Magical Positive Motivator

WHY SHOULD YOU PLAY CHESS? WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS?

Source: library.advanced.org/10746/reasons.html

Chess is a game for people of all ages. You can learn to play at any age and in chess, unlike in many other sports, you don't ever have to retire. Age is also not a factor when you're looking for an opponent --young can play old and old can play young.

Chess develops memory. The chess theory is complicated and many players memorize different opening variations. You will also learn to recognize various patterns and remember lengthy variations.

Chess improves concentration. During the game you are focused on only one main goal -- to checkmate and become the victor.

Chess develops logical thinking. Chess requires some understanding of logical strategy. For example, you will know that it is important to bring your pieces out into the game at the beginning, to keep your king safe at all times, not to make big weaknesses in your position and not to blunder your pieces away for free. (Although you will find yourself doing that occasionally through your chess career. Mistakes are inevitable and chess, like life, is a never-ending learning process.)

Chess promotes imagination and creativity. It encourages you to be inventive. There are an indefinite amount of beautiful combinations yet to be constructed.

Chess teaches independence. You are forced to make important decisions influenced only by your own judgment.

Chess develops the capability to predict and foresee consequences of actions. It teaches you to look both ways before crossing the street.

Chess inspires self-motivation. It encourages the search of the best move, the best plan, and the most beautiful continuation out of the endless possibilities. It encourages the everlasting aim towards progress, always steering to ignite the flame of victory.

Chess shows that success rewards hard work. The more you practice, the better you'll become. You should be ready to lose and learn from your mistakes. One of the greatest players ever, Capablanca said, "You may learn much more from a game you lose than from a game you win. You will have to lose hundreds of games before becoming a good player."

Chess and Science. Chess develops the scientific way of thinking. While playing, you generate numerous variations in your mind. You explore new ideas, try to predict their outcomes and interpret surprising revelations. You decide on a hypothesis, and then you make your move and test it.

Chess and Technology. What do chess players do during the game? Just like computers they engage in a search for the better move in a limited amount of time. What are you doing right now? You are using a computer as a tool for learning.

Chess and Mathematics. You don't have to be a genius to figure this one out. Chess involves an infinite number of calculations, anything from counting the number of attackers and defenders in the event of a simple exchange to calculating lengthy continuations. And you use your head to calculate, not some little machine.

Chess and Research. There are millions of chess resources out there for every aspect of the game. You can even collect your own chess library. In life, is it important to know how to find, organize and use boundless amounts of information. Chess gives you a perfect example and opportunity to do just that.

Chess and Art. In the Great Soviet Encyclopedia chess is defined as "an art appearing in the form of a game." If you thought you could never be an artist, chess proves you wrong. Chess enables the artist hiding within you to come out. Your imagination will run wild with endless possibilities on the 64 squares. You will paint pictures in your mind of ideal positions and perfect outposts for your soldiers. As a chess artist you will have an original style and personality.

Chess and Psychology. Chess is a test of patience, nerves, will power and concentration. It enhances your ability to interact with other people. It tests your sportsmanship in a competitive environment.

Chess improves schoolwork and grades. Numerous studies have proven that kids obtain a higher reading level, math level and a greater learning ability overall as a result of playing chess. For all those reasons mentioned above and more, chess playing kids do better at school and therefore have a better chance to succeed in life.

Chess opens up the world for you. You don't need to be a high ranked player to enter big important competitions. Even tournaments such as the US Open and the World Open welcome players of all strengths. Chess provides you with plenty of opportunities to travel not only all around the country but also around the world. Chess is a universal language and you can communicate with anyone over the checkered plain.

Chess enables you to meet many interesting people. You will make life-long friendships with people you meet through chess.

Chess is inexpensive. You don't need big fancy equipment to play chess. In fact, all you may need is your computer! (And we really hope you have one of those, or else something fishy is going on here.) It is also good to have a chess set at home to practice with family members, to take to a friend's house or even to your local neighborhood park to get everyone interested in the game.

CHESS IS FUN! This isn't just another one of those board games. No chess game ever repeats itself, which means you create more and more new ideas each game. It never gets boring. You always have so much to look forward to. Every game you are the general of an army and you alone decide the destiny of your soldiers. You can sacrifice them, trade them, pin them, fork them, lose them, defend them, or order them to break through any barriers and surround the enemy king. You've got the power!

To summarize everything in three little words: Chess is Everything!

From the book Winning Chess Strategies by GM Yasser Seirawan (1994, Microsoft Press):

When I teach chess, I inform them and their parents that chess will teach them the five R's. I then go on to explain:

R competitively according to the international rules of FIDE, a player must (w)rite down his moves.
R continues to compete, he will experience many losses. Dissatisfied, the player will seek to sharpen his skill and stop repeating the mistakes of the past by reading books on chess.
R chess, a player must be able to keep score. He starts the game with eight pawns. As the game progresses, pieces get swapped, and pawns get pushed forward and lost. He now has two Rooks and four pawns left for a point count of 14 (5+5+4), and his opponent has a Rook, a Bishop, a Knight, and five pawns for a point count of 16 (5+3+3+5). The opponent therefore has a material advantage of two. Simple. He has just used (a)rithmetic.
R undertakes these first three R's because it is his responsibility. No one else's. When playing chess, the player has no excuses for his blunders. A teammate didn't drop a perfect pass or miss a shot. He and only he is responsible.
R is also the most important. Suppose the player's Queen is attacked. If he doesn't move it, the Queen will be captured. If he pulls it back in retreat, it will be safe. If he moves it forward, the Queen can capture a pawn and still be safe. He decides to go for the pawn, and in making his decision, he exercises his

These five produce that which all education is about: critical thinking. When you get right down to it, education has two elements: information and information processing. Information by itself is worthless. It is the critical thinking that allows us to process the information that gives the information its value. young people the game of number 1: To play chess number 2: As a player number 3: To get better at number 4: The player number 5: The last R powers of reasoning. R's combine to

Chess teaches kids 20 of life’s lessons

Follow The Masters through Books or videos or their biographies on TV like A&E or E!. Whatever skill you want to learn or already have.

Birds of a Feather flock together, you become like the people you hang out with. Be careful whom you hang out with, only hang out with positive-minded people and like-minded goals. Negative people will hold you back, pull you down and definitely prevent you from achieving your goals.

Work within the Rules, Rules create order and order creates a safe environment for people to live, succeed and be happy. Working within a set of rules makes you smarter and more creative. It forces you to find answers and solutions when things don’t line up your way. If you’re going to win the game of life, you have to understand the rules. You have to know the penalties associated with breaking those rules, and the rewards for following them. Every time you make a choice between following a rule, or ignoring it to do what you want, you are really making a choice between order and disorder.

Perfect Practice, The old saying of Practice makes perfect is incorrect. Perfect Practice makes Perfect. The Quality of time spent is more important than the amount of time spent Practice should be as much a process of thought as a process of actions. Simple actions repeated on a daily basis help develop the right habits and eliminating the wrong ones. Habits don’t form by themselves, but you can help keep them from forming. Build on the good ones and tear down the bad ones.

Watch the Moves Other People Make, Never underestimate Your Opponent at any time. Most wares were lost and bad guys get away because of underestimating their opponents. You can’t control the wind but you can control the set of your sails.

Respect Your Opponents. Competition is everywhere, all of the time, especially in today’s world. For jobs, resources, in classrooms, in sports, everywhere. In winning you can become their teacher, in losing, you learn to be humble.

Visualize, visualize things first before making decisions. Everything starts in your mind. If you imagine yourself doing something well, you are more likely to actually achieve that level of skill. Visualization is a technique that is used by successful people in all fields because they know how powerful it is.

Know Your Strengths and Weaknesses. One of our purposes in life is to discover where we have skill and where we lack it. Some people have more than one skill, multiple skills where others may only have 1 or 2 and have a difficult time discovering what they are.

Go the Extra Mile in everything you do and you will never be disappointed with the results. Nobody can push you as hard to accomplish as much as you can push yourself to achieve. Pushing yourself to become skilled at almost anything worthwhile takes time and discipline and a lot of hard work. Self Education works wonders. Work harder on yourself to improve.

Always Look for a Better Move. We often act before we’ve even thought about our options. Sometimes we don’t even realize that we have options. Sometimes the best move is actually no move at all. Start looking more deeply into your life options. Creative decision-making will take you to places you never dreamed. Develop that creativity by always looking for as many options as you can.

Every Action Has a Consequence. Every move you make influences another move, maybe not immediately but somewhere down the road that initial decision will come back and either open or slam shut another option. Positive actions, good moves will eventually lead to positive outcomes. Negative actions or bad moves, will eventually lead to negative outcomes. Either way there will always be some effect. Choose your actions carefully, and do your best to make sure that your choices are positive ones. Sooner or later, you will feel the effects.

The Right Move at the Right Time. Life gives us wonderful opportunities, but we don’t take advantage of them until it’s too late. Knowing what moves to make isn’t enough. You have to know when to make them. You may have been on to something, but timing is always part of the bigger picture. Timing is Everything! Sometimes it’s not that your moves are bad, but the point at which you choose to make them was wrong, Timing is Everything!

Think Strategically. The most successful people in the world all have something very simple in common: they plan. You have to set goals then move towards them one step at a time. You should always have a plan or a game plan, this gives you direction to follow. Otherwise you’re going to wander aimlessly, hoping that things will work themselves out. If you continue to do what you’ve always done, then you’re going to get what you’ve always got. If you want things to change then YOU have to change. The bottom line is that a strategy, a plan, gives you control. Control leads to confidence. Confidence leads to success.

Learn From Losing. Losing never feels good, but most people don’t understand is that it doesn’t have to be a bad feeling either. The effect that losing has on you depends on your attitude. Attitude is the scale you use to weigh the events that you experience. If your scale is out of balance, all of your measurements will be off. Approach your whole life in the way that your failures and losses are really just opportunities in disguise – opportunities to learn, to grow and improve. It’s better to lose and learn something than to win and learn nothing.

Recognize Patterns. Patterns are like body language. Body language gives a great indicator of what is getting ready to happen. But only if you’re paying attention.

Use All Your Resources. Books are the greatest resource of all. It’s very important to stop, think, and figure out how to make the best use of what you have available.

Work Together. Team concepts usually work out better than individuals. Each member will bring their own individual strengths, abilities and knowledge to the job. The more tightly, cooperatively and efficiently the group works together, the more likely their combined skills will add up, and the more likely that they’ll cover each other’s weaknesses.

Concentrate. Albert Einstein was one of the smartest people who ever lived. The secret to his successes was not only because of his high IQ but his remarkable ability to concentrate and stay focused. The first step is to be patient and calm. Don’t become anxious or impatient. Don’t let fear, doubt, suspicion or anger influence your decisions. Distraction is what keeps us from finishing what we start, from succeeding, or from even attempting new achievements in the first place. Plan your work and work your plan.

Take Risks. Let’s clarify this to say Calculated Risks. Decisions that you’ve thought about and have seen the victorious end result in your mind, then take that risk.

Down But Never Out. No matter how hopeless your situation looks, Never give up because other options are always available. The people that come back just when things look the worst are the ones that never quit, but stayed calm, looked over their situation and re-evaluated their situation and came up with a better strategy and acted upon it.

Knights of the South Bronx

In a time where critical thinking and being able to think "outside the box" are fundamental, this movie give hope to so many who don't have much exposure to things outside their little world. Not everyone in the USA even knows the wonder of your neighborhood library, or of an art / science / history museum, or has even been to a zoo. So many in our country are struggling just to learn to read. It gives hope to see these young children learn to master the game of chess, learn to know that they too can take a stand for what is right, for what they deserve. It also shows how rewarding it is to help show someone the way to a new way of learning, thinking, doing, being...to give hope.

Great Movie!!! 5 Stars...

Searching for Bobby Fischer

Josh Waitzkin is just a typical American boy interested in baseball when one day he challenges his father at chess and wins. Showing unusual precocity at the outdoor matches at Washington Square in New York City, he quickly makes friends with a hustler named Vinnie who teaches him speed chess. Josh's parents hire a renowned chess coach, Bruce, who teaches Josh the usefulness of measured planning. Along the way Josh becomes tired of Bruce's system and chess in general and purposely throws a match, leaving the prospects of winning a national championship in serious jeopardy.

Great Movie!!! 5 Stars...