EPTI used to be a quiet, nerdy kid who, at some point, turned out to be a bit of a chess talent. I wasn't a prodigy; I wasn't a Flash-type child labor chessmachine, raping adults at the age of 8 - but I was just a little ahead of all my classmates. I started out by beating the guy who used to be considered the strongest player in my class, and a girl that used to be one of the best at entire school; damn, it made me want more and more. As a typical newbie, I got sucked into chess really hard, despite the fact that I grew up without Internet connection and my father (who taught me how the pieces move) wasn't into playing anymore after I started to beat him. In view of relative lack of practice, I devoted more time to analysis and later, chess composition, both I enjoyed despite not being the real over-the-board chess.
This all turned out oddly. When most of youngsters around me loved to play agressive, open chess, I drifted towards closed, strategical play. My ability to calculate lines was godawful, but hey - I had some openings and ideas to avoid this weakness, and steer the game for quiet waters, where I could slowly build up my plans and ultimately paralyze my opponent. Of course my games weren't particularily sound, but the style itself was often good enough to overcome various shortcomings.
I earned some reputation in my hood, and later started to try my luck in simulatenous exhibitions against really tough adults. Each summer, a simul was played in nearby city, so I drove there, always full of preparations and high hopes. The first time, I was terrified. I played Pirc defense and somehow I drew a tense game, in which I was down a pawn but had a terrific compensation. At home, I cursed myself for offering a draw, since I found a simple way to improve my position even further, possibly to the point where a win was just a matter of time. But - I was just a kid, and that guy was some boss. I stepped back.
The other day, I faced even stronger player. I remember that game better; in Caro-Kann, I got off easy from the opening, then made a horrible blunder and lost the exchange by discovered attack on my Queen. I was desperate; few moves later, I saw that he can box in my Queen in a corner after which I would be forced to resign. But then, he came up with some other plan that turned out bad. I fought back, coordinating my Queen and Knight in a sacrificial attack on his King, that eventually snatched three pawns. Exchange after exchange, I ended up in an interesting endgame with a Bishop and two extra pawns against his Rook. For some reason, the simul guy refused to activate his Rook and somehow, my Bishop sneaked to a spot, where he controlled all squares his Rook needed to stop my pawn from queening. The guy congratulated me mannerly, as I was the only one to beat him in a field of about 70 competitors.
Enough bragging, time to move to my point.
When I look back at all those successful endavors, I feel that I was a lucky sucker. I wasn't good. To be honest, my strategies were all based on fear. I feared tactics, because I could overlook something that might cost me a game straight away. I feared my opponents, so I tried to comfort myself by putting maximum effort into immobilising their pieces, so they couldn't catch me off-guard. I constantly aimed for dull positions, just to make sure that I'll have some time for couple subtle, maneuvering moves that could bring me the slightest of advantages. But hell, chess is a game centered around analysis and calculation. How a kid without much of those two abilities could get even the slightest success? How a boy who was making nearly all moves basing on general concepts and principles could be considered 'pretty good for his age?'.
Many years later, I accidentally stumbled upon the answer to these questions. It was the day I picked up a book by Gavin De Becker, a private detective who excelled at protecting celebrities from freaks, stalkers and other insane people who called themselves 'rabid fans'. He had even some childhood experience with his toxic parents, so he had deep understanding of humans' psychic and emotion. He gave me a hell of a read.
De Becker gave an example of a girl, who went through big trauma. One day, some psycho who was secretly following her for a while, broke into her apartament. He had a gun, punched the girl couple of times and then started talking while she lied on bed in terror. Couple of times during the monologue, the guy mentioned that he won't hurt her. Then he went to a bathroom, leaving her alone for a while. Despite the overwhelming fear, the girl used those few split seconds to calm down, get up and run away from her stalker.
The author talked to the girl, and asked how she was able to make this descision while being in such shock and fear. The girl answered: 'I have no idea'. Then, De Becker said that she made the best thing possible, because it later turned out that the guy was a serial killer who never left his victims alive once he got to the point that chick was. After this, the girl suddenly said that that murderer gave her a subtle clue: he closed the window before going to bathroom. With the window open, the shot would be very loud and that was something the guy wanted to avoid. But the catch is, that the girl had no idea that this was the real reason why she tried to run. Still, somehow, she evaluated her situation correctly and tried what was her last hope. It was pure instinct.
De Becker concluded: 'Fear is your best friend. Fear indicates something is going wrong; but more importantly, it indicates that the worst hasn't happened yet, because you can't fear things that already happened. And once fear tells you something is wrong, you can take measures to prevent it. When you're fighting for your life, fear guides you: all you need to do is to trust your instinct and do whatever it orders.'
I wasn't aware of that.
Remember, during my chess fever, I was a kid. I had little guide how to proceed; little experience, no teacher, no programs, no internet resources; just a passion for the game. I knew that my knowledge was almost nonexistent, so I was kinda scared whenever I played a serious tournament game. But in the middle of the game, some move suddenly popped into my mind and then, I started to wonder whether this was right thing to do at that point. Most often, it was. The thing is: I trusted my instinct and did something basing on a hidden motivation. I was completely oblivious to the source of that motivation; my consciousness could point out a thing or two about the requirements of the position, but they hardly came together to draw a conclusion. My intuition did that crucial thing, and I trusted it. That's not all; many times, I refrained from trusting it again, made some 'rational' moves and lost.
The problem is that our culture condemns fear. We built the civilisation around rational thinking and safety, more or less neglecting the intuition that used to lead us for thousands of years. But our instinct has one big advantage over rational thinking: it get us from A to B without doubts, second guesses, and all that time-consuming bullshit that may cost us a game, or even a life. And, judging from my experience, the super-powerful fuel that stimulates our intuition to run such a phenomenal process - that, ladies and gentleman, is nothing else, but the fear itself.
Fear - is on your side.
![[image loading]](http://mayanimosity.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/fear-4ukj6hstl-102002-530-424.jpg)
