. I picked up playing again but mostly against computers, and very rarely against physical people in the real world.<p>Registered on Chess.com in 2007, never did not really pick it up until few years ago.<p>I still do not play or learn to play the right ways (tactics, opening, checkmating, etc). Mine is most brute-force and pattern recognition. I'd love to learn and be able to keep up.