Imagine you need to undergo surgery. You trust the surgeon to keep you safe and bring you back to a healthier state post-surgery, right? What if the surgeon had some weak spots during his study days in medicine?
After all, he is a human too! And as luck would have it, your condition is one of the weak spots that he never got around to work on. Would you like to be operated on by that surgeon?
What happens when he does operate on you, taking a 50-50 chance of you making it safely through the surgery? If you had known earlier, would you place your life in the hands of a person who lied or cheated his way through his training years?
I guess we all know the answer.
Cheating, lying, and making excuses for our poor performance might sound pretty harmless on a smaller, personal scale. However, we all resort to this behavior as children. It becomes a big issue when you grow up and still can’t help setting up your professional and personal image on similar lies. For some people, the lies only get bigger with age.
The small lies of today said only to boast, or get a certain edge over others, could become devastating lies of the future, where your behavior could seriously impact someone. You think your dishonesty and lack of integrity in seemingly insignificant situations may not make a difference to anyone.
What’s another sneak peek into the possible solutions on a parallel chess engine while no one is any the wiser, right? But imagine doing it to a bright chess player as your opponent, who is already on the verge of giving up owing to a series of losses he has suffered recently.
He didn’t deserve to lose so unfairly against you cheating! What if he decided to leave chess for good? Does a bright chess future lose it to dishonesty and lack of integrity sound fair?
Getting help from computers to win a game is petty, lame, foolhardy, and a 2-step back approach if your child is earnest about the game of chess and certain goals in life.
Imagine the same thing happening to you. If you were not allowed to win by certain opponents as a young chess player, would you be playing at the level you currently are today? What is the desperation of winning at all costs and letting go of basic decency and sportsmanship? Why, as humans, we can’t accept defeat gracefully and work harder towards a comeback?
Top chess players, be it Magnus Carlsen or Vishy Anand, wouldn’t have reached the pinnacle of success in their game if they lied through it. So it’s only a matter of time when someone discovers the sham. And it needs to be remembered that if you tell a lie once, all your truths, be they past, present, or future, become questionable.
“Winning at all cost” could very well be the motto of several players, but chess is all about integrity, honesty, sportsmanship, and your best behavior. Chess is an actual test of a human’s ability to fight and accept the win or defeat with equanimity. After all, you are just one move away from a career-defining loss or win.
If you win by being dishonest, it will not be a win. Somewhere deep inside you, your conscience will tell you that the happiness is short-lived and fake. Winning fair and square has its own charm, and it hasn’t faded at all in the centuries. Winning by cheating or shortcuts will not let you achieve your true potential in the long run.
Having a competitive spirit is one thing. But having questionable integrity and not staying true to your core values could cost you dearly in the long run, not just in chess but also in other areas of your life. That doctor, or an engineer, even military personnel, could be your child, who knows deep down that if you are not caught, you are not guilty of a crime.
How can you trust a person for big wins in life if they lie for small chess victories? The world of chess deserves more honest and large-hearted chess players who are not afraid of working hard and know how to put the spirit of the game before anything else.
