My earliest memories playing chess was with my dad. He taught me to play when I was in primary school, and I’d ask him for a game or two some nights, where I would inevitably lose. We always had a few chess sets at home—some were standard sized, and some were pocket sized for travel. I would find my dad’s chess books all around the house, the earmarked pages yellowed over the years, the covers worn and creased.
Then we moved to the UK. And slowly, we began to acquire more chess sets, as my dad and brother would buy second-hand sets for cheap at car boot sales. We had glass ones, metal ones, wooden ones. I didn’t play much chess at home during these years.
Rather, I dived into the sport at school, with Daniel.
I cannot pinpoint the first time I befriended Daniel. In my mind, it’s as if we became instant best friends. Both unpopular and nerdy, we would spend our morning break, lunch hour, and afternoon break in the library, at first bonding over Warriorcats and then, not long after, chess.
For four years, Daniel was my chess partner. We both loved the sport with an absolute passion. To this day, the sound of chess pieces clinking together is one of my most favourite sounds in the world.
I early on dubbed him the King of Queens because he can be absolutely lethal with it, which meant that my early game strategy would always be to trap and take the piece. He dubbed me Queen of Pawns, because I’d inevitably always try to use pawns to checkmate his king.
As soon as the break/lunch bell rang, we’d be seated at one of the blue seats in the library. Our record, I believe, was playing fifteen games a day, which could easily be achieved by playing 1-2 games right before school started, 1-2 games during morning break, 4-5 games during lunch hour, 1-2 games during afternoon break, and another 3-4 games after school. These are normally bullet or blitz chess, each game lasting about 5 minutes, which we’d sometimes time using tournament chess clocks.
Despite my dad’s lessons, I had (initially, anyway) always played rather randomly, only anticipating my opponent’s moves two or three steps ahead. Having Daniel as my chess partner, however, taught me patterns. At a rate of fifteen games a day, how could I not learn his patterns?
Pretty soon, we learned each other’s opening moves. Daniel could singlehandedly play the first 20 moves for me because he knew me that well. He loved the Spanish opening. I preferred the French defense.
And so, the only way for me to add variability to the game, was to disrupt the patterns.
Like my dad, I started reading some of his strategy books. I started to learn other moves. The Sicilian defense. The Queen’s Gambit. The Latvian Gambit. No game was ever the same. I learned, from chess, that recognizing patterns and knowing when to break them, is the most satisfying feelings ever. There’s nothing more gratifying than interrupting a chain of movements because you can see what the opponent is trying to do five, six steps ahead.
Pattern recognition is a term that originated around the mid-20th century within the field of psychology and cognitive science. It refers to the skill of recognising regularities, structures, and recurring relationships. Those patterns, in turn, help people predict and make decisions.
As a concept, I first formally learned the term “pattern recognition” when I was taking my neurolingiustic programming certification. My trainer, Carsten, taught me how the brain recognises patterns, and how we can interrupt those patterns to change behaviours. Learning that was like being handed a skeleton key.
Marketers with pattern recognition could instantly judge when posts do well, or when certain thumbnail designs or keywords click with their audience. Even bestselling authors sometimes make a study of New York Times Bestseller’s list to identify patterns of book titles that make the list.
Authors and poets recognise and adopt patterns practiced by the greats. How to make scenes move faster with longer sentences, or add pace and slowness with shorter sentences. How to use rhetorical devices like chiasmus, epistrophes, antithesis, metaphors and alliteration for added effect and impact. In storytelling, there is a reason why tropes are loved and why certain elements work well—why our souls die and love plot twists and unexpected endings. They interrupt the pattern, adding interest and variability.
Even in parenting, marriages, and friendships, we sometimes break patterns to add variability in the relationship. Sometimes we surprise our loved ones with an offhand compliment or a gift. Sometimes we call or message them out of the blue, or give some signal that we are thinking about them. We’d get a response saying, “This made my day” because it’s a pleasant break to the monotony, the normal.
As a writer, I love seeing breaks in patterns. I’m not a scientist or physicist—to these people, irregularities, inconsistencies, and unpredictability are probably nightmares. To me, it’s art. That one pop of colour from a pillow that contrasts with a room’s colour scheme. That random compliment that brings a relationship closer. The use of Berlin’s defense, that breaks Daniel’s standard Spanish opening, reducing our standard 20-move opening into just five or six.
These breaks in patterns add interest in life. Inevitably, all patterns will break, except one, tied to our Divine God, the Ad-Daim. All else will change, and the pattern will break.
What is my takeaway from chess? That pattern recognition is one of the core building blocks to intelligence. To me, knowing how, and why, we should break some patterns is an even bigger hallmark of wisdom.
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