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Blogs by Rolic O Oboh
The king will seldom go down alone 4/4/2009 3:46:43 AM
I often use my downtime for doing necessary reflection and pre-planning of what I want to write about. Also, I play amateur chess on my mobile phone while travelling on public transport, especially buses provided I have a seat on the bus. The thrill of pitting my wits against the computer's expert moves is one attraction for me, and despite being beaten by the computer in the Chessmaster game over and over again, I often used my downtime to catch up on this pasttime. Recently, after beating the computer on several occasions on the "beginner" class, I decided to move up the scale and choose the "adept" level. Unknown to me, this 'upping the ante' signalled to the computer that the machine had to be ruthless (not giving in any quarter or inch). I was not daunted, I kept pitting witts against the machine, despite loosing each time and by wide margins. Finally, I beat the machine and learned some things which may have parallels in the real world. By the way, kudos to the English cricket team for coming from behind to snatch overall victory from the West Indies side in the several one day internationals, and to Kevin Peterson (former captain), who has scored 48 runs in the last of the games.
This is often the case in the real world. One has to come from a disadvantaged position to score a victory or upset. This takes me back to the game of chess.
From my experience (and having taught myself over time on how to play and improve on my game of chess), I have now learned that the more I improved, the more confused or stupid the computer appeared in its moves. In the beginning, with very relatively few moves the computer had no difficulty check-mating my king. However, as I improved in my game, it became more of a battle between the machine and I, and the moves increased to tens and more. Atimes, when the computer has misjudged my expected move and I had played a different turn, it appeared all the more confused. In this latest game(completed in 83 moves), where I had beaten the computer, it was no less different, except that now it sent two of its remaining big pieces (a rook and a bishop) to safe-guard its king, to no avail; because, I ended up check-mating its king, with my queen and a knight. Meanwhile, the computer had sent its queen to my half of the board, in readiness to unleash havoc on my pieces, except, of course, my king was not within its immediate threat of attacks. It was that vantage position that had also left me room to manoever and to strategize, leading to me beating the computer.
One other real life parallel, which I am concerned with, especially now that the recent G20 leaders summit in London has concluded and with aims to also tackle tax havens, is this. The G20 summit's conclusions (especially the position regarding tax havens) must be sending jitters to potentates around the world. Especially, among those of the most impoverished countries in Africa, where the leaders having robbed the people blind, and are frequently found galivanting in their private jets between tax havens in Monaco, Leichtenstein, Dubai and the rest in search of the most abject hedonism. Can any measures be found to tackle this group? I dare say, this breed,like the king on the chess board, will seldom go down alone. More on this in my next blog.
