Yesterday, the 8th of June 2025, I decided it has been a while since I stepped out of my house for a chess gathering or to play a game over the chess board, as I have been engaged with Hive activities, personal engagements and whenever I feel like playing chess, I simply go online and play as much games as I want.
Every once in a while, it won't be a bad idea to go out, enjoy a couple of drinks, eat a nice meal, and play some exciting game of chess over the chessboard with a bunch of chess players and even share a thing or two about Hive and my current onboarding project. This is how communities are built through social gatherings and engagements. Although the motivation that drove this outing of mine is the cage match set between two players with a stake prize of N60,000, which is about 38 dollars if using the rate of N1,574 to a dollar.
For non-chess fans or players, a cage match is when two people decide to play each other after throwing a series of chess banter at who is better and who is a fish. In the chess context, a fish is a weak player. The prize is set as a means of reward for whoever wins after a fixed number of rounds, something more like skin in the game. Then the game is publicized in the club chat group for members to come and watch. Better still, just think of it as a boxing match.
The match was a best-of-four series. Whoever gets the most wins in the four rounds is the winner of the match. The game started slowly, although it was not played on a digital board, so we cannot watch it online or have a look at the game. Nonetheless, it was a simple Scotch gambit game, and trust me when I say it is Scotch gambit because I have studied this opening during my year of studying chess. But much of the excitement came in the middlegame, where both players were missing a lot of winning chances, and the spectating fans were all left with a speechless expression on their faces.
A lot of why didn't you play this and why didn't you play that was said, but deep down, I knew these men were playing under pressure as neither one of them wanted to lose, so caution became their second name. This is a paradox that happens to chess players during gameplay, where they become extremely cautious to avoid a blunder, then, in return, they blunder since they have refused to take risks by attacking. As it is well known, chess isn't hard because of the absence of good moves rather it is hard because of the presence of bad moves looking like good ones.
The match got exciting when it ended in a scoreline of 2 - 2 for the players, forcing both players to go into a tiebreak of two games. Sadly, the fatigue that comes with playing a long time control on the board got to one of the players, so he cracked in the first game and blundered in the second game. Well, that is chess for you. It isn't all about good moves, but do you have the stamina to think for hours?
It was a splendid outing for me, and I guess I will be doing this more often. Chess is fun to play and watch; try it sometimes.
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