I watch the club players from a table or two away. Until recently I have not played chess  for many years other than a game or two on the holidays when the family is around. I tried to get serious in seventh grade when one of the teachers was a chess player, but chess ground to a halt as other interests took over.

I am grateful for modern computer chess, where I can tone down the computer opponent to a level where chess can be a challenge and not a slaughter. The last time I bought a chess game for my computer, the challenge was to survive longer than twenty moves. When I played the computer the first time a few weeks ago on the default settings, I made it to twenty-one moves before the game was over.

I found a few free online chess sites, and played a few games with them. One, a university site has one of those computer chess games who’s job it is to show you how bad you play. I made it to twenty-three moves

I was searched chess clubs around my local area, and saw there was a chess tournament coming up. I did not understand all of what the post said, but I did understand one-thousand dollars in prize money. That was enough to get me interested in chess again. Go play a few games and pocket some serious money? How hard could that be?

I read more chess sites, and I found a chess server where I could play online. The server gave me a preliminary rating of 1200 which I understand is an average rating of online players. I was not sure what 1200 meant, though I read about a teenage chess player who has a rating around 2800. I knew I was no where around 2800, but I was sure I would be rated over 1200 after I played a few games. The number 2000 had a nice sound to it. I decided that number was attainable. I decided I could improve from there as I became more familiar with chess again.

I have now played a few rated games. I can write with certainty that the number 1200 is indeed a fine number to be rated at. My rating as of this weekend is almost 800, with enough deviation to settle in at a lower level when the smoke clears.  It is always nice to know there is room for improvement.

I get to play a number of 1200 and above rated players so all is not lost. The reason I have been able to play them is there are so many of them, and so few players at my level. After having watched them take my chess army apart move by move, I can appreciate the effort they have put into achieving their ratings.

I played one bored player who rating was in the1400′s and it was like watching a Michael Jackson video the way his/her pieces danced around the board in seeming randomness, cleaning the board of my pieces no matter how I tried to save them from slaughter, or mount an attack of my own. The game ended with me capturing a pawn or two, and being offered a draw rather than accepting another loss.

I neglected to mention that before venturing online to find what my skill rating is I bought a book or two. When I checked the books out in the bookstore, they seemed to be pretty straight forward, and I thought they would be good for me to brush up with. After trying to follow the verbiage and envision the moves, I found a book or two geared towards those people in the lower ranks of the rating system. People like me who have a tentative rating of about 800 on a good day.

I may update my progress or adventure as as I progress, if I do. For now, if you think you may be interested in playing chess yourself , you can search: chess, chess tactics, and online chess. Your local library and bookstores are also good sources for books. If you want to find a chess club in your area, search chess club and your city and state.

At the moment, I am a little too humbled to think about joining a chess club. Maybe after I break the 800 level I will give it more consideration. What I have found interesting is the only difference between a high level book and the books on chess I can understand is the presentation. One book has lots of words and a few big pictures. The high level books have few words with lots of chess move annotation and small pictures.

On the artistic side, I have been able to watch some very skilled players play out their games. When I replay their play games what they are doing is pretty to watch and appears so simple. When I try to match their artistry, it lasts about nine moves. I have a little more understanding to grasp before I will be a danger to anyone with more than a few games under their belt.

The most recent, or possibly the first real global business model I have noticed is the business of South Korea. Without going into detail about how South Korea is doing it, they are becoming a diversified company reaching into many facets of our daily life no matter where we live or what we do. Of course there are nay sayers who think the Korean manufacturing machine may fall on its face, and be gone in the wink of an eye.

Looking a little south of Korea is mighty Japan, who has mega businesses in place who are very successful. Companies such as Toyota, who may be owned by a larger company, or in itself owns many smaller companies. Changing direction is Nike, who has gone from a floundering second rate shoe company into a company who not only provides shoes for the world, but clothing and other branded products as well.

Nothing new so far in what I have written. Anyone who sits down for ten minutes thinking about huge companies will understand the same things. What about the long range though? I have no doubt, watching McDonalds moving into the Coffee boutique business, Dunkin’ Doughnuts selling coffee through grocery stores, Phillip Morris quietly moving out of the cigarette business, what else is going on in the big business world that you and I are not aware of?

How many companies have fifty or one hundred year business plans that melt, solidify, but always change as the decades roll on. Will we a century from now be buying our goods from one of a few hundred mega companies who will be selling everything from wheat and rice to electronics, and energy? Is there a new world order lurking out there on the horizon waiting to launch a new government and a new economy?

I doubt a new world order as world government is a possibility as far as my vision carries me. I think there may come a time when almost everyone in the world will be working for a behemoth of a company that produces and sells everything from mops and brooms to state of the art luxury items. I see a time in the future when business will be the world government. What I find ironic is everything is in place and people are being trained to not only accept the idea, but welcome it.

You are reading this right now because you own a computer and purchased a connection to the internet. Some company, a very large company provides you and me, and a large part of the country where you live with this same access. They try to make it as convenient as possible to never have to leave their home page.

Watch the local news each night at dinner time and monitor news on more than one station. You will notice the news is almost identical. Mega portals such as Yahoo, MSN, network news, and your local news feed off each other. News papers and news magazines follow suit. Giant network news is vanilla flavored pudding. Watch all ‘world news’ programs and see how similar they are. They all may be a story or two apart in what they report, with their biggest difference in the order and the potential story slant.

But that only scratches the surface. What really is important is what online role playing games have in common. To be the successful in an online game you have to join a guild, or something like it under a different name. A guild is a loose group of people who have skills that are needed by the group as a whole. The more diverse and needed are the skills, the more powerful the guild becomes. The more powerful the guild becomes the more it can collectively accomplish.

Something interesting about our brains to think about. Our brains do a poor job of separating reality and fantasy. Whether we dream it, daydream it, play it, or live it, it makes no difference to our brains. Belonging to a guild in a fantasy game is no different than being an employee at a mega company.

Being an employee at a mega company, is not much different than joining a new type of political party. Joining a new political party is not really that odd. Millions and millions of gamers out there, slowly having their idea of what is acceptable and what is not modified each hour they play gaining levels or status in their alternate life inside their online game. Then they go into the real world, or do they?