Chess and Scrabble

Wow, two posts in as many days! Its amazing what time off will do...

I used to play two games regularly with my parents. With my mom, I'd play Scrabble, with my dad, I'd play chess. I think these two games gave me so much more than just time with my parents. Firstly, I like to pretend that I have a larger than average vocabulary. Whether this is true or not, well, I'm hardly objective. Playing Scrabble caused me to read far more of the dictionary (in search of words for my tiles) than I would have otherwise. I was exposed to many words I would have never come across otherwise. Couple this with a phase of my life after seeing the movie Malcom X, where he states that it is a weak mind and vocabulary that leads to swearing, caused me to always search for new ways to express myself without resorting to profanity. I don't necessarily agree now that swearing is only caused by a weak mind, sometimes, a swear word is the most concise way to communicate something, but anyway, I digress...

As far as chess, I think this game has contributed to my ability to reason things out in my mind more than any other thing I have ever done. My dad is pretty good at chess, it took me years of concerted study of the game before I could beat him. The study, the learning how to evaluate the pros/cons of positions based on their future possibilities, was enormously difficult. The dividends, however, have been huge. This game of chess forces you to analyze and question every single move, every single position, and weigh the pros/cons of each. You have to imagine what things your opponent might be scheming, thereby forcing to try to understand not only what you want to do, but what others want to do, and all in a very nuanced setting. One pawn move can make or break a position, but it might not be apparent for 5 more moves. Very nuanced, indeed.

This leads one to develop critical thinking skills and the ability to understand something from someone else's perspective. You learn to ignore unimportant things and focus on the objective. You learn to question every move you might make and how it will impact that game. Later, in college, I learned formal logic, which gave a greater definition around these concepts. I learned that if you base an argument on a faulty assumption, your argument is invalid, just like if you base your strategy in chess on a weak position the game is lost.

These two regular sunday activities with my parents taught me a great deal more than just how to play a game. They taught me to expand my vocabulary and to expand my critical thinking abilities.