Page 29 - 2024-2025 Creative Writing

If I Were to Receive a 1st Place Award…

If I were to receive a first-place award, it would be, without a doubt, the World

Chess Championship. Chess has been my hobby for over two years now, and I love

it. I've already won four awards: two golds, one silver, and one bronze, and one of

the golds is my local club's championship award. I almost got the bronze medal in

the Youth Chess Championship in Mongolia but choked at the very end and got

4th place.

With that being said, I am nowhere close to being a world champ. I haven’t even

received my national rating, let alone an international rating. You need to train for

hours and hours, putting every bit of your soul into it.

To even get to challenge the world champion, you need to be at least top 20 in the

world and be a Super Grandmaster, which is the highest title you can get.

Some people may think chess is pure thinking and nothing else, but they couldn’t

have been farther from the truth. The amount of calories you will burn by just

sitting at a chessboard will surprise so many people. The skill you need to be calm

in a totally lost position is very hard, and the current world champion struggles

with this as well.

With such a strict and almost unreachable requirement, it is one of the hardest

things to ever achieve, and in fact, there are only 17 people in history who did this.

And that’s exactly why I want it.

B. Erkhestushig 9A