Not going down without a fight!

How a blunder in chess reminded me to keep going

Inspired by Gukesh’s resilience, a near-failed exam, and the power of not giving up.

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Welcome to episode 1 of ‘Random Ramblings’, where I talk about a random happening in my life which I hope will be motivating for you.

So today I was playing chess with someone online and my position was pretty good. But then I blundered my rook and I was a piece down. So usually my move after a blunder is to resign. But I’d been following the Norway Chess Championship, which recently concluded and I happened to watch the match between Magnus Carlson and D Gukesh. Gukesh was not in a favourable position, but he hadn’t resigned and was defending his position the best he could. Carlson was the favourite to win in that game. The result of that game was Magnus blundered and Gukesh unexpectedly won!

You can watch highlights of that match here if you’re interested –

A popular opinion about Gukesh is that he doesn’t give up until the very end. At that level, one doesn’t really expect a grand master to make a blunder. But Gukesh has been able to catch on a lot of his opponents’ blunders and turn around a lot of his games to emerge victorious, simply because he doesn’t resign at the first sign of trouble.

So, I went the ‘Gukesh way’ this time and forced myself to continue what I thought was a wasted game. And lo and behold, my opponent made a blunder. I managed to swoop in and I won my game. By the way, I’ve added screenshots of the game, in case you follow chess and are interested in seeing my blunder, my opponent’s blunder and the final result.

Now why did this strike a chord with me so much? You see, I’ve been speaking to CA students for the past year as part of my 1 on 1 study plan sessions. I’ve myself been a CA student for many years and I know how our psychology works. We give an exam, and if we feel it hasn’t gone as per our expectations, we suddenly lose the interest and motivation to write the remaining papers, because failing in even one paper results in us having to retake entire group in the next attempt.

Here, let me also share a small snippet from my life with you. I gave the Indirect tax exam in May 2024 and I found it really hard. A lot of questions came from the recent amendments which I was not very thorough with. I knew I’d done badly, especially given that I was expecting an exemption (i.e., above 60 marks for this exam). I had a feeling I was on the borderline of pass or fail. And generally we think, “oh, I’m more likely to fail than pass”, “good things never happen to me”, etc.

But I didn’t lose hope (a lot of credit goes to my parents’ positive attitude for this). I had one more exam to go – Integrated Business Solutions (IBS) and I’d worked hard for it. I didn’t let the gloom of my disappointing paper hover over my next exam. There was a chance I would get only 30-something marks in Indirect tax, which would cause me to fail my entire group. But there was a tiny chance that I could still make it.

And I took that chance. I surrendered the result of my paper to God and prayed that He would make things right for me. I tried to stop worrying about my tax paper as best as I could and focused on the next exam. I went over as many case studies as I could, my IBS checklist thrice (since it is an open book exam) and gave the best paper of my life 2 days later.

Cut to July 2024 when my results came. I got 70 marks in IBS and 43 marks in Indirect Tax. I barely scraped through, with God’s grace. Indirect tax was a disappointment, sure. But I still qualified as a CA that attempt. So not giving up, and not letting one blunder control how I faced the future helped me through my exams.

You can watch my convocation vlog on YouTube if you want some extra motivation 🙂

So, if by any chance you’re in a similar place where you feel your preparation is not enough, your paper hasn’t gone well enough or you aren’t in a good place in your life, I say fight till the end. Defend your position the best you can. Don’t accept defeat until the end. Keep practicing questions, reading your material, quizzing yourself, taking mock tests till the very end.

Tell yourself – it is not over yet; not until I say it is! You’ve got this!