After School Programs Compare Chess to Your Life

For Forrest Gump, “life is like a box of chocolate.” For the rest of us, life is really like a game of chess. NYChessKids is bringing the game of chess out into the real world with one of the most beneficial after school programs for children in New York City. Little did you know how relatable the concepts used within chess could be to your life.

Consider that your life is a giant chess board, where each event is one of the pieces. While children who take part in one of these after school programs learns the guidelines of the game, they will soon find how guidelines exist in the real world, too. Guidelines in life can be found in everything from your own personal beliefs to socio-political programs. As in the game, every move you make in life has some type of an impact.

As you move each piece in a game of chess, you are inevitably looking for a way to improve your strategy to win. In life, every decision you make is in an effort to improve things for yourself. Perhaps personally, perhaps financially, or perhaps in some different way altogether. While it's important to be a proactive player in life and in chess, there are those players that react to a situation. As your opponent makes a move in chess, you can sometimes reap the benefit of it. Sometimes in life, people sit around and wait for someone else to make a move before they actually react to it.

Even when you make a wrong decision in life, it doesn’t mean you are at a loss. This concept can easily be applied to the game of chess, where a wrong move could lead to an unexpected result. The best you can do is plan for the best and hope that your strategy pans out. Try and be as defensive in life, anticipating outcomes as you have to be in the game of chess.

As children learn the skills required in the game of chess during one of NYChessKids after school programs, they will inevitably be learning about life.