Fancy a game of chess?

A couple of weeks ago I really had the urge of playing an old fashioned game of chess. You know, with an actual board, playing someone in real life, maybe have a chat or a drink while playing… I am ‘corny’ that way.

So I went to my favorite city park to see if any games were being played.

The first encounter

Somewhere in the corner under a large oak tree I noticed a rather scruffy looking gentleman sitting on a picnic bench opening a can of beer of which he had more in a plastic bag beside him.

Figure 2: The opponent

He was occupying the whole bench, just him and his beer… How socially backward is that in these COVID days. A whole family of six could be sitting and enjoying themselves at that bench, I remember thinking!

Anyway, before him a chess board was laid out, all set-up and ready to begin the game. He was facing the ‘White’ side of it. Apparently he was not really waiting for anyone in particular and started his first classic King Pawn ‘e4’ opening. While reaching for the Black side of the board I hurried in asking if I could play the black side.

He wasn’t particularly thrilled and after sizing me up he asked me the legendary question:

“OK… So do you want to win, lose or see what may come?”

I only realized later this was actually a trick question as there is only one answer that would give me (and perhaps both of us) any satisfaction from playing the game. So I answered “Let’s see what might come.”.

I quickly discovered this answer led me to certain defeat after 10 moves, but all of a sudden the gentleman made a terrible error, sacrificing one rook too many which lead him to forfeit the match. He started to congratulate me and praised that one move I played which totally caught him off-guard.

Somehow I did not feel happy… or satisfied. I expressed my feeling to him and he just shrugged. “Maybe next time, son, I’ll be more accommodating.”

As it was already a bit late in the afternoon, he started packing up and after carefully counting all his chess pieces he left in a hurry, leaving me sitting there on that bench, thinking about what just happened. Not much later a ‘yuppy’ family of four road up to the bench on their electric bikes and asked me when I would be leaving so they could have the bench for celebrating the birthday of their 6 year old daughter.

Being the nice guy I am, I said that I would be leaving in a couple of minutes. Of course silently cursing them for being so bold… but hey, I am only human. Damned yuppies…

An alternate strategy

Today I had that same ‘chess playing’ urge. Upon entering the park I immediately looked to the back corner and what do you know, the gentleman was sitting there again. This time he was already well into his solo match. A soon as I started approaching I saw he tipped over the black king and looked in my direction.

“So, you’re back! Do you want to win, lose or see what may come?”

Having anticipated that question I quickly said that I’d really wanted to lose today. He smiled and put the pieces back to their starting position and even offered me the ‘White’ position, which is a real advantage in chess.

Of course, this was the only valid answer if you want to learn something. The other answers will leave the initiative to choose an outcome with the other side. As with the answer I gave this time over I can be sure to have truly beaten my opponent if I happen to actually win a game.

Figure 1: The chess player

However, I would not be winning… After four moves he already had me on the defensive, so I had lost that initial advantage real quick. After nine moves my king was floundering and it eventually drowned in turn ten. Check mate, Wow!

Then he offered me a beer from his plastic bag and said:

“I usually win in eight moves. So well done, son!”

We played a couple of games more where I managed a fourteen move streak before crumbling hard. I did have the time of my life, even while losing continuously. I never lost in eight moves however, which just added to the enjoyment. Losing is fun!

So there are actually quite some morals to this story.

• Even scruffy old men can still be enigmas in their field. Pay some respect!
• Let the yuppies have the bench as they probably will never have or make the time for a nice game of chess.
• Sometimes you have to lose to get satisfaction, but do yourself a favour and do not try to lose too hard.

This was no IT blog. What gives?

Surely this blog was all about IT, didn’t you notice? The fact is that sometimes you have to step into the mud knowing your shoes will get dirty. The alternatives are either just so boring or will place impassable obstacles in their way anyway.

So for instance, deep in my hart I know that building solutions on the well marketed and prominent Power Platform (Power Apps, Power Automate) SaaS services is stepping into a licensing nightmare in which all the power lies with a single party Microsoft. This platform is made to make money! I would prefer building custom forms solutions backed with a fair pay-per-use scheme from Logic Apps, Function Apps and App Services iPaaS Services as a back-end. This is probably the right architecture any day.

On the other side, setting up and maintaining the preferred architecture will cost a lot more manpower and coordination on the IT side and it will put a limitation on the available knowledgeable human resources the organization can provide to do this as the architecture is more demanding.

Win some, lose some… just step into the mud!