Strategy. Intellect. Persistence. In other words, the game of chess. You are a General and the pieces are your army. White calls, Black responds. The armies dance, they court each other with invitations of capture and victory, secret traps to ensure a swift checkmate. On the chessboard, if we played every second till the end of the Universe we wouldn’t finish all the possible games. In other words, it's the best sport on the planet.

Chess is a sport, not as we understand it of the body, but one of the mind. It is the only fair sport. Every other one has an element of chance, cross country runners can be helped by a tailwind, a tennis player could sneeze at the wrong moment, but only in chess is your skill that determines all. No matter how bad your luck is, in chess, you can still triumph. The whole game is completely down to you and the other player. The only element of chance is the colour of your pieces, which to an experienced player should have no great impact.

Recently at Aquinas, a school where we have traditionally supported sports of the body, there was a refreshing break in the normal routine. In our recent Tuatha Chess championship we had a duel of some of the best minds in the school. School captain Naveen Nimalan and Captain of the chess club Jared Healy were among some of those to pitch their wits against each other in this timeless game. In my own match against one of the best in our school, Caleb Verbruggen, I personally experienced the emotional rollercoaster one can go through during a game of chess. In the early stages of the game, my opponent made an opening blunder that I quickly seized advantage of, ensuring a material advantage. The game pressed on and I maintained my advantage until one fateful move I forgot to hit my clock, one of the worst mistakes a chess player can make, for losing on time is still a loss. Caleb sat there with an appearance of thinking, I assumed I had put him in a hard position and did not realise until I was severely down on time that I had not hit my clock and, as such, I was losing precious time. I slammed my hand down on the chess clock, my opponent swiftly made his move he had just spent the last few minutes on and the game went on. Up on material but low on time, panic set in, I didn’t think and then I blundered, I gave up the material advantage that I had. I panicked more, I lost more pieces until… there, on the chessboard, one last move that could save it all. He moved his King to face mine and I advanced mine towards his, he did the same likewise, noticing a second too late. Stalemate, that old “cheap and dirty” trick to weasel a draw out of your opponent, when your King has nowhere to go but it's not under attack.

That game not only showed me how a match can swing from hopeless to salvageable in an instant, it not only showed me that I should never give up after making a mistake, but it also taught me another valuable life lesson: don’t make hasty decisions in a panic. I am sure we have all been victims of an unsavoury decision made in haste, and this game is a perfect example of that. Chess not only engages our minds, it not only teaches us to think creatively but it is an important tool for learning life lessons. Within those 64 squares is a whole world of possibilities, it is not only a game of mind but that of life, all of us, general of ourselves, making moves every day of our lives in search of a win at the end. The Tuatha Chess competition has not only given us students an enjoyable time but it has given us all valuable lessons to take away, whether it be not being careless or not rushing or any other variety of lessons chess can teach us.

Play the opening like a book, play the middlegame like a magician and play the endgame like a machine. Advice not just for chess but for life. Play your adolescence and childhood with the advice of books, play your adulthood with surprises and strategy, play it brilliantly and almost magically, and when you are old and nearing the end, be like a machine through the pain, to endure what bad is there for the good in old age yet left to be lived.