Marina Rizzo - Chess for life
(Audio) "In their solemn corner, the players move the slow pieces.
The board detains them until dawn in its severe world in which two colours hate each other.
This war flared up in the East, and its amphitheater is now the whole world.
Like the other, this game is endless.
Over the black and white of the path they seek and fight their armed battle.
The player is also a prisoner. The sentence is Omar's, on another board
of black nights and white days." (End of audio - Jorge Luis Borges, Chess)
I learned to play chess when I was 5 years old,
and I grew up and was educated under this paradigm,
this "severe world in which two colours hate each other."
However, after playing in 3 Olympics, 1 world championship and living for a year in Europe while competing,
this paradigm shattered within me.
No longer did I want to sit to beat an opponent, my victory depending on someone else's defeat.
Obviously, I had my reasons for this.
I grew up in an atypical family in Concordia, Entre Ríos.
A home in which art, science, reading and politics filled the air. A lot of politics.
A family with high ideals of building a better country and world for everybody.
And they fought a lot for this.
I grew up learning that you can't kill an idea, but those who have them can die
for having them.
When I was 10 years old, during a period of unrest in our country,
the Triple A planted a bomb in my house. A house where we lived with my parents and brothers.
This event really affected me, we miraculously survived.
And I think that, in that period, I decided to take refuge in chess.
Perhaps to understand the conflict of ideas in a safer environment: on the board.
That's why when I was 17, before graduating from high school, I played my first Olympics.
At 23, when I decided to stop competing at the highest level, I said: "Well, what can I take from this game I have devoted
almost 20 years of my life to?" Because I was certain chess is a beautiful game
that helps people have a better attention span, concentration,
decision-making and many other things.
But I was also aware that, in many cases, professional chess players and other people who play it
don't use those profound teachings the game offers in their daily lives.
To understand it in a different way, I had to find another paradigm.
Perhaps, to go from the chess for war to the chess for peace.
With this new approach, many things started to happen.
Perhaps, to see it as a mandala consisting of 64 spaces, on which the pieces are part of two wonderful teams
and each move may be the opportunity to open or close future possibilities for the rest of the team.
There are two teams of chess pieces and I became the leader of one of them.
Suddenly, my attention turned from the other player and the result
to me, to that human being who thinks, feels, has emotions and a body.
In competitive chess, I had never been taught what to do with my emotions and my body while playing.
How they could be allies or completely hinder my decision-making.
It was amazing what I began to understand... the message the game had for me.
Perhaps, the learning consisted of something different. Beating the opponent wasn't the most important thing.
I also learned that, to compete hard at anything,
we somehow need to separate the head from the body and emotions.
Now I wonder: Is that the reason why very few women in the world play it?
Imagine that perhaps 1, 2... 3 players in some countries out of 100 are women.
So, at a very difficult period in my life when it was crucial to take sound decisions,
I wrote a book in which I began transmitting these discoveries and knowledge.
Also, after teaching for 15 years at public schools, I quit to start an enterprise
with chess players, professionals, teachers... We started to take this project to public open spaces,
to take chess out of the club, an enclosed space.
A more lively chess in which the body and emotions are involved.
We started to take it to kindergartens and schools.
Later on, to companies.
Now I will show you one of the exercises
because the leitmotiv of this project is pre-chess and chess for life.
And so, you will ask me what pre-chess is.
Pre-chess allows everybody to learn thinking habits and skills,
to make better decisions without the need to know every move of the pieces
or every rule of the game,
to make it accessible to everybody from the age of 4... there's no limit.
Why can't we learn how to think better?
I would like to show you a pre-chess exercise so that you can get an idea of what it is all about
and recreate it at home with anybody.
I will show you the move of one of the pieces, the rook.
The rook moves horizontally and vertically through any number of squares and represents our logical and linear thinking.
This rook wants to reach its objective, the chest.
But it can't get there until it takes the 5 elements on the board.
I will show you the path its going to take.
First, it takes the insect. Then, the gem.
The hourglass.
The turtle. The lotus flower.
And finally it reaches the chest.
What are we learning from this besides the move and taking of a piece?
We are learning the basis of strategic thinking, that is
where I am,
where I want to go,
and which plan I will design to achieve that objective.
And if we put the rook over here, we start thinking about alternatives,
which is another fantastic habit motivated by chess:
to stop the impulse, to stop doing the first thing that comes to mind.
Here, the rook has to think whether he goes for the turtle or the insect first.
And if we put it here, there are 4 alternatives:
the flower, the gem, the turtle or the insect.
And we could also tell a story about this rook.
This rook is a real dreamer, he asks questions all the time, and someone told him that inside the chest he would find
a key to the last question he had asked himself, and he asked it to me.
He said "Could a chess game in which everybody wins be possible?
Does pure and real happiness exist?"
"I really don't know," I said, "but I would like to find it out."
So I embarked on this adventure across the board with the rook.
We had to face our own fears and ignorance
and then follow our hearts and have self-confidence in our quest.
Time reminded us of our beautiful and unique life: don't waste it on useless or insignificant activities.
The turtle told us about the importance of patience and perseverance when we follow our dreams.
And the lotus flower told us about the importance of reinventing yourself, even in the face of adversity.
When we finally got to the chest, we eagerly opened it...
and we found...
Oops, it's empty.
There's just a little piece of paper. Let's see...
Let's see what it says.
It says "You are doing fine, but first you have to understand what vacuity is."
Well, perhaps this journey was all about finding another good question.
You know? This rook isn't any rook.
And it's not the same to tell a kid "The rook moves like this and like that" than to tell him "Look, this rook
knew my parents' warm hands 60 years ago.
Then, it played with me when I was 5. And then, with my children.
This rook isn't any rook."
And you, each of you can focus and approach knowledge in two different ways:
just logically or by adding emotion.
And I believe the most important thing in anything you face in life is to integrate these two aspects.
Now, I want to show you a chess exercise. A chess problem.
One of the many that made me fall in love with this game.
Imagine this is one of those problems that appear on magazines on Sundays and say
"Black plays and wins."
Or it can turn into a thinking and discovery adventure.
Let's picture a mother telling her little daughter "Do you know that every time I see this position
it moves me?" "Why?" asks the girl.
"Because it reminds me of many situations I've been through in my life.
Many difficult situations when I wanted to quit, to say "I can't, that's it, I give up,"
and something inside of me told me "Go on, don't give up, look for the opportunity.""
To orient you on this position, I'll tell you that the amount of black pieces is equal to the amount of white pieces:
two rooks, a knight, a pawn, a king,
but no queen.
To have the queen, in chess, is fantastic because it's the piece that has the most moves.
It is the most valuable piece because of its moves. But the most important of all is the king
because, if we checkmate it, we win the game.
And the king has very limited movements... any similarity with reality is pure coincidence.
(Laughter)
The king is very limited, he moves only one square.
And he is scared to death. I don't know if you can feel it, but this king is...
He's saying "I want to quit, I'm lost. My pieces are on the other side. I don't know which channel they are watching,
but they aren't defending me."
And White is threatening him. Four checkmates in one, three checkmates in two.
This is terrible. This is checkmate, this is another checkmate. Over here, another checkmate.
If you see this position, you just say "That's it. Let's shake hands. I quit."
However, if you're constantly looking for a chance, see what happens...
There is a word in chess that is 'check'. You can be told "You are in check."
That means they left you with less options or no options at all.
The knight, the only piece that can make a curved move on the board, tells the king "Check."
The king can't move anywhere.
Right? Because here there is a rook, another rook...
He has to ask his rook for help and it captures the knight.
If we see this position we say "What did we gain? We're one piece short and still threatened by matte pieces."
Well, we have to keep on looking for an opportunity.
Now, this rook offers to sacrifice itself and takes the knight, checking the king.
It is the king who now has to defend itself because it can't move and decides to capture the rook.
We are left with only one piece for attack, this rook.
Not only does it save the game but it also checkmates.
This is check. The kings, as they are so full of pride, can't get together.
And this pawn, that moves diagonally, takes the only square left for escape.
I'm sure there's a lot of people in this room that have learnt how to play chess.
But they have abandoned it.
Because of it being complex, very boring... perhaps because there was someone that always beat them.
And I'll tell you that, many years ago, the best computer beat the world champion.
Are we going to stop playing chess because of that?
Are we going to surrender to the machines?
Or are we going to take up the beautiful challenge this game poses? That is, to transcend this apparent enmity, rivalry.
White, here, could mean, in this eastern philosophy, what's manifested.
And black what's unmanifested.
Perhaps it's a struggle between the body and the spirit. I don't know.
But it's apparent.
Chess invites us to connect with what makes us more human: love,
the ability to create, to dream and to make our dreams come true.
My dream is to reach millions of homes with pre-chess and chess for life
to teach thinking habits. So that people can enjoy thinking, making better decisions.
And I invite you to sit and play with your kids, friends, brothers and sisters, parents.
Not to beat the opponent but to enjoy, play and make better decisions.
To train you mind, body and heart.
For your own benefit and for the benefit of others.
Thank you.
(Applause)