Week 3
I have been reading and watching videos about chess strategy and doing online chess puzzles. The chess strategy lessons and chess puzzles are at www.chess.com where I set up a free account. The website has many articles related to chess, forums, blogs, clubs, and many other features. I feel like I am developing more of an appreciation for the game as I feel like I am becoming more of a challenge for my chess opponents to defeat.
There are two different kinds of chess puzzles that I have been doing on the website. One presents to you the board with the pieces arranged in a certain way, and some pieces may be missing. You are given the task of finding what is determined to be the most advantageous move or moves. This puzzle is engaging to me and motivates me more to develop my chess playing skills. The other puzzle presents to you the board with a few pieces arranged in a certain way. You are given the task of capturing pieces until one piece is left over (all pieces are the same color and any piece can capture any other piece) without any piece performing a capture more than twice, and if the king is on the board, that has to be the last piece left over. This game was fun and promoted tactical movement of pieces to achieve a particular end that had certain constraints. This puzzle did not mimic the exact rules of chess, but I felt it helped improve chess playing ability by forcing one to think ahead about which sequence of moves would achieve the goal of leaving one piece left on the board.
I plan to watch a chess-related movie this week. Also, I will continue reading about strategy, doing more puzzles, and playing more games.
The game of chess has always interested me. I have watched people play it on television, and in movies and it is explained as a very complex game. However, I have never dared to play this game myself. This game is not just about intellect but can also be argued as having all social functions of rhetoric. Testing ideas, advocacy, distribution of power, discovering facts, shapes knowledge, and builds communities. All of these functions can be applied to chess.
ReplyDeleteEvery time I play chess with the AI, I either lose or end up in a draw. I have never taken the time to learn the rules and would not be able to play in person. I like that the virtual version indicates which spaces you can and can't use, though I still am unable to remember the details. Chess is a game that does require a good deal of patience and critical thinking, though the only games I use those skills with are video-games.
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