Welcome to the Listening Time Podcast.
Hey English learners, this is Connor and you're listening to episode 243 of the Listening Time Podcast.
I hope you're doing great today and that you're motivated to practice your English listening comprehension with another episode, and And today I want to talk about chess.
This is a game that I'm very interested in.
I'm not very good, but I like this game and I think it's a very fun and entertaining and interesting game.
And I'd like to talk about it today.
Even if you're not super interested in chess, of course, this episode will still be great practice for your listening and listening.
You'll learn a little bit about this game.
And, of course, the transcript for this episode and all the episodes are always down below in the description below this episode.
So go down and click on that link if you need it.
And remember to check out my advanced podcast episodes by becoming a Listening Time family member.
You can use those episodes to get accustomed to listening to real English spoken fast.
So if you want those, the link is down below.
And check out my US Conversations podcast, in which I talk to different English teachers from all over the country.
It's a lot of fun, it's great practice for your listening and it's a great place to find an English teacher.
I talked to many great teachers there and I put the link to their online teacher profiles so you can go listen to them, see if they sound interesting and if you can understand them and you like their philosophy, and then you can take classes with them.
So that link is also down below.
Okay, let's talk about chess.
So chess is one of my hobbies.
It's something that I like to do in my spare time.
Your spare time is just your free time, time that you're not using to do something more productive like working, or your obligations or whatever.
So I like to play chess in my spare time and I can't remember when exactly I learned to play, but I know I was a kid because I can remember playing chess as a kid with my friend, with my dad.
I just can't remember exactly when when I learned, but I've known how to play chess for many years, but unfortunately I've never gotten good at chess.
To get good at chess, You really do need to study the game, spend a lot of time with the game learning techniques and strategy and different ways of playing, and you really have to learn a lot to And I haven't done that.
I just play for fun.
So I'm not good, but I've always enjoyed playing.
Even though I'm not skilled, I'm not super knowledgeable, it's still really fun for me.
I can play chess for hours and I play mostly online.
I do play in person sometimes with friends.
I have one or two friends in particular who like playing chess, and so From time to time I play in person, but I mostly play online.
I just go to a website where I'm connected to other players, and then we play.
And so most of my chess playing happens online.
Throughout my day in my free time, when I want to take a break from doing other productive things and I can just play on my computer.
And why do I like chess?
Some of you are probably wondering why this game is popular, why people like it?
Because you might find it boring or hard or whatever?
Well, I find it very stimulating.
It's very stimulating for my brain.
It makes me think differently, different ways.
It makes me try to predict what will happen, because you're not only focused on the move that you're making.
You're also trying to predict what your opponent will do if you make this move or that move, and So I think this is great for your brain.
It makes you think ahead in this way.
It forces you to really examine the board, the pieces, from different angles and use strategy and adapt.
It's really stimulating, but at the same time, I find it relaxing.
I like to play chess to relax, actually.
So it's mentally stimulating, but relaxing at the same time.
Perhaps other people might not find it relaxing, but I find that certain stimulating activities can also help me calm down, just focus on one thing and feel like I'm not really exerting too much energy and I'm just relaxing.
When you exert energy, it just means that you use energy to do something.
So this is a stimulating yet relaxing activity.
And I really like strategy.
I'm a big board game fan and I like the strategy element of board games.
And so chess is full of strategy.
It's one of the most strategic games that exists, of course.
And so this element makes it really fun for me.
It's not just a mental challenge or an intellectual challenge.
It's fun, because it's fun to use strategy.
Use your brain and try to outwit your opponent.
When you outwit someone,
This means that you use your brain more effectively than them, and so you win the match.
And one last reason why I like it is because anyone can play.
It's not like a sport where many people would not be able to play because of physical issues or other things.
There might be different reasons why people can't learn or play certain sports or things like that.
But almost anyone can play chess at any age, as long as you're old enough to understand what's going on.
Some of the greatest chess players are really young and oftentimes kids become really good.
I think it's awesome that almost anyone can learn to play this game at any age.
That's really cool.
Let me give a quick overview of how chess is played.
There are different pieces and each piece moves differently.
So each piece has a different way of moving on the board.
Some pieces are considered to be more powerful than other pieces.
For example, the queen is the most powerful piece.
However, each piece has its function, its role.
So just because a pawn A pawn is the least powerful piece in chess.
Just because a pawn is not that powerful, it doesn't mean that it's not important.
Pawns are still important in the match and they matter, have a certain role, and the goal of this game is to move your pieces in a way that you checkmate the other person's king.
When you checkmate their king, this means that their king can't move anywhere.
You have it captured.
So that's the goal.
The other goal could be to get your opponent to surrender.
So this often happens, where the other person can still move, but they see that they're gonna lose the game.
So instead of just forcing you to play more and beat them, they just surrender.
That's typical in chess, and you want to protect your own king because Your opponent wants to do the same thing.
So you move your pieces in a way that will set you up to be in position to checkmate the other person's king or force them to surrender.
And you also want to move your pieces in a way that will prevent your opponent from checkmating your king or forcing you to surrender.
And along the way, you capture some of your opponent's pieces.
And he captures some of your pieces, which means that those pieces go off the board.
So that's basically how it works.
But there is a lot of strategy involved and there's a lot of memorization involved if you want to be really good, because you memorize the different lines, as we call them.
Basically, you already know which moves you should be making and which moves your opponent will make in certain positions, with certain opening attacks.
I won't get into that.
It's a little complicated.
So let me talk about my problem with chess.
I love this game.
It's fun.
It's relaxing.
It's a way for me to just take a break from productive things.
However, sometimes I play chess when I should be doing something else, typically language learning.
I consider language learning part of my job because I give advice about language learning and I'm constantly learning more about the language learning process and things like that.
And so I am supposed to spend a pretty decent amount of time every day learning languages.
However, I don't always do this, because sometimes I get distracted or I have other things that I do, and one of the biggest things is chess.
So I don't tend to get too distracted or get too off track, But the one thing that tends to do this to me is chess.
And so sometimes I want to study a language.
I know I should be doing that and I decide to just open up the chess website and play a little bit, and then I end up just playing that game and not doing my language learning.
And so I need to be careful and not get too caught up in chess.
When you get caught up in something, it means you get involved in it.
You spend your time and energy in that thing.
So i need to be careful not to play too much.
So that's an issue i have, And a lot of times when my mood is a little bit low, like I'm not feeling very good because of different reasons, maybe some negative things.
I usually don't feel as productive or as motivated to be productive and do things.
And maybe in those situations, I play more chess.
So I need to be careful with that because I can spend too much time doing that and I
I really want to spend a certain amount of time every day learning languages and doing other things as well, and I should hit that goal first and then play chess if I want.
So I stopped playing chess for a few months actually, so I could focus more of my energy and time on language learning.
But recently I've gotten back into it.
But I want to start spending less time with chess And I would say that if I took the time to actually learn more about chess and get better, perhaps take classes, things like that
I think it would be better because I would be learning and improving and it would be good for my brain and more beneficial for me.
But I don't really do that.
I just play, play, play.
So I find that that is not the best use of my time.
But if I had the goal to improve in chess and learn more strategy, then maybe it would be worth it to spend a good amount of time playing or learning.
I should say.
But that's not really what I've been doing.
And now I want to talk about chess as an analogy or a metaphor for life, because people often say that life is like a game of chess, or different things in life are like chess.
I think that in some ways life is like chess, but I think if we're being creative we can say that about many things.
Life is like basketball.
Life is like whatever.
We can probably find many different comparisons that might make sense.
But yeah, in some ways, life is kind of like chess.
I think certain situations in life are like chess.
And in particular, I think, when you are trying to outwit someone else, in whatever area of life.
There are some similarities to chess.
Think of politics.
I'm not into politics.
I'm not interested in politics.
But I'll tell you that politics are like chess, because people are trying to defeat their opponents and get what they want, and they have to employ different strategies and think ahead and anticipate, to think of what their opponent will do if they do this, what their opponent will say if they say this.
And especially like geopolitics.
Think of like different countries, different governments in the geopolitical world and their strategy when it comes to international politics with different countries and the battle over specific land, specific areas.
That is very similar to chess, because there's the element of, and space, and all of that.
So there are many domains and many areas of life that can be compared to chess.
And I think in general, there are some principles that that are present in the game of chess that can be applied to real life.
So, for example, Strategy is a big one.
In life, I think we should have strategy when it comes to achieving our goals.
I think that we should have a plan, a plan of attack, we might say.
We should also have a plan to defend from negative things.
For example, there's strategy involved in every area of life.
So that's one principle.
Another big principle is making adjustments, because in chess You might have a plan but your opponent might force you to adjust and do things differently because of how they are moving their pieces.
So, even though we need to have strategies in life to accomplish different things, we need to be ready to make adjustments when necessary.
We need to adapt based on what life gives us or what happens.
We need to be able to think in the moment, make adjustments and do things differently or make different moves if necessary.
And another principle that I already mentioned is thinking ahead.
So if people don't think ahead in life, meaning they don't think about the future.
Usually they're going to have issues.
They're going to have money problems, health problems, maybe relationship problems.
They'll probably have problems in different areas areas of their life due to the fact that they're not preparing for the future or they're not trying to set themselves up for future success.
They're not thinking ahead and thinking about what they want to do two moves from now, so to say.
So that's an important thing.
We want to Think ahead, but not think too far ahead all the time, because we also just need to make moves now.
Right?
And focus on the present moment too, of course.
And another principle is that we need to defend what's important.
In chess, you need to defend your important pieces and in particular your king.
And in life, there are certain things we need to defend and make sure we don't lose them.
There are certain things that are very important in our lives and And we don't want to lose them.
So we need to defend those things.
Right.
And one last. principle is sacrifice.
In chess.
One thing that happens often is people will sacrifice an important piece so that they can gain a future advantage in another area, another part of the board or whatever.
And in life, sometimes we have to make sacrifices that might hurt in the present moment, but they help us in the future.
I think that's another principle we can apply.
Okay, I hope that you enjoyed this episode and that it was good practice for your listening.
The transcript is in the description down below, as always.
And if you can understand me pretty well in these normal episodes, you need to start using my advanced episodes because you have to get accustomed to real English spoken at normal speed.
So if you want those episodes, the link to sign up is down below.
And also check out my US Conversations podcast.
This will be the next step for many of you to actually listen to two people talking and not just one.
And you can also find an English teacher there.
So if you're interested in that, that link is also down below.
All right.
Thank you so much for listening to this episode.
And I'll talk to you on the next episode of listening time.
