Friday, November 14, 2014

It's Like a Game of Chess

Chess seems to be a game you learn as a kid and then tend to only play when the grandparents are in town. Although like some, I never learned chess. Now attending San Diego State University, I learned how to play with my roommate, and now I play a game once a day.

What Chess Can Do For You 

The reason why chess is so interesting is because of the psychology behind it. Such a small simple game becomes a complex strategic game with certain theories, openings, closings, and sacrifices. Doesn't investing sound eerily similar? Isn't investing a complex strategic game with theories, openings, closings, and sacrifices? You can play chess defensively, you can invest defensively. You can play chess aggressively, you can invest aggressively. You can have a big ego during chess, and you can have a big ego investing as well. Chess can do multiple things for you. It can first give you a break from the real world and can get in a trance and yet its just a chess game. Like basketball for me, chess can give you a break from a stressful environment or a bad day. You may think opening a chess game is easy, simply move a pawn or a minor piece forward, but its like investing that way. It seems easy to click a button and buy a stock, but just as one simple opening effects the rest of the game for you, so does buying a stock. 

Navigating your way through a game of chess can be similar to navigating your way through an investment

Now realize this, lets compare chess strategies to investing. Chess positioning is critical, so is it to investing, valuing all pieces on a chess board is key as well as it is to investing, all assets are valuable, now when risking these assets for a greater profit, chess can be compared to this as well. Chess you may have to sacrifice a piece to gain a greater piece down the road. And as in chess you make a move now for a future move down the road. When investing, if you are skimming off your gains at the end of the year for example, you are doing so for future moves down the road. When you make a move in chess, it has to be in reasoning an argument of why this move is made and you must think from the opponents side what move he would do. This can be seen in investing as well. Every trade that is made or investment must have reasoning behind, an argument of why you made this trade or this investment, what will it do for you in the future? How will you close out this trade or investment?  

Conclusion

By thinking your way through a chess game you raise questions that may even apply to investing. As the questions and similarities in the article stated could be used in investing, understand the why to what you do. And even if you think chess and investing are dissimilar, it takes your mind off of the stresses in life and makes you think about your decisions in the game of chess, and the game of life. 

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