Attack and Prophylaxis

While I openly confess that football is indeed "The Beautiful Game", I feel that chess, or more affectionately known to some of us as "attack and prophylaxis", is just as beautiful.

I love the game and have played it since I was young, being active on the national competition scene for quite a number of years. Unlike what many think, chess is far from being a mere caricature of some obscure ancient Indian battlefield, although its historical origins point that way. It is about quiet passion, inner intensity, overcoming your opponent with a superior display of tactics, endurance and determination. Above all, chess is like a dance; a tango between two lovers of the game, each taking her step, both silently gearing up towards an explosive, beautiful climax over 64 innocuous looking sqares.

Possibly nothing else sharpens the mind and resurrects an ancentral lust for battle quite like the game. Former world champion Emmanuel Lasker paid it the highest salutation and tribute by these golden words, "Chess, like life, like love, is a struggle".