As well developed humans, we are served by learning experiences that cultivate not only our confidence but our character. Chess, while certainly a game of strategy also serves as a less understood method of character development. To excel at chess, requires far more than: tactical problem solving, mating sequences and strategies, knowledge of Opening Theory, Positional understanding, and Endgame competence. I will briefly illustrate a variety of ways that the study of chess involves Personal Development or Virtue and the acquisition of skills that have transferable life applications off the Chess Board.

To begin, Chess requires the sustained capacity for Attention. Chess requires a player to truly and increasingly very thoughtfully THINK & CONSIDER before they Move, and that not doing so has consequences that are undesirable. This involves the ability of learning how to imagine how one’s potential choices play themselves out on the board. Chess requires Discipline as in if you Touch it you need to Move the piece. Chess requires Patience as well the learning that not every move that Feels good or that one initially Thinks is good is indeed actually so. Chess requires Humility there is always going to be a person or a computer that is simply better than you. Chess also requires an earned confidence in yourself, your thought processes and intuition.  Chess requires the ability to constructively learn from your mistakes, Chess requires the ability to think about not just yourself and what you are seeking to accomplish but as well to consider things from the other person's perspective and goals and how they interrelate. Chess requires the ability to cultivate a plan and the ability to work with frustration, disappointment and not give up when one’s initial plan is stymied. Chess requires the understanding that there are decisions that you can control namely your own and that there are decisions you cannot control namely that of another.  Chess requires the ability to understand that there are traps and that when something looks too good to be true it often is.  Chess requires the ability to dig deep within oneself and find creative solutions to difficult problems at times under pressure of the clock. Chess also cultivates an artistic rule breaking mentality and learning to see a position or a sacrifice from a non-conventional perspective. Chess cultivates creativity and experimentation with some element of objectivity as to the merits of such ideas and novelties.

Chess cultivates an appreciation of intellectual beauty, the ability to hold complexity and nuance as well as how there are different and valid approaches of approaching a Position. Chess requires the ability for tenacity and steadfastness and learning to see a game through from start to finish. Chess requires one to not underestimate one’s opponent and to avoid cockiness.  There are more examples of how Chess offers the opportunity for personal development and how training in chess has transferable life skills off the board. To take in these lessons from the game requires a teacher who in able to consider one’s developmental level and thoughtfully point to how such ideas apply to each player. Knights of Virtue is a school of chess that takes this approach: Chess as the practice of the cultivation of virtue and a training ground for personal development in an increasingly challenging world.