Chess, and the Modern Business

Do you play chess? I do. Can you already tell I'm heading towards an analogy? I can.

I've been comparing chess and business in my mind.

Last I checked... No, bad start. Last I assumed, chess tournament champions don't get paid per move. They get paid per win. And winning happens at the end of the game.

Or does it?

How much time has a chess player truly wasted with all that mucking about in pawnsville, going after bishops and whatnot, when the one true goal is to corner the king? An understanding of the game, of course, makes that line of questioning seem ridiculous. But an empirical evaluation of the use of a players time might make them seem equally ridiculous. Knowing not only the goal that the player is orchestrating their moves towards, but also the manner in which said goal is inherently achieved within the game, can give an outside observer a profound appreciation for the pursuit and capture of a pawn, or the sacrifice of a knight.

I have to remind myself of that sometimes when I kick myself for how I've used a workday. Why, oh why did I write that shell script? How could learning more Erlang right now be the responsible thing to do? Who paid me to refactor my CSS-generating PHP objects today? Arg!

No, no. Slow down a minute there, brain. Don't hate the thread because it isn't a sweater! Keep weaving, like a faithful spider.