Blair Hawthorne, founder and CEO of LoopFX, on why chess is like trading
Why chess?
My brother Craig showed me how the pieces moved when I was about six and it just stuck. I’m told my Dad came over and started watching me play and I was sitting still in a bit of a trance. My parents run a chain of kilt shops in Scotland, so chess wasn’t their forte, but they quickly took me to the school chess club – with my brother in tow of course! There I met my first chess coach, Mrs Steyn. She was a wonderful, eccentric lady in her mid 70’s who taught chess as well as tagged polar bears for conservation – ahead of her time for the mid 1990’s!
I was obviously quite young when I started playing, but I liked that ideas are taken purely on merit. Age, sex, size, background – none of these things matter. Fast forward a few years and I was in the Scottish team playing internationally against adults. I was a good player, but being honest my chess pals were more talented.
What similarities are there between chess and trading?
Loads. Chess is a brutally honest game. You alone, are responsible for your decisions, you live and die by those decisions. The same is true of trading.
My coach growing up was a 130kg, 6’4 man with gigantic hands called Eric. He had Asperger’s yet went out of his way to teach me to prepare for the unexpected. Often in the middle of a game he would suddenly remove a bunch of pieces from the board, completely distorting the equilibrium of the position and causing me to reshuffle my priorities. While it was annoying at the time, it did inadvertently prepare me for trading.
How can chess help you add value to your trades?
Chess is all about trying to make better decisions. And the same is true of finance. We should all be trying to improve how we make decisions, a little bit, every day.
What’s the biggest life lesson that chess has taught you?
Chess is steeped in a culture of analysis. After every game, you shake hands and review the game together. Both players share ideas, talk through what you were analysing and inevitably one of you says: “Oh, I hadn’t seen that…!”
Everyone has a responsibility to review their own performance and take action to make themselves better.
What is your favourite/signature move?
Well, it’s d4, but some people might not recognise that! d4 is the first move of the ‘Queens Gambit’, and it’s a positional opening. You sacrifice a pawn for control of the centre of the board. You then try to win by putting tiny incremental increases of pressure on top of your opponent. Think grain of sand by grain of sand.
For me, one of the best compliments you can get after a game was your opponent saying “I don’t know where I went wrong…” Grain of sand on grain of sand!
Is it ever too late to learn chess?
You’re never too old to take up chess. I have a growing list of finance chess fans – send me a message and I can connect you.
I get queries from parents looking to introduce their kids to chess too – I really like teaching younger kids, you can get a feel for their personality. Quieter kids playing super aggressive chess, always attacking. Or kids who can’t sit still wanting to keep all their pieces near their king. You never know till they sit down and shake hands to play.
Chess players are generally some of the kindest people I have met. Whether it is a guy I used to play in Washington Square Park called ‘Cheese’, my old coach Eric, Mrs Steyn, or my chess pals, they all love the game and want to share it.
But remember: The first rule of Chess Club is…you DO NOT talk about Chess Club!
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