I have very much enjoyed watching the world championship during the last 2-3 weeks. Watching chess, especially with entertaining and bright commentators, make the experience so wonderful--they explain the moves and the intricaties for us suckers who ain't good enough.
These broadcasts go on for hours, and I've caught almost all of it (plus some recaps by GothamChess and the TakeTakeTake peeps). Plus: I also got very annoyed by a previous post spoiling the results of the final game (#806489)
There were some crazy twists and turns to this 14-game match, much more exciting than the endless draws we've seen in previous championships--say, during some Magnus Carlsen's defending of the title.
So, tonight I watched this interview with Gukesh, the 18-year-old Indian star (not even the highest-rated Indian player these days... chess is booming over there!) who just won the title 7.5-6.5.
This is what Gukesh had to say:
"for me, I still feel like I learn something new...chess is a game of unlimited possibilities, unlimited beauty."
For the Bitcoin connection, Jack Mallers made a directly similar point (chess-unlimited-bitcoin) in his Madeira presentation last year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7ID3fKAFQM
Aleks Svetski (https://stacker.news/Svetski) talk about the forgotten virtues of beauty too in his new book The Bushido of Bitcoin (highly recommend), and has already been promising us the new instantiation of the book series: The Metaphysics of War and Beauty.
Beauty, I feel, is a little bit forgotten; ignored; brushed aside. We can find it in the awe humans naturally feel at feats of nature, when we're elevated or observe a vast landscape, when we're presented with skillful, tasteful, and timeless art.
And, it would seem, on the chessboard -- at least from the view of a teary-eyed young boy from India who eleven years ago stood in his hometown of Chennai and saw the reign of Magnus Carlsen begin, as the latter convincingly wrestled the crown of chess away from Viswanathan Anand in that year's championship:
"11 years ago, the title was taken away from India. When I was watching the match in 2013, I was inside the stands and I thought that it would be so cool to be inside the box,” Gukesh said in the press conference after winning the title. “When Magnus won, I wanted to be the one to bring back the title to India. This dream that I had more than 10 years ago is the single-most important thing in my life. There’s nothing better than doing this for myself, my loved ones and my country,” Gukesh added. (India Today)
The universe is just too perfect, sometimes.