John Fawole is an International Chess Federation master, chess in education lecturer, and founder of Bruvs Chess Media. John shares his journey to becoming a national chess champion in Nigeria, the transformative effects of chess education, and how the game impacts people's lives beyond the board.
Key topics
Episode Digest
Visit the Grokkist podcast hub for a full digest of this episode including highlights and links to stuff we discussed: https://grokk.ist/stillcuriouspodcast/s3e3-john-fawole/
Recorded 15 January 2023
Website: grokk.ist/stillcuriouspodcast | Email: podcast@grokk.ist | Socials: @grokkist
Music: Kleptotonic Swing by Tri-Tachyon
John Fawole is an International Chess Federation master, chess in education lecturer, and founder of Bruvs Chess Media. John shares his journey to becoming a national chess champion in Nigeria, the transformative effects of chess education, and how the game impacts people's lives beyond the board.
Key topics
Episode Digest
Visit the Grokkist podcast hub for a full digest of this episode including highlights and links to stuff we discussed: https://grokk.ist/stillcuriouspodcast/s3e3-john-fawole/
Recorded 15 January 2023
Website: grokk.ist/stillcuriouspodcast | Email: podcast@grokk.ist | Socials: @grokkist
Music: Kleptotonic Swing by Tri-Tachyon
The better player is always lucky. A better player can be losing a game, and they're able to save it. There are some positions you can't save, especially if your opponent is playing correctly, but your opponent is excited, then it becomes really very difficult for them to win. There's always that saying that the hardest game to win in chess is won game, because now, oh, you feel like you are winning this game and you're not putting in the effort to bring out the best moves that can win the game. You're just assuming, oh, I'm winning, I'm winning. But if you're opponent does not resign, the game is not over. So you need to like make sure you fight to the end to make sure the game is over.
Danu Poyner:You're listening to the Still Curious Podcast with me. Danu Poyner. My guest today is John Fawole who is an International Chess Federation master, US national master 2003, Nigeria junior chess champion and the 2013 Nigeria chess champion. John is an international chess Federation instructor, chess in education lecturer, and the founder of Bruvs Chess Media and its sister company Bruvs Chess educational services. John also holds an executive master's degree in business administration and a bachelor's degree in computer science. Today's conversation is unsurprisingly all about chess. But it's also about effort obsession and how the love of something can keep us going and take us to places we never imagined were possible. It's about how achievements arise from patience and commitment and the interesting dynamics between professional competition and play.
John Fawole:If you wanna be a good player with chess, you need to be obsessed with it. And I believe it applies to everything in life. If you want to be great at anything, you have to be obsessed with it and make sure you're able to do it well. it's only when you do what you love that you are able to commit to it. You are happy about it, you have passion for it. and you don't see it like a joke. It's just like a normal part of you So just do what you love and you are able to just achieve things you want to achieve in life.
Danu Poyner:John discovered his love of chess very early on. And while he was fortunate enough to have parents who were very supportive. It wasn't always straightforward.
John Fawole:my academics was failing because, I was doing more time on chess than on academics, so it really affected my studies in uni. I was going to represent Nigeria in the World Junior Chess Championship. A very great opportunity for me to play with the best junior chess players in the world. I took a leave of absence for school for six months just to go to play in this tournament. But the main problem was I didn't tell them that I took a leave of absence. They've got to find out, and they were really mad about that. It was just so much passion for chess and you made some crazy decisions,
Danu Poyner:At its heart though, this isn't a story of one person's quest for ultimate success. While John's initial ambition was to become a Grandmaster, he lights up most when talking about his grassroots education and advocacy work and how he's able to use his accomplishments and expertise to help others, whether it's building capacity to put his country's achievements on the map, or using chess as a way to teach young people important life skills like creativity, innovation, and pattern recognition.
John Fawole:You know, they have to like, okay, jump like a knight, and they're moving from one square, to another. Oh, move like a bishop. And they're going on the dark corner on the squares. it's just so interesting for kids and once you enter the class, they just want to like, oh, chess, chess, chess. They always look forward to it.
Danu Poyner:I learned a lot from John who was very gracious in answering my many newbie questions about how chess works. We also had a good discussion about how the game is evolving, thanks to software tools, AI and representation in popular culture. Enjoy, it's my conversation with John Fawole coming up after the music on today's episode of the Still Curious Podcast. So, hi John. Welcome to the podcast. Such a pleasure to have you here. How are you doing today?
John Fawole:Yes, I'm doing great. Danu. I'm happy to be here. Thanks for the invites. I really appreciate this.
Danu Poyner:So, you're a World Chess Federation Master, instructor and'Chess in Education' lecturer; you are the 2003 Nigeria Junior Chess Champion and the 2013 Nigeria chess champion. And you're also a US National Master; you're the founder of BruvsChess Media and its sister company, Bruvschess Educational Services; and you also hold an executive MBA and a degree in computer science. How did chess become part of your life and what makes it exciting to you?
John Fawole:I started playing chess in high school, two of my friends used to play chess and I just watched, I really never picked interest at first, but a few days of learning the game, I started beating my friends and my uncle traveled to the UK and he gave me my first chess book and I read it. I started beating the best chess player in the school, and that was how I started chess. And, I grew up in the university environment, they used to have the chess club called o a u Chess Club, and they have some very strong masters around at the club. So when I go, I just watch them play as a teenager. Just watching exactly what they're doing and I'm learning from them. And pretty fast I started beating some of them. That was how the chess journey started.
Danu Poyner:Amazing. So it started really early on for you. It must have been an interesting experience to find that you were naturally already beating all of these people. How did that feel for you at the time? What were you thinking about it?
John Fawole:Yeah, I mean, it took a while, but, I didn't play chess tournament for a very long time because unlike, the United States, for example, if you are very young and you have access to tournaments, we don't have that in Nigeria. So we can just hang around at a club like the University Chess club and just watch what they do and try to play chess. But at that time, I was playing, I never really thought about playing in chess tournaments because, uh, we don't have so many of them in Nigeria, so it's just best to learn from the best guys around and watch what they do and started studying on my own and it felt great like beating some of them.
Danu Poyner:It's interesting. I'm wondering if you can paint us a bit of a picture of growing up in Nigeria. You're from, uh, Ile-Ife. Is that right?
John Fawole:Yes. I'm from Ile-Ife and Ile-Ife is the source of Yoruba people, popularly known as the source. I grew up in Ife in the university environment. My mom works, uh, at the University staff school. She's a teacher. And my dad worked briefly at the university before he founded his own company and he was into automobile engineering and, doing his own personal business and all, Attended a secondary school in Ile-Ife, and I was there for a very long time because, I didn't have the opportunity to like, go to a boarding school like some of my sibling. Growing up, my parents wouldn't allow me, because, uh, they feel like, okay, if you fall sick, uh, he wouldn't be able to take care of himself. We have this malaria in Africa. A lot of people deal with it. And, uh, most especially if your genotype is AA, uh, you get to fall sick frequently from malaria. And at that point in time, it was my growing days, I needed my parents around and because I fall sick a lot as a teenager, so they would say, oh, you need to stay back home and no boarding school for you. I learned a lot from that because, uh, It really changed my perspective about a lot of things, even though a lot of people would think, oh, he's a mummy's pet or something, but I was mostly with my parents.
Danu Poyner:I'm curious what you were dreaming about and thinking about as a teenager or very early on, what was plan A for you?
John Fawole:So while I was young, my parents registered myself and my siblings for martial arts. I did karate, I did judo, I did TaeKwonDo. I used to go for swimming lessons. I used to enjoy myself, ride bicycle to my friend's house and just like that, we just play around, and the ambition was either to be a computer engineer or be a medical doctor? My parents, my dad, ex most especially, wanted me to be a computer engineer, because he studied here in the US and returning back home, he had some ideas on some of the career options. And he always suggested to me because, uh, growing up I used to just open up the turntable, like try to unscrew stuff and he was wondering like, okay, this guy's just spoiling things at home. Okay, maybe you should go for computer engineering. you know? So.
Danu Poyner:Guess You learned to play chess as I understand it, in, in 1998 and then entered your first tournament the following year in 99. and then you went on to win the National Chess Champion Junior not long after, a couple of years after that. It's a pretty steep trajectory and all that's happening while you were a teenager. What was life like for you at the time, going through that experience?
John Fawole:So, uh, compared to now as a teenager, I never really bothered about so much things because my parents would just be there to like, okay, settle most of the things. If I want to go to any tournament, they pay for it. They make sure I'm comfortable. I'm just able to just do those things as a teenager. But right now, growing up is quite different because now I have my own family. I need to cater for the family, I need to do a whole lot of things. So, it's a little bit a challenge combining chess with other aspects of life, but as a teenager, you don't get to worry about those things. If you have parents that are supportive, that they just want to see you succeed, uh, in any endeavor that you pick, uh, you don't get to worry about it. So, I mean, I feel like I played the best of my chess when I was still a teenager than right now, because now I have so many things clouding my head. I want to do this, I want to do that.
Danu Poyner:So it sounds like the way that this started for you was, you, you've discovered that you could do this and you were just following it and and seeing where it went. And then was there a, a moment when you started to realize this was sort of a viable track for you, or that you were gonna be really good at this?
John Fawole:Unlike kids in the Western countries, we don't have access to a lot of things. And even those days it's very difficult to get chess books. Maybe one person will have a chess book, then other people will try to make photocopy of it so that you can stay informed with the latest information. And that was a pretty challenge for most of the chess players, not just me and other chess players in Nigeria, because we don't have access to all these things. Because of that would add to train ourselves. In the US when I see people, because I work with kids right now, I teach kids how to play chess and all those things, and I don't have that opportunity because I, brought myself from nowhere to like become a master on my own. I trained on my own. I never had a trainer, I never had a coach. I was just reading, consuming those books and I became very good on my own. So when I was going to like, get into playing chess tournament, I started performing well. Like I used a hundred percent performance. If I play 10 around tournament and I have nine, over nine or 8.5 over nine, the dream was, oh, I wanna become a grandmaster. When I saw that, I started performing well and I, I used to play all these guys. I've been in the game for years and I beat them in tournaments. I'm like, When did I start playing and when did I start beating all these people? So I used to think like, okay, maybe I'm gonna be a grandmaster. I wanna become a grandmaster. That was the major ambition.
Danu Poyner:So ambition to become a Grand Master emerged as you were going through the process. I'm, I'm really struck by the image of you doing all of this, um, as you say, with the challenges of the access to resources and the solitary pursuit of, studying everything. Chess, just as an outsider seems a niche, uh, area. Is it something that you're able to connect with other people socially? How does that fit into your life?
John Fawole:That's a very good one because, uh, that's one of the things chess brings to you, the connection with other people. You are able to network. Uh, like mind as well. You get, tutors have made some very important connections that are still very useful for me in my life right now, that connection, most especially networking is very good. Yeah. Because you meet people from diverse background, people from different tribes and, uh, religion, you know. So it was just fun, like, okay, you get to meet these people from different states, even before trying to play international. Just within the locality in Nigeria, we have three major tribes, several kind of languages. So you get to meet people from everywhere around around Nigeria. it was really fun.
Danu Poyner:Oh, that's fantastic. can, I can well imagine that. You became the National Junior Chess Champion, which is a really significant achievement. What kind of impact did that have on your life at the time?
John Fawole:Yeah, it was a very difficult time for me when I became a national junior champion. difficult in the sense that, uh, it was almost the same time I was trying to gain admission into the university, so I needed to do some kind of studies and everything. But with the National Junior Chess Championship title, I was able to gain admission through sports to go to study computer engineering at OAU. I became a role model of the game at a very young age, and people were looking at me and want to learn more about chess. I used to travel, like go to give some pep talk in schools just to encourage students who play chess. I did that a couple of times in Lagos where I just get invited and just talk about chess and all these things were not documented because we don't have, of course we have internet, but it's not like you can just put something on the internet like Twitter or you use Instagram right now. Yeah, a lot of people are doing most of the things I've done in the past right now to create chess awareness.
Danu Poyner:I'm really keen to talk about the chess awareness and that kind of grassroots community work that you're doing. And we'll come to that in a little bit. I'm just still really pulling on this thread of how you came to grow into this path that you're on. You kind of mentioned there that your achievements in chess actually created an opportunity for you to pursue the computer engineering. Given that's the track that dad was really keen on, was there a kind of crossroads where you had to make a decision about computer engineering or chess, or was that not really how it was?
John Fawole:It's a kind of scenario like, when I was in high school, I don't need to read too much. When the teacher speaks and I'm able to grab something, I'm just going there to write the exam and I just came through and pass. But it's quite different, like getting into the university and I was to adopt the same method of not trying to study really hard, just listen to the lecture and just go to pass the exam. I mean, it changed a lot for me because now I notice that it's quite different. I need to devote more time to academics in the university. And because of that, my first year or second year in the university, I had some bad grades, okay, because now I was committing so much time to chess, like studying and doing stuff, just doing a whole lot of studies. And, my academics was failing because, I couldn't balance both of them. So. I was doing more time on chess than on academics, so it really affected my studies in uni. I didn't withdraw from the university. What happened was I was going to represent Nigeria in the World Junior Chess Championship. That would be a very great opportunity for me to like, play in such a tournament with the best junior chess players in the world. I thought to myself, okay, this is a very tough tournament and it'll require me to just take a leave of absence from school. I took a leave of absence for school for six months just to go to play in this tournament. Okay, my parents knew I was gonna play in the world junior championship, but the main problem was I didn't tell them that I took a leave of absence. They've got to find out, and they were really mad about that. But that was later on when I couldn't undo some of the things I did because yeah, it was just so much passion for chess and you made some decisions that are not, maybe I just call them some crazy decisions, but then, yeah, but that was what I wanted to do, like play in this tournament. I'm just looking at it like maybe I can become a world junior chess champion. That was my thought. But without rating, without so much opportunity. I've just been playing local. I've never gone out to the country to play any chess tournament, and that was really a very tough decision. So when I did that and I couldn't go back to school after six months, eventually I couldn't make it to the World Junior Chess Championship because of some logistic problems within the federation. They couldn't process visas on time. And now going back to school was just summer. And the other school, the polytechnic was going to have another tournament called the West Africa Polytechnic Games. They invited me like, oh, would you want to take any course of your choice and get some scholarship, they were going to provide accommodation and all those things and school fees, I don't have to pay. So I thought, oh, maybe that's also a very good option. So I took that as well. Going back to OAU, was just, because I've left school more than six months and, if you don't return when you're supposed to return, you're going to lose your studentship. So I've left school like, okay, six months, then a semester after. So it wasn't just making sense for me anymore, and I was just afraid to open up to my parents and tell them this is the situation. But they used to check on my grades and all those things, and they found out like, okay, something is wrong, and they invited me to come home and that was just it. And they got to know about it, and they were so angry, like, okay, why would you make such a decision?
Danu Poyner:From everything you've described, your parents sound very supportive and enabling of what you wanted to do, but also had expectations and wanting the best for you in terms of a career. That sounds like a really difficult conversation. How was that for you?
John Fawole:I was not happy that I made the decision. I wish I could undo stuff like okay. But it was just so difficult. Then in the university, when I got there, I already won like two tournaments that we won with myself and my teammates, we won gold for the university. They offered us scholarship for master's degree, but then I'm just losing everything because I want to play in this world juniors. I started looking at universities outside Nigeria and my mom actually wanted me to study in the UK but my dad was, oh, this guy, if he goes to the UK, this guy cannot concentrate here. It's just chess, chess, chess, chess. If he gets to the uk, he won't be able to concentrate and nobody to monitor him. So let him stay here in Nigeria and finish his bachelor's. Then after that, if he wants to go anywhere he can. Like, okay, you're not going to the uk. You have to stay here and study.
Danu Poyner:You're so enthusiastic about chess and following that passion and that dream. Uh, I wonder if you could just detour a little bit to tell us about the process of how you prepare for a tournament.
John Fawole:Okay. Yeah, so when I'm preparing for tournaments, I mean when I was much more younger, I do my studies at night when everything is quiet because I'm much more able to concentrate. I'm just having my chessboard in front of me, or like right now I train with the computers, but then there were no computers, so I tried to figure out games on my own. I remember a tournament I won in 2002 and I finished with 8.5 over 9 in that tournament. I chose a particular line I was gonna play as black, and I look at the best chess player that plays it in the world is Garry Kasparov. So studied hundred games of Garry Kasparov there, just looking at those positions like, okay, this is the idea this guy is playing. And to be very honest, in that tournament, nobody got a draw. All the games I played with a prepared line, I won everything, that's how it works. You just need to like, okay, these guys are better than you. They've been in the game for so long. Gary Kasparov was a former world champion and now studying his game and figuring out some elements from the game that I can use in my own game, uh, is something fantastic. Right now it's much more easier if you wanna play tournaments, just prepare some lines with the computer and then you can just go and play. So without any app or computer, we're just doing things on our own, like investing time into these and just looking at those positions, reminiscing on some of the thoughts and imagining some ideas and you're able to implement them over the board.
Danu Poyner:When you are looking at the games that have been played and the positions, what is it that you are looking for? How are you absorbing that information?
John Fawole:Okay, so when you look at those games, number one, you are analyzing them to get some elements that you might not know about because looking at those games, they're more advanced than the kind of games I used to play. Seeing that, okay, this person is a role model and it plays like this and is able to win the game, gives you an idea, okay, I could use the same style in my own game and try to win my opponents. It becomes much more easier in chess when you just know the idea you want to play. Then you're able to implement it. Like right now, if my opponent plays something that I'm not aware of or I've not studied in the past, I'm going to be caught unaware and because of that, I might be able to lose the game.
Danu Poyner:There are all of these different names of game styles and patterns of play. And it's interesting because when you're playing an opponent, someone will make what seems like a fairly straightforward or, or innocent looking move. And what are you thinking? Are you going, oh, that means they're playing this style or, or this particular game? It just seems like a very abstract set of different patterns and possibilities, and I'm really interested in that process of, of how you hold all of that complexity and pattern recognition, how you recognize what's going on.
John Fawole:Yes. Uh, because In chess we have, different types of openings, so we have the openings where you give the gambits. We have the queens gambits, we have the kings gambits. If I'm playing and I'm using the white pieces, I need to prepare for my opponent as white and, as black, I also need to prepare against my opponent. So it works like that because white makes the first move, and when you are playing white, you already prepare your opponent as white. Either you want to go with the king's pawn or the queen's pawn or the C4 pawn, which we call the English opening. You need to prepare all these things and get out of the opening phase. My understanding is that if your calculation is good, you are able to get out of the opening and play very well. So the middle game is also very important. And now after the middle game, we have to know like some transpositions that goes into the end game. Not all games end by going into the end game. Most game finish in the middle game. Some games also finish in the opening phase. If you make an opening blunder, the game will be over. So you need to like know all these elements, how you're gonna put them together. You need to learn some things about middle game, which has to do with strategy because that's where you apply strategy in the game, the middle game. You need to be very sharp with tactics in the end game. But the opening phase is just, okay, how do I develop my pieces, bring them out and make sure I have space and able to play a good game. But the middle game is very important. Without the middle game, you can't play the good chess. So the middle game is that aspect I really want to concentrate on because that's where the ideas come from. If you're having a difficult game, you know like, oh, this is not going in my way because how difficult it is on the board, you are able to recognize it. Like, if you're going down the drain, you definitely know.
Danu Poyner:Well, that's an interesting question. How possible is it to recover from a blunder in chess in your experience?
John Fawole:Okay. There's a code that says the better player is always lucky. A better player can be losing a game, and they're able to save it. Maybe, your opponent gets excited so much that, they do not play well, you know? But most times it deals with calculation. There are some positions you can't save, most especially if your opponent is playing correctly, but your opponent is excited, then it becomes really very difficult for them to win. There's always that saying that the hardest game to win in chess is the won game, because now, oh, you feel like you are winning this game and you're not putting in the effort to bring out the best moves that can win the game. You're just assuming, oh, I'm winning, I'm winning. But if you're opponent does not resign, the game is not over. So you need to like make sure you fight to the end to make sure he resigns or she resigns and the game is over.
Danu Poyner:Yeah. That's a good lesson for a lot of things as well, isn't it? I mean, It's a highly technical game, but also there's a significant psychological component to it. You mentioned with your preparation that you are looking at people you admire and their techniques. Are you also looking at your opponent's pattern of play or what kind of research do you do on your opponent?
John Fawole:Back then, because we don't have so much information like games stored in database and all, you can just have an idea like, oh, this person plays this, and you prepare on your own for your opening. Right now you can just search your opponent's name and see all their games and prepare for it. But back then there was nothing like that. So you can just, oh, this guy plays the Sicilian defense. Okay, let me go and prepare for the Sicilian defence.
Danu Poyner:You mentioned a couple of times, 8.5 over 9 and things like that. Are you able to explain what that means maybe for people who are not chess players?
John Fawole:Oh, okay. So we have different formats of play in chess. They have the Swiss system, so they have the round robin and a couple of other format of So the Swiss system only pairs people that win their game versus people that win their game. So it's more or less cumulative. You score one, you play someone that scores one, you score zero, you play somebody that score zero. Unless there's something like maybe odd number of people that finish with a particular point, then one person that's score one can play one person that score half or zero depending on the outcome of the games. And every time you win a game, you add one point. So in a nine round tournament, if you win all your nine games, it means you have nine over nine. If you draw one game, you have 8.5 over nine. Let's say you win four games, you draw 2 and you lost the rest. So that's gonna be five over nine. If you have two draws, you count as one.
Danu Poyner:8.5 over 9 is pretty good then
John Fawole:yes, yes,
Danu Poyner:Um, okay. I'm curious if you can, maybe tell the story of how you became the Nigerian National Chess Champion. This is 2013, and I understand that you, were able to overcome, essentially the favored opponent to win that. it sounds exciting. Would you like to share that story?
John Fawole:Yes. It was an interesting story because, it was just, that point in my life when I was gonna graduate from the uni and I just made up my mind, because I stopped playing chess for a while. I just wanted to graduate right now since, uh. I don't attend tournaments. I was just focused on academics. Let me just graduate my computer science degree and bachelor's and that was exactly what I focused on. So it was just at that point in my life where I just graduated. and If you graduate in Nigeria, you're supposed to like go for the National Youth Service Corps. It's a one year program. You have some para military, then you do some primary assignment, you know. So I was waiting for that and I just look at it like, okay, that's not gonna come in some months. Lemme just go and play my first tournament after a long time. And that was how it happened. So I don't know if it's a good thing to take some time off chess, like years off chess, then come back to win a big event like the national, championship. I traveled to Lagos from Abuja and I played in the tournament. I won my first game. It was just like, okay, I was just winning games one after the other, then I lost one. Then I continued to win the rest of them and that was how I won the championship. So I think it was a seven round tournament and I finished with six over seven. I lost a game. Uh, everything changed for me in the sense that, we've had people in the past that become Nigerian chess champions, but people don't really know so much about chess. So me and winning it really changed so much about the game and the status of the national champion because I get invitations to where I wouldn't think I would go to. I mean, it was a big thing for me that time because, the kind of offers I get, it changed the face of chess in Nigeria at that time. A lot of people, parents want their kids, to play chess. I grant interviews on tv, radio stations, you know, was, it was just something very nice us at that time. Uh, I really enjoyed being the national champion, but it's a title I can't hold on for so long, you know, because I just don't want be like a local player, I needed to move on to something else.
Danu Poyner:It sounds like a pretty instantaneous change in your life, how were you adjusting to that? It's such sudden surge of attention and all of these opportunities. It sounds like it must be very humbling and also very exhausting and exciting. Uh, how was that?
John Fawole:Yes. Uh, it, it was very nice because I was just getting those offers to play here and there. Got a lot of offers to play in the tournament organized by Kasparov Chess Foundation, Africa. So that was a very good tournament for me. It was just like some heavy weight on me. Like every time you just need to prepare because now there's so much expectation there. Whole lot of people are looking up to you. I was outdoing myself like, I need to prepare in tournaments and just perform excellently well and things were not going according to plan. Uh, once I realized that, okay, it now gets more difficult because you need to just play well, it gets more difficult and everybody wants to beat you as well, at least in Nigeria. So.
Danu Poyner:Yeah. you get a profile and then you've got people who are telling you how much what you've done means to them, and then you've also got a target on your back as well, I imagine. You are based in the US now, I guess you didn't go to the UK and you didn't stay in Nigeria, how did that come about?
John Fawole:Oh, okay. So while I was national champion, I was playing chess almost everywhere. So I played in the UK for a while. I used to go like, then return to Nigeria. Then I came to the US In 2015. I got a job offer from a chess company. Uh, it was gonna be my dad's birthday, so I went back to Nigeria. I didn't take up the offer. I came back in 2019 and the offer was still waiting for me and Okay, I'll take it this time. So that was how I took it. And go to the US Yeah.
Danu Poyner:And so at this point, what's the plan now?
John Fawole:Yes, Oh, okay. Now living, uh, Nigeria and going around the world to play chess playing the UK, Gibraltar, playing in some parts of Africa, and in the US I noticed that it's really much more difficult to devote a time to playing chess because, if I need to become a grandmaster at the rate at which I was going, I need to take Chess like a nine to five job, And I need to do that for at least a period of two years. So I've not been able to devote that kind of time to chess. So it is more or less like, facing the reality. Like, okay, this is really going to be hard, devoting the time, but you need also the resources you also need the resources to make sure you're able to attend international tournament, and it is really costly going from one tournament to the other, by sponsoring yourself. You travel here, you have to pay for those return ticket, you have to pay for hotel accommodation. So you keep spending the money. And if you don't have a very strong financial backup, the dream is not going to come into reality. it's really difficult and that's one of the reasons why we don't have a grandmaster in Nigeria today. We have international masters. I try to get title on my own as well, but then it's still difficult to say, oh, this is a person that is gonna become the first Nigerian grandmaster, because you need money. And when I got to the US I got an offer like some people that I met with and they were like, okay, this guy is a little bit talented. Maybe we can push for him. We got into some talks about becoming a grandmaster in two years, but it was gonna be like some kind of investment and it involves a lot of money that they're gonna drop for me to be able to achieve that dream. But then after I looked at it like, okay, if I work this hard and everything, what's next? After becoming the grandmaster, what is next? That was a question that asked myself. So I declined the offer because this is a dream I want. So now this amount, like 500K dollars is what they're ready to invest in me. Now I finish becoming a grandmaster, I need to be paying back. Then I just made up my mind, no, I don't want to take this up, I have to just let it go. And maybe later in future, but not, not now. I don't want the pressure of me thinking, okay, I need to keep paying back this money. I've seen grandmasters in the US, I've seen in other countries and how they struggle financially as well. But presently I'm really trying on my own to like, okay, grandmaster is the aim, but first get to International Master. So last year I played some couple of tournaments for International Master type two, even though the results were not so fantastic, but I learnt a lot. And if I had to do something right, those lessons from the tournaments will be helpful for me.
Danu Poyner:Yeah. That sounds like a really, uh, important and heavy decision, to make, at that, at that time. How do you feel about that decision now, looking back at it?
John Fawole:Yeah, I mean, I feel great that I didn't take the offer because, uh, it wasn't just a decision I made on my own. I spoke with my family. I tried to get almost everyone's opinion. My wife, you know, we just talked about it and she was like, no, you don't wanna become a grandmaster and now paying debt. It is a very difficult one. It means I'm not gonna do anything, because it means that I'm giving out these monies to pay trainers to make sure I perform and I need to attend those tournaments to make sure I get the titles and the norms. So if you don't have like some financial backings, you're not going to do it. I'd rather be an adult improver than to take such offer. Yes.
Danu Poyner:Yeah, I mean, there's such a, an apparatus and a system that sits around professional sports and the money and the resources and the time commitments. It's a lot of pressure. How are you feeling about the love of the game, versus the professional pursuit of the game at that point?
John Fawole:Yeah. I mean, the love of the game is still what is keeping us going. We support, chess events, anything chess, I try to support as much as possible right now, even if it's anywhere in Africa, not just Nigeria, but if I'm able to support, I, put in my effort to just support anything chess. It's very difficult to play professionally, most especially if you think, okay, you wanna make money from chess and this is what you want to do. That's why a whole lot of titled players are moving from playing chess to teaching chess because you can make a living teaching chess than just be playing professional. And that's why we don't have so many chess professional. Of course, people call themselves professional chess players, which I believe, is for those people that are really play chess every time and they make money from it. So the top 20 or 30 grand masters in the world on the International Chess Federation ranking, those are the people I consider professional chess players. I don't consider myself a professional chess player because my earnings or my livelihood does not depend on playing chess to make a living. So, because I do a whole lot of things with chess, uh, I'd rather call myself a chess professional because now, I can do some chess teaching. I can play chess when I want. If I win, money is good. So, with the title of Chess Professional, I'm not putting so much pressure on myself as a player because there are other ways of making money other than playing chess.
Danu Poyner:Yeah, that's a really interesting point. But a really simple question for you, John. What do you love about chess? What lights you up about it?
John Fawole:Yes, thank you. There are so many things that lights me up about chess. Um, most importantly, the ability to just be creative. That's one of the things chess teaches, creativity. You are able to like, refine your ideas and just come up with some things that even you might not believe this can happen. And it relates to real life as well, you know. In chess, I might be thinking like, okay, this is supposed to be the sequence of the variation I'm supposed to play, but the actual correct version could be the reverse of it. So in chess, your last move can be the first move. So you just need to come back and rotate. and play the move. So that's some kind of creativity, you know, innovation and if you play like this, this is how it's gonna go. But what if we reverse it and it might just be the right thing, I learned some thinking process through chess. It teaches a lot of things. Patience, and I really enjoy that because, it applies to my everyday life as well.
Danu Poyner:Yeah, I was gonna ask you about that. Are there any examples, top of mind for you, about how that creativity and patience and those chess attributes have helped you in your life?
John Fawole:Yes. Uh, there are so many examples. Of course I do a whole lot of things related to chess, but I also do some other things that are not related to chess. Like, okay, I just wanna find out what is happening in the business world. I want to know the trends. I just want to like, dive into it. Chess teaches you to like, troubleshoot, just do it and see how it goes, you know? You can learn from those mistakes when you make them, you don't wanna make the same mistake all over again. That's the way I apply it to my real life experiences, most especially in business. I mean, I used to like dive into some territory in business that I wouldn't think I would go into, but I keep having these kind of conversations. I dive into things in education, like creating some platforms where people can learn. You know, I just do all these kind of things and come up with a team of people. Okay, what if we do this? What if we do that? It brings out those types of ideas that I wouldn't even think about on a normal day, you know? So I keep like, okay, writing down so you don't forget about it.
Danu Poyner:Let's talk a little bit about that move into chess education then, because you became a certified chess in education lecturer and coach, and I'm curious, what it was like for you making that transition from competing professionally into teaching. what were you able to draw on from your previous adventures and what did you have to learn from scratch and what surprised you along the way?
John Fawole:For chess in education, I was first a trainer. I started from the rank of national instructor. Then I moved to FIDE instructor in 2018. Then in 2020, that was when I got the FIDE chess in education, lecturer certification. But, there are different departments. For the trainers, they give trainers certification. And for chess in education, they give lecturer and school instructor certification. But the interesting part of it is I always love something to do with education because of my mom. She's retired, you know, and she was a teacher for so many years, and at the point in time she owned the school. I was still in high school, but I go to the school. Like it's a primary school and I go to teach some subjects like mathematics. I teach some things there to the students, I enjoy that a lot and that was was part, okay, let me try to do something with education. The interesting part of it is that chess education is different from chess sports because chess sports is all about competing, but chess education, we don't compete. It's all basically about using chess for other aspect of life, bringing out the creativity in the students. Of course, if they decide later they want to become a chess player, like, you can go into that but basically it's just like trying to show them some ideas, possibilities of things that can happen. Yeah, if you do it this way and that way, it's more or less like classroom instruction for chess. But my role as a certified chess in education lecturer is to train potential lecturers or school instructors to be able to like implement this in their school.
Danu Poyner:That's really interesting. And I'm also struck by the comment you made about how, the focus of chess education is not necessarily to turn people into chess players. I'm curious about what attracts young people to chess education and what's going on for them?
John Fawole:Okay. Yeah. So what attracts people into chess education is, it doesn't look simple when you look at it and they tell you the knight goes in the L-shape, you want to learn more. And kids like all these things that has to do with psychomotor. You know, they have to like, okay, jump like a knight, and they're moving from one square, to, to another. Oh, move like a bishop. And they're going on the dark corner on the squares. it's just so interesting for kids and once you enter the class, they just want to like, oh, chess, chess, chess. They always look forward to it. And once they grab it is just something they want to do all the time. They don't get tired.
Danu Poyner:You, you gave me a little glimpse as to what happens in the classroom setting there, and it sounds like you have people moving around and it's very up and about and, can you maybe paint a bit of more of a picture about how that works?
John Fawole:Yes. Okay. Yeah. So it's just more or less like using chess to teach pattern recognition. It's like, okay. we have the pieces set up on a giant board and the bishop moves on the diagonal. So instead of using the bishop, start telling a kid to stay on the square where the bishop is and try to show me how to get to the next square or the particular square on the diagonal. So they need to jump from one square to the other and make sure they get to the other end and say, yes, I move like a bishop, but okay, you wanna move like a knight. The knight moves in the L shape. So can we go, gallop, gallop to the side? And they jump, gallop, gallop to the side. And because of that, they're able to understand exactly how the bishop moves and we can say, okay, move from this square B1 and get to H8. So they need to figure that out and try to move it, move it, move it until you're able to get it. Once they understand the pattern, then it becomes much more easier.
Danu Poyner:Thank you for that. That's a nice visual. You're an advocate for, um, what you call grassroots chess development. What does that mean and why is it important to you?
John Fawole:Going around the world to play chess opened my eyes to a whole lot of things. I think the most important thing is having a chess culture, which we don't have. India has a kind of chess culture. And the school programs that go on, for example, in Armenia, chess is compulsory for schools, and with grassroot development in Nigeria, before I left, I was working with a group of people with like minds, and we are trying to like make sure that chess is part of a school curriculum program. So we pushed that through the Ministry of Education. We did that to meet with some dignitaries, some senators that can just put these, because, uh, it's not just gonna happen. It has to pass through some readings in the House of Representatives. So the senate needs to pass it as a bill, and once it's been passed as a bill, then we can easily implement it. We've been on it for a very long time, but I mean, it's just so difficult to do because most schools or the administrators say, okay, there's no time because they're doing this doing that subject. So it's difficult to like slot chess in. And if you want to do it, maybe we'll put it under mathematics. There've been a whole lot of talk going on with that. Oh, maybe it could be under some subject that has to do with calculations as well. Apart from that, I used to do like, okay, some outreach. I volunteer, uh, internally, displaced peoples camps. We call them IDPs. I go there with my chessboard, try to volunteer, teach chess, you know, like life changing game. The kids are always looking forward to it and I just move around sometimes, maybe set up a chess table somewhere and just play, just to create some awareness, So I was doing this a lot back home in Nigeria.
Danu Poyner:Yeah. That's incredible. And I'm, I'm wondering if you can share maybe what are some of the most transformative effects that you've seen when chess becomes a part of young people's lives in that way,
John Fawole:Yes. Uh, uh, I've seen a lot. I've seen kids that couldn't, uh, maybe just sit down for a few minutes, but when it's chess time, they try to concentrate. They enjoy because, it just makes them concentrate for that period, they're much more patient. Also, in my own personal life, chess made me much more patient. Also, you know, when we play in tournaments, we use the chess clock. Using the chess clock also makes me much more punctual when I'm going somewhere. Like, I don't like getting late for appointments. I always want to be there, you know, I just wanna be there on time, you know, time management. These are some of the things. Yeah. Chess, really taught me in my own personal life. I've seen kids transform from what they used to be to like getting good grades because they are enrolled in the chess club and they are research that backed this up as well, educational research? Yeah. About chess kids, people that are enrolled in chess programing schools, most especially in New York City. And the kids are performing well in their education. They picked up really very fast and they're the best student in their class.
Danu Poyner:Interesting point about patience and punctuality. That's not something I had considered consciously before, but, that makes a lot of sense to me. You are the founder and editor of Bruvs Chess as we said at the beginning, which as I understand it is a website dedicated to everything chess, including news and information, advocacy, pedagogy, advancement and so on. What made you take that step and how did it come about?
John Fawole:Okay. So, for a very long time I've been blogging. I use the blog spots, just to keep some information about chess news in Nigeria. I do it like, okay, even while I was in uni then I just keep posting it. I try to get details of such tournaments and post on the blog. I report it all the time, but, okay, why not have, a chess news company that does all these things? So that's how we came about it. And I spoke with my friends. Can we come together and just do this? Some of them showed interest because they also enjoyed doing stuff with chess. So we launched it in 2019. But personally, on my own, I've been blogging as far back as maybe 2007 thereabouts, yeah, or I think around 2008 I've been using like blogger to like postings, chess news and information, and I guess some chess international news as well, just post on those blogs. Right now we are doing it on a bigger scale. We have, uh, content creator. We have people that look for news and they just keep posting. And the main focus is global, but we concentrate more on Africa because Africa chess news is not being taught very well around the world. So we concentrate like, okay, there's any news in Africa. We try to partner with some chess federations in Africa. If you have some news, you can send it to us and we report it on the page. So that's how we came about BruvsChess Media. But BruvsChess Media is just, is more or less like a personal pet project, but right now it's growing in a way that I really like it. We don't make profit from it, we just do it for passion. Chess players, they love the idea because every time we keep posting, we share their information, their news, their tournaments, information. We share it with the world, and they're looking up to it. They're sending us news for the next tournament and they are so happy about it because it's more or less like we're documenting their history, getting somebody later can still find it, or somebody looking up to chess, people contact us. And they need chess instructors, we are able to like make recommendations, okay, this is a chess instructor you can trust, you can work with. There's so much boom for chess right now. I mean, I'm so happy about it because it's one of those things that come out of Africa and even sometimes the International Chess Federation needs some news that come out from Africa. And when we report it, they quote us and say, okay, it's from us. And that's just something great.
Danu Poyner:What do you think is driving that boom in chess that you mentioned?
John Fawole:Yes, I mean, uh, that's a very interesting question because chess has not enjoyed this kind of boom in a very long time. The current boom is dying down. It's slowing down. But the first time chess enjoyed such a boom was during the days of Bobby Fischer. Bobby Fischer was a, grandmaster from the US and former world champion. He created some buzz about chess in those days during the World Championship with Spassky. I think it happened in 1972, but he had it in March in 1992. So that kind of buzz, like a whole lot of people, chess programming, TV media, sponsors want to get into chess because of that. But recently, the boom of chess came from Netflix series, the Queens Gambit. It changed a lot of things and a whole lot of people want to learn chess because of that. Recently, what Queens Gambit did like a platform like chess.com got over 100 million subscribers on their platform. So that's really something great.
Danu Poyner:It's a great show. It's got a compelling story of course, and the actual scenes of the chess playing you wouldn't necessarily imagine would lend themselves well to being a spectator kind of thing. But it's really, really compelling. What are your thoughts, on the way that chess is represented in popular culture?
John Fawole:I mean, uh, it just shows some of the possibilities that can happen in real life. the series shows a lady that is just trying to learn chess and we practice and it's just more than a passion for it. They always say, if you wanna be a good player with chess, you need to be obsessed with it. And I believe it applies to everything in life. If you want to be great at anything, you have to be obsessed with it and make sure you're able to do it well. It just shows that kind of possibility that if we put in some effort and try to focus on one particular thing we want to do, we can achieve great results.
Danu Poyner:Yeah, I'm, interested to hear you use the language of obsession. I mean, When you were talking about your trajectory early on with chess, it did seem really intense and I'm curious about that obsessive quality. Where does that come from?
John Fawole:Yes. I mean, I, I was really obsessed about chess, but not anymore. Of course, I still like chess. I mean, right now I can't devote much time to it, but then I don't mind. I played chess for 24 hours. Straightforward. It was just like, oh, food, okay, we are just eating and we are just playing, and it was just like that food, okay, food is there and we're just eating and playing. That was while I was in uni. but right now I'm not able to do that anymore. I mean I worked with trainers and I was trying to get my international master title last year and I played in two tournaments and I got some very bad results. But I still noticed like, okay, working with trainers is not just enough. I need to do like the work on my own. It's more or less like, okay, they're just showing me you need to go through this part. It was my first time of really working with trainers and I saw like, okay, the onus is still on you to like, make things happen. If you can't devote the time, you're not going to achieve the titles.
Danu Poyner:Well, yeah, I mean, That raises a question for me, John. So you, you mentioned before uh, some of the emphasis on chess education is not necessarily about becoming professional chess player, and it's about the transferable life skills and, and the character development and I'm curious about balancing that with obsession. How much obsession do you need to approach chess and are the people who are coming to chess education coming to it because they have a obsessive need to explore it?
John Fawole:Oh, okay. So for the obsession, I think it only applies to chess players, those people that want to compete. So you need to be obsessed to even become a titled player. You have to be like, really, this is what I want to do. Because, I later find out after so many years that not everyone can get to the top, but you can get to the point where you want to be in chess. So it takes a lot of hard work to do that. it's either you have an ambition that you want to become a titled player, or you're just playing chess for the fun of it. But for educators, what the education part is doing is just using chess to teach other aspect of life, most especially innovation, creativity. You know, these are what the students enjoy from the educational part of chess. They are able to think outside the box. So it's not like they're competing. They're just able to just learn chess for the period they're in school and use that aspect of chess to do something better for themselves in future.
Danu Poyner:You've kind of emphasized the creativity of chess and I think anyone who recognizes the creative process knows that there's a certain kind of obsession that goes into creating, anything. And when you pair that with a care for the thing that you are engaged with, that can produce really powerful things. You have a prize named after you, the John Fawole Chess Award. Is that something that young John could have imagined when he was just starting out?
John Fawole:I wasn't imagining it, it was over a period of time when I started thinking there's no way we've been rewarding chess players because we put in the efforts, we put in so much studying, and we have to look for a way to recognize those that are really putting in so much effort to improve the game. The more titled players we have, the better for the country because you're putting the country on a good map around the world. So that was how we created the award, which started as an online award in 2016. We have a panel of judges that just decide who wins an award by checking the result of a particular year in review. They review the categories and come up with the winners. We announce the winners and send them the plaque. So we started that way, but it's grown into something big right now because we've had physical events in Lagos, and it was, it was really fun and chess players embraced it, so because of that, they look forward to it every year, and we are still going to do it again this year. It wasn't something I envisioned a very long time ago, but at the point in time, it was around 2015 and 2016, I decided like, okay, we should have an award for chess players. And I discussed it with my friends and my team, is it possible we can do something like this? And okay, we agree we should do it. The main thing is, uh, it's also called Nigeria Chess Awards. Because I started it, I've not been able to like, change the name. It's still gonna be Nigerian Chess Award. but we have the domain name Nigeria Chess Award, dot com. So we use that as well, including the John Fawole Chess award.
Danu Poyner:Yeah. Nice. You mentioned earlier on that you were working with books and now there are a lot of software options for exploring past games and everything. How has that evolved and has it changed the nature of the way the game is played or people approach it?
John Fawole:Yes. Yeah, it has changed everything about chess, because the use of artificial intelligence right now has upscale things. Almost everybody is preparing with their computer right now. They use engines, they have Alpha Zero, and they use, uh, all these kind of engines to train. So, it makes it much more easier. The kind of knowledge we have in those days has really much more gone up. We have basic understanding by reading books, but the engines are finding moves that human cannot find in hours. And even the top players in the world prepare using engines right now. The last world championship that Magnos Carlson played, his challenger said, the technology that they use in preparing for the world championship, they spends$1 million. Just getting the technology, the computers, the softwares, you know, just to make sure they win the world championship, you know? I mean, engines right now, artificial intelligence has changed everything about it.
Danu Poyner:So you mentioned that Garry Kasperov's someone who you, uh, greatly admired. And so what was your reaction when the AI was able to beat him?
John Fawole:In those days we read in some books that the IBM computer beats Garry Kasperov. Yeah. So, of course, with computers, it is gonna be difficult because there are moves that humans cannot see that computer will calculate in milliseconds, and that's really difficult. Even the world champion right now, I cannot really say if he goes into a match with a computer is going to win the match. No, it's gonna be difficult. So a whole lot of people just use it to better their chess and just advance their game.
Danu Poyner:Looking into it a little bit, the thing that's really interesting to me about it is the computer is making counterintuitive moves that are legal, but it's not like anything that human players are used to seeing. It's such an old game, and yet there are all of these different potential paths that are available. Like, how does that affect the way that people prepare and think about competing.
John Fawole:Yes. It is really affected the way people prepare right now because most people do their homework. You are playing a game and you just see down there, but your opponent has analyzed the game with the computer. They know every move you want to play and you are still 25 moves deep and you're still playing the computer moves, they're playing computer moves. If you're not well prepared, you just see that the game is over in less than 20 moves. it becomes much more difficult right now to play in chess tournaments. You know, I didn't play for a while and I went to these tournaments and it was difficult for me to win a game because everybody's just so prepared with the computers.
Danu Poyner:So you described the game earlier as being opening game and then the middle game and the game really sort of starts in the middle, and that's where the strategy is. Has that changed and how do you know when you're in the middle game?
John Fawole:When it comes to shuffling of the pieces, moving those pieces from one, you are trying to like use strategy like, okay, how do I get to these guys territory? How do I get space? So that's when you use strategy. So you keep planning, oh, should I give a pawn up? Should I make some tactics or sacrifice? This strategy keeps coming up in the game like, okay, this is what I want to achieve. That happens in the middle game, but even in the end game as well, you could still have some kind of tactics that come in just for you to be able to win the end game. If a game does not end in the opening, that means it's going to extend into the middle game. And if it does not end in the middle game, it has to end in the endgame. So the end game is where we have most pieces are almost off the board and now maybe we're playing with the rooks and the pawns or the minor pieces like the knights and bishop, and you're able to just play the end game.
Danu Poyner:Do you think that the AI changes will have any impact on the patience aspect of chess that you were talking about?
John Fawole:I can't really say because to become very good at chess is just more or less than training. You need to like, be physically fit as well. You need to learn how to control your breath. You need to learn the sitting position. So most of the top players right now, they go to the gym, they do a whole lot of exercise. The world champion right now, Magnus Carlsen, plays badminton, he plays football, just to make sure they're fit. They do yoga, they do all these kind of things. Just make sure you're not pressured. Most amateurs don't really care about that. They just go to the tournament. Either you do exercise or not, because there's something we call sitting power. When you get to the board, you can get tired from just exerting your brain and looking for a solution. But when you are much more physically fit, you are able to play better because when your fit, it affects everything about your the game. You are able to like, okay, even when there's fire on the board, you are able to contain it and you're not pressured. You are just able to like, okay, this is happening, but you are able to, still play regardless of it and look for good solution on the board.
Danu Poyner:I'm curious about your computer science trajectory, because that was something that was a big part of your plans early on, and you've kept going with that, and you have experience in business analysis and project management, and of course you've got the the business degree. How has that story been developing alongside the chess work for you?
John Fawole:I was doing like a post-graduate before leaving Nigeria. It has to do it with information technology. But moving to the US I needed to just let that go because there were no online opportunities to continue to study, so I had to let go. But getting to the US and the pandemic happened, of course, I've been thinking of studying more and doing my master's degree and everything. Just because a whole lot of things then were happening, most especially with BruvChess, I started thinking of how we can do some things. I mean, we've not gotten BruvChess to where we want it to be, but then we need to start something. So I look at like, okay, why not try to get like a business degree, but for computer science, I really want to take it to a very nice level where I'm able to just do something in computer science, but I picked up the interest in business and I said, okay, let's have this as just bachelor's degree. Then we can now do some other things in, the business world, and that's how I change everything about computer science and then business because now computer science is really broad, informational technology is broad, And this is where we are.
Danu Poyner:Yeah, that makes sense. I'm always really interested in how people's experience and learning in one area of life and knowledge can be synthesized into other things that they're doing elsewhere. Does your experience in business help you in chess and does chess help you in business?
John Fawole:Yes, it is. It does, it does. If you've made a mistake before, you don't want to do that mistake again. So it means that you need to like research and find out, okay, this is what I need to do. I don't wanna do this again. It comes to real life as well in business. If you do something before that failed and you're now looking for a strategy to make sure you get it right, if you need to do the same thing again, unless you want to drop it. If I'm playing a chess opening and the opening is not bringing results, maybe every time I play, I lose the game. That means I need to change my style. Like, okay, I'm dropping this opening, I need to adopt another opening that is gonna bring me the desired results. I'm able to apply the same thing into business so all these ideas can keep coming, like, okay, which one should I do? But you need to think them through and look at it like, okay, what is this that you're trying to achieve at the end of the day? So we don't want to like, okay, just jump into it halfway and you're now stuck and you're backing down.
Danu Poyner:What are focusing on at the moment?
John Fawole:Yeah, I mean, I'm doing a couple of things at the moment, but I think my focus presently is gonna be in business analysis. I try to like, do some things in instructional design. I was designing need analysis, you know, I designed one for chess, but I did some other couple of ones during my studies, but then I just look at like, okay, I want to focus on business analysis.
Danu Poyner:do you have something that you are working towards in there or is it something that you're exploring and and not sure yet?
John Fawole:I'm sure of what I want to do, but I need to gain some more experience and acquire some more skills. But I think as far as business analysis is concerned right now, I'm ready to dive in, uh, like, maybe possibly get a job in business analysis I mean, as a business analyst and do the things I enjoy, doing because what I notice about it is, it has to do with everyday communication and you're trying to solve problems, which is something I do over the board all the time.
Danu Poyner:are you in the, the middle game of life at the moment?
John Fawole:Yeah. Yeah. Somewhere close to the middle game of life. Yeah.
Danu Poyner:Something I always ask, uh, everyone who comes on the the podcast, John, is if you could gift someone a life changing learning experience, what would it be and why?
John Fawole:That's a very interesting question, and I'm just going to tell the person they should do what they love because it's only when you do what you love that you are able to commit to it. You are happy about it, you have passion for it. And you don't see it like a joke. It's just like a normal part of you. So it is just like me. If you tell me, okay, I should do everything chess. I'm able to do everything chess because I love it naturally. So just do what you love and you are able to just achieve things you want to achieve in life.
Danu Poyner:Yeah. Thank you. And then that love has a way of spilling over into other things that you do as well and makes everything better. it's been a really, great pleasure talking to you, John, and spending a little time in your world. Uh, I've learned a lot. Is there something that you wanted to talk about that we didn't get a chance to cover?
John Fawole:None at the moment. I can't think of anyone.
Danu Poyner:That's okay. We've been talking a good while. I wanna thank you for your generosity in sharing your stories and your experience, yeah, I really look forward to seeing how your journey, develops, John, and, and maybe we'll see you be grandmaster one day.
John Fawole:Yeah, most likely Thank you so much.