When you're a smart kid the world has different expectations for you. You "like" school (I didn't), you can fix everyone's computer (I couldn't), you're too intelligent for sports (I love sports), and you're supposed to be good at chess (I wasn't). It wasn't for a lack of trying on that last one, but it just never really clicked. With expectations now properly set, today's game for Eric Vs. 365 is Pure Chess for Xbox One. Click to read more and watch me destroy a pitiful CPU opponent.
I was a smart kid. I was in the G/T program. I took AP classes. I got straight A's in school. And when you're a smart kid, people assume certain things about you, one of which is that you're supposed to enjoy chess and be good at it. You're smart, after all, so you have to play the ultimate thinking man's game. We tried. My Dad taught me to play when I was 8 or something and we played fairly often back then.
When you're a kid playing chess you just sort of react and don't really plan ahead. You see what pieces your opponent can potentially take in the next turn or two, but you don't notice the larger plan that is going to screw you over 10 turns from now. Eventually, you grow out of that and learn to play smarter and think ahead further.
I never grew out of that. I'm 36 and still play like a kid. I make a plan for myself, I guess, but I never really think about what my opponent is possibly going to do, so 4 turns in when they move something that screws up my grand plan everything gets thrown out the window in favor of just being blindly aggressive with no strategy. It's fun to be aggressive and ruthlessly take pieces, but it isn't actually a very good way to try to win.
Whatever, though. I've come to terms with the fact that I just don't really enjoy chess much, so I'm fine with being bad at it. I did teach my niece and nephew to play - and emphasized the importance of thinking ahead! - so I guess I have contributed something to the chess world.
For this video I played Pure Chess on the easiest (Monkey) difficulty and annihilated the CPU. I mean, the CPU was really, really dumb. It just constantly puts pieces in danger and doesn't care. The video is short - under 7 minutes - but that's all the time I needed.
