Monday, August 01, 2005

How to make friends and influence people

Maybe it's something about the internal solitary experience of playing chess; or, maybe it's the overly competitive attitude which comes from the unwavering effort to "kill" the opponent. In any case, it seems that chess players are often extremely skilled at making their points in ways which are unlikely to endear them to others.

Our "friend", Quandoman, is no exception. As a result of my post mentioning his anti-De La Maza rant, several readers have left comments on his blog. In response to a comment from Blue Devil Knight, Quandoman points out that:

  • He follows a chess improvement program which is superior to De La Maza's, but which he needs to keep a secret so his potential opponents can't use that knowledge against him [DG: What percentage of games between Class B players do you suppose are won/lost due to opponent research?].

  • While doing tactics is part of the program, unlike De La Maza's, his program doesn't make the mistake of actually having you solve the problems.

  • He is so brilliant that his coach sought him out and doesn't make him pay for lessons [DG: Presumably the prestige which comes from having Quandoman as a student is more valuable than mere money].
Sure seems like the kind of guy that would be fun to go out and have a beer with -- not!

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