Chess is the best waste of time ever invented.

The video is about chess addiction. I don't think that's a bad thing. There are much worse things to be addicted to.

I learned how to play chess when I was 12 years old. I immediately became addicted to it even though I knew virtually nothing about it. After learning the rules (which are very interesting) I bought my first chess book. I have about 50 chess books which I used to study. But now with the internet, I don't need those books. Computer analysis of my games is all I need to improve my skills.

Chess is a knife fight. I'm trying to kill my opponent and my opponent is trying to kill me. The game can be very violent.

My living room is an international chess club thank to the internet and https://lichess.org/. My opponents live in virtually every country in the world. No matter what country we live in, all chess players are best friends because we share a love for a wonderful thing.

I don't have the patience to play chess at a slow time control. The time control I use is 10-minute games. Each opponent has 10 minutes on his or her clock to finish the game. If my clock runs out of time before I can checkmate my opponent's king or force a draw I lose the game. And that happens a lot. When I have been in terrible time trouble I used to feel my hand shake. Fortunately, I got over that problem.

Every game I find myself in a position I have never seen before. Almost always it's very complex and it's very easy to make mistakes. My brain is getting a lot of exercise and that's a good thing.

What made me love chess even more was when I discovered https://lichess.org/. It's a beautiful website and it makes everything easy and fun. It also has the advantage of being totally free with zero ads. Their free computer analysis of my games (or any other game from the last 300 years) is fantastic. People who know nothing about chess should go there just to watch the games. It's like watching a war movie. I have played more than 3 thousands of games there and those games will stay on their computer until the end of time for me or anyone else wants to study them. My lichess.org profile.

I can't imagine existing without being able to play chess. I really am addicted to it. There is no cure.

Understanding Chess Mastery: Jennifer Shahade at TEDxBaltimore 2014