5 Deeply Personal Similarities Between My Chess And My Substack
Stay away, psychoanalysts
I am convinced, the way one plays chess always reflects the player’s personality. If something defines his character, then it will also define his way of playing.
—GM Vladimir Kramnik, in an interview with artist Ugo Dossi, About Art, Chess, Beauty and Depth, Creativity, Telepathy and Artificial Intelligence
I love talking with chess friends about this connection between parts of our chess and our personality or the way we are in other spheres of life, thinking about various links between these two lives/areas of life—often tragic and hilarious.
1. Procrastination
Chess
Ideal time management: be pragmatic from the start, healthy pacing throughout the game, able to focus on playing good moves
Reality: burn too much time from the opening or early middlegame, leave myself with a few minutes from the middlegame, have to survive many moves on increment
Substack
Ideal writing timeline: decide on topic by Monday, brainstorm on Tuesday, outline on Wednesday, research and draft on Thursday and Friday, edit and publish on Saturday
Reality: have vague ideas about the topic through the week, brainstorm and outline haphazardly, jump between a few different post ideas on the weekend, come up with a completely new idea on Sunday at 9:15pm and start writing (e.g. this post).
2. Using time as a subconscious excuse
Chess
If I blunder because of time trouble, it doesn’t mean I’m bad at chess! It’s all because of the clock, I would have won if I wasn’t so unlucky as to fall into time trouble.
Substack
If I can’t write posts I’m happy about because I didn’t have enough time, it doesn’t mean I’m bad at writing! It’s all because of the time constraints, I would have written a post I’d be happy with if I wasn’t so unlucky as to having to write it last-minute.
3. The fear of confronting my demons
Chess
If I finally fix my time management, I can’t blame not playing well on the lack of time. It would mean there would be nowhere to hide from the numerous issues in my game!
Substack
If I’m able to work on my post in a structured way throughout the week, I can’t blame not writing well on the lack of time. It would mean there would be nowhere to hide from the numerous deficiencies in my writing!
4. Hiding behind logical moves/authoritative quotes
Chess
As an intuitive player, I’m often attracted to particular moves even though I can’t logically explain why. I’m dying to play these moves, but often, the fear of playing these moves and failing overrides that, so I play some logical, safe move instead and lose my equilibrium from the fact that I, again, couldn’t believe in myself.
Substack
As someone who has to somewhat rely on feelings of genuine interest/curiosity to feel motivated to write about something, I have thoughts and opinions I want to share. But I’m scared that these won’t stand by themselves, so I make sure to include relevant quotes from respectable figures because I feel like my own words aren’t as worthy.
5. Being fixated on ‘present-for-future’ over ‘present’
Chess
For years, I’ve had the goal of improving my chess so I can achieve the grandmaster title. In the last couple of years, I’ve worked hard on my chess but with two abysmal performances, I’m now down to a long-time low. To be honest, when I was at my all-time high of 2460 12 months ago, I felt impostor’s syndrome—for me, it’s always been a matter of confidence.
I know I should embrace how difficult the challenge is and focus on the process, but lately I’ve been putting so much pressure on myself in every game. When I play badly, I can’t help but think of how far I am from where I want to be. I want to go back to enjoying and loving the game while having that fire of growth. I know that I struggle so much with the mental side of the game because chess is so important to me.
Substack
For years, I’ve wanted to write. In the last couple of years, I’ve finally taken action and now I’m writing this Substack. I know impostor syndrome is normal, even for people who’ve been writing for years, but I struggle with it all the time.
I know I should just focus on writing a lot and writing consistently rather than think about the ‘whys’ but sometimes I really struggle with completing a post and publishing. I want to make sure I can enjoy writing itself, and I have to remember that my mind experiences these struggles because writing is so important to me.
Does your chess reflect your personality—or vice versa?
I smile when I read this article because it fits exactly.
Yes, for me chess reflects my personality and mood too. I know that when I'm rested I want to play aggressive chess, fighting to win at all costs. But when I'm tired, I like to play chess, but I'll settle for a draw (as long as I don't lose).
And it's the same way in life, when things are going well (either at work or in my private life) or not.
Thank you for thinking through these and writing this straight and honest.
The overall ideal vs reality hit hard. It's the balancing act that matters if things don't go as planned.
The point #5 hit well and timely. I published my 2nd post.