Chess is a game that has fascinated me since I was a child. I learned as I watched my father played with some of his friends. He would occasionally teach me the rules and the psychology of the game. My father was not a genius or some sort of that thing but he would beat his opponent till there is nothing left of their ego. He said to me once that chess is "a struggle between two minds alone". It really is just one player against another, no hurdles to jump over, no race tracks to run or anything like that. And he said that the game is "not a measure of intelligence, its a measure of chess ability".

The ability of a chess player to see what is going on the board and the ability to isolate himself from the world and live for the events of the board while the match is on. Perhaps the greatest example of this was the match between Gary Kasparov and Veselin Topalov in Wijk aan Zee 1999. Kasparov was playing white and opens up with 1.e4. The game was quite equal in the early stages of development until move 24 when Gary sacrificed a rook. Topalov used 20-25 minutes of his time thinking of his response. Kasparov momentarily left the board to take a pee or whatever he did that day. Topalov decided to take the rook with his pawn on c5, so 24...cxd4. But then again Gary released a more jaw dropping move 25 Re7+. At this point, Topalov was outplayed! totally owned, he was forced NOT to take the remaining rook because of mate threats. Eventually, Kasparov won the game because black's king was too exposed. In one of his interview, Gary said, there were too many things that was going through his mind after move 24, but he already was so sure where to place the succeeding moves.

Another player I admire is today's world no.1 Magnus Carlsen. He started playing the game of chess at an early age and gradually mastered the board. He can play 10 simultaneous game blindfolded. In an interview he said, we don't really need the board and the chess pieces to play the game, all we need is our mind. He can remember almost ALL of his games, from the opening to the end game. In the latest FIDE rating, he is currently rated 2848, second highest following Gary Kasparov's 2851.

Ultimately, we cannot fathom whats going on inside a chess players mind. We can only see how brilliant their mind is on what transpire during the game. Perhaps, for me, its the will to win that separates the winners from the losers.