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What is chess to you?

To me chess is something in between a game and a sport. I say game because it is my hobby and I use it to make friends, connect and create happiness, but I also say sport because I work on improvement and am ultimately playing to win.
it could be poison. Gms like Ziaur Rahman and Capablanca died because of it.
It's interesting to me how an individual chess tournament player's journey often mirrors the evolution of chess throughout history.

At first, you fall in love with the beauty of chess in a non-competitive environment, usually playing friends or family.

Then, you discover there are specific openings, and theories on how best to play. You start incorporating those, and crush all your friends who know nothing about these. Then, you might enter more competitive rated tournaments. You start to study principles more seriously. Eventually, the level of play from your opponent and your own rises rapidly and exponentially, so then you start working with advanced tools to give you an edge, and relying more and more on the computer to help you with preparation and analysis. Eventually, you might even get sick of all your opponent's prep and try to catch them off-guard in lesser explored sidelines!
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