Hobbies Worth the Time: The Delight of Cue Sticks and Chess Pieces

What do we usually mean by hobbies? Hobbies are some activities that are done in one’s leisure time so that one does not get bored. For me, it’s a whole lot more because I feel like I am addicted to them. I do have a number of hobbies. Some of them are gaming, anime, snooker, pool, chess and tasting food in different places. Among them, I am mostly addicted to snooker and chess. 

From childhood, I wanted to learn chess but even when I asked to learn from someone, nobody had the time to teach. I did try by myself but it was hard to learn as it is a highly tactical game. Finally, around January 2020, one of my friends, Jawad Kabir, helped me start my chess journey. He gave me the tutorials and suggested that I watch the YouTube channel, GothamChess. I started to like it a lot as I was learning a lot. I was immersed in chess at that time. Gradually, I could understand the complex positions in a game to some extent. I did play badly at the time but it was worth the time. I started by playing on Chess.com. Initially, my elo rating was 400. I was stuck at 700-800 for a long time. In the middle of 2021, I surpassed that and now my rating reached 1400. My peak rating was 1550 on Lichess. It was a great satisfaction for me because I never thought I could reach that level in my life. So, after SSC, I participated in an open tournament to test my skills in real life. It was a good experience. Out of 7 games, I won 4 and tied one. I could defeat players rated 1200, 1600, 1500 and 1000. I tied with the player rated 1700; a satisfactory experience. So, I got confident in my chess skills.

In my college years, I participated in an Inter House Chess Tournament. Surprisingly, I was made the leader of my House, Begum Rokeya House. It was hard to gather players from my house as it did not have many eligible players for the tournament. I managed to put together a team of 8 members including me. We defeated the favorites of the tournament unexpectedly and I was unbeaten.

I am also very passionate about snooker. I started playing snooker randomly; I never knew I would start playing it. It was just 1 month before I sat for the HSC Examinations. I was hanging out with friends and suddenly we decided “Let’s play snooker, it looks fun.” So, we went to a snooker place and started playing. That was the first time I played snooker.

After that, we used to go there often and got used to playing snooker even though we were noobs. I learned skills like backspin, front spin, side spins, combo shots, etc. Now, it’s hard to hold back from playing. It does cost some money. But I always play it even if I have less on me. One time, I spent almost 900 taka on a single day. I, along with my friends, went to play snooker after finishing our English examination(HSC). That was a memorable day as we enjoyed it a lot. From then on, I have been playing and improving each match. It's a nice way to meet new people and chill out.

Even now, I play snooker or as an alternative, pool to escape the monotonous lifestyle surrounding the university. Sometimes, I play chess in the university premises when the chess club of the university arranges an open chess games campaign although I am not a member of the chess club. The passion for these two games won’t end in me ever for sure.