Life lessons found in chess

DOTHAN, Ala. —

Lined up on either end of a chess board, the pieces are arranged a bit like they’re waiting to fight a battle.

There’s the respective king and queen, centered and protected by the knights, bishops, rooks and pawns. The pieces are moved into positions that will provide an advantage over the opponent. Strategies are developed and a king could be taken in the end.

A little psychological warfare may be thrown into the mix as players try to predict the other’s moves across the 8-by-8 checkered grid. Someone might complain of lighting as a way to distract their opponent, or they may simply choose the seat that faces a wall rather than the flow of people moving around them.

It should be no surprise that chess is often used as a metaphor for war. In its original form, the 1,500-year-old game was indeed an Indian war game.

As Bryan Tillis talks about the game, he refers to Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War,” the ancient Chinese military treatise still in print today. Just as corporate America applies the strategies of the ancient text to business transactions, so do chess players like Tillis.

But there are also life lessons on the chess board.

Tillis has been a student of chess since he was 6 and was taught to play by his older brother. It wasn’t long before Tillis was beating his brother — who was six years older — and his brother stopped playing him. He got serious about the game when he turned 15 in 2003.

“Everything was influenced by the game – life decisions,” said Tillis, a 23-year-old Dothan native. “It teaches you really to focus on the future and to make the right choices.”

He graduated from Dothan High School in 2006, finished both Wallace College and Troy University with honors in three years, and is now working on his master’s degree in sociology at Mississippi State University in Starkville.

Despite the workload his master’s program requires, Tillis still sets aside two hours a day to study chess plays.

Tillis reached the top five in chess in Alabama and is currently ranked No. 1 in Mississippi. He’s coming off two wins at tournaments in Tallahassee, Fla., and Memphis, Tenn. He currently has 2,148 points from tournament play. His goal is to reach 2,200 points to become a national chess master as recognized by the U.S.C.F.

When he’s home in Dothan, he returns to the same chess club where he learned his game — the Dothan Chess Club, which gathers to play each Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. at Atlanta Bread Company. He actually lost all his games when he started playing with the Dothan club at 15. He kept playing, though, and eventually began winning.

“It’s very daunting at first when trying to learn the game,” Tillis said.

But, he said, if parents notice a knack for recognizing patterns and spatial orientation in their children, they might want to consider introducing them to chess. Kids could learn a lot about long-term planning, math and even English skills, Tillis said. They may also learn to respect opponents and individuals, especially when playing with adults.

“Introduce the game to them,” he said. “You can tell very quickly with children — they get bitten by the bug very quickly.”

Those who don’t play the game, Tillis said, don’t necessarily understand its “quiet intensity.”

“They see plastic pieces on a board,” Tillis said. “But there’s infinite possibility.”