When Quitting Isn’t an Option: Lessons from an 8-Year-Old at a Chess Championship

I was dead lost. I had no idea how it happened...

I was dead lost. I had no idea how it happened. Or rather I did, but it didn’t matter now. I made a seemingly unimportant choice a few moves ago about where to move my King. Now, my opponent’s Queen was rampaging through my position, leaving me with little hope.

I thought about resigning. About how my time would be better spent on reading, relaxing before the next round, or just about anything rather than playing out a game whose fate seemed sealed. And then I saw The Kid…

I took my 8-year-old son, Jacob, to play in the Chess World Open in Philadelphia a couple of weeks ago. Jacob has been pursuing chess competitively for a couple of years and is on the cusp of surpassing my admittedly mediocre chess ability.

That makes me both happy and sad. Happy that he is learning so quickly and showing more potential than I ever had and sad that no matter the effort I put in I won’t be able to keep up with him for much longer.

Coaching my son has been both a challenge and one of the most rewarding things that I have done. I have tried to bring to bear the full range of mental models that I have learned over the years – focusing on process over outcome, keeping a growth mindset, and so on.

I have tried to strike a delicate balance between being a supportive father and a coach who needs to deliver blunt feedback to help his student improve. It hasn’t always been easy, but we both grew because of the experience.

Jacob earned his trip to the World Open through the quality of his play in prior, smaller, tournaments. He demonstrated to me that he had what it takes to take his time and work through the nuances of the position despite being so young. Now he was competing in the same section that I was playing in, and I wasn’t at all sure that I was going to do better than he would.

… I didn’t know The Kid. What I did know was that he had a bright-white long-sleeve shirt on, and on its back was a simple, yet powerful, message: Never Give Up. I looked over the position on the board in front of me again. Then I made a choice: game on, let’s fight!

When you are losing, you are supposed to complicate the game. Give your opponent a chance to make a mistake. When you are winning, you must take your time and allow your opponent no chances.

That’s what you are supposed to do. However, there is a reason for one of the most famous chess clichés that I have drilled into Jacob: The hardest game to win is a won game. Mentally, you've already won, so you want to finish quickly and move on.

Clearly, that’s how my opponent felt. I “allowed” him to fork my two remaining pieces, the Knight and the Queen. He took the bait almost instantly, moving his pawn forward triumphantly. Normally that would be the end – further loss of material in an already losing position.

But not here. My Knight jumped, attacking his Queen. Suddenly, the game got complicated.

Another imprecise move later from my opponent, and the game was suddenly back to even. They say that once a player makes the first blunder, the next one is likely to follow soon. A few moves later my opponent tipped over his King in resignation. I had won a lost game, inspired by the message emblazoned on the back of The Kid’s t-shirt.

My trips with Jacob to chess tournaments are not just about chess. His favorite food, by far, is Chicken Tenders. It has become a thing – every new place we go, he rates the tenders out of 10. He has become quite the chicken connoisseur, refining his ratings down to the decimal point, literally.

This trip we both got lucky, the hotel had 9/10 chicken tenders. I convinced him to come with me for lunch to a brewery in between rounds that had “Oh So Tender” chicken tenders on the menu. Fortunately for me, and for Jacob, those came in at 9.2/10 on his scale. Ah, it doesn’t take a lot to make an 8-year-old happy!

A few rounds later, I had a “won” game of my own. I was very proud of myself – I remembered the opening preparation 12 moves deep. My opponent clearly did not know the position and made a common mistake. Voilà! I pounced and had what I knew was a winning position that I had analyzed many times with a computer at home.

Except now I was on my own, past the opening preparation that I had done with a computer. Suddenly, the win seemed a bit tougher than what I knew the “objective” computer evaluation to be.

A few imprecise moves later, I made a mistake. Suddenly, I started to wonder – am I actually losing this?

Dark thoughts flashed through my head. How could I let the win slip away? What was wrong with me? Isn’t this exactly the type of won position that I have drilled into Jacob how to win with clinical precision?

Looking at the board the realization sunk in. I was definitely worse and would have to fight to salvage a draw. My heart sank.

Then—I couldn't believe it—I saw him again. The Kid. Even though this was a different day, he was still wearing his bright white t-shirt with “Never Give Up” emblazoned on his back.

After taking a deep breath I began to calculate.

I was prepared for a long, grueling fight well into the night. That was not to be. My opponent moved quickly, and as coaches say – move fast, lose fast. Suddenly my Bishop slipped out from beside my Rook to check the King, simultaneously discovering an attack on my opponent’s undefended Rook. A few moves later, my opponent shook my hand in resignation.

If it weren’t for The Kid, I don’t know if I would have had the fortitude to win either of these games. The results are not the point. I also managed to snatch a couple of draws from the jaws of victory in later rounds. Later, I had a stinging loss that put me out of contention for top prizes. Both Jacob and I did well, finishing with more wins than losses and in the top quarter of our section, but not in the very top.

The whole experience got me thinking about lessons that I could apply to investing. The last few years have been challenging ones professionally. Despite my best attempts to stay disciplined to my long-term value investing approach, I have been very out of step with the markets.

Some days I wake up, see another meme stock skyrocket or a very expensive stock get much more expensive, and shake my head. Maybe I just don’t get it anymore, despite a quarter of a century of professional investing.

That’s where the lesson from the World Open helped. Never give up. Be resilient, and make the best moves that you can, no matter the situation or the pressure. In the case of investing, it’s not just for me, but much more so for those who have entrusted me to steward their capital.

Despite the mental exhaustion of playing chess for 4 days straight, I came back strangely refreshed. My motivation to succeed at investing, through an appropriate combination of discipline and flexibility, has never been higher.

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About the author

Gary Mishuris, CFA is the Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer of Silver Ring Value Partners, an investment firm that seeks to apply its intrinsic value approach to safely compound capital over the long-term. He also teaches the Value Investing Seminar at the F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business.