No Moral Victories in Chess

No Moral Victories in Chess · 14 March 2026

There are no moral victories in chess. You either win, you lose, or you draw. Period.

I like to play speed chess. Blitz and bullet games. Blitz games are somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes per person. Bullet games are 30 seconds to a minute per person. Those are the ones I really like. The one-minute per person bullet games. The problem with those games is that you are playing both your opponent and the clock. And either one or both can be formidable enemies. There are many times when I lose to the clock rather than my opponent. Or more precisely, rather than my human opponent.

It is funny. When I first started playing bullet games, I would sweat out each move. I would feel pressured to move right away. So I blundered many a game. (I still blunder many a game, but that is a different story.) Actually, now that I think about it, I think I really just tried to play without worrying about the clock. I would just play my moves and the clock would catch up to me. I was always shocked when the clock struck zero. Time. I lost. Again.

The nice thing about playing bullet games online is that you just keep playing and playing and playing. (Again. Another completely different story.) And eventually, you get to a point where you are playing people about your ranking.

I play on chess.com and have played many bullet games. I win many and lose many. The interesting thing is that I cannot seem to get much above the ranking that I have. I go up and down about 100 ranking points around where I probably really sit. I actually like to think I am at the higher end of my bullet ranking, but I am probably right at that mid ranking level. Which is okay. It is always fun to beat people with higher rankings. And disappointing to lose to those with lower rankings.

The most interesting thing is that I have gone from thinking, “I would have beaten that person if I had not run out of time,” to “I should have beaten that person even though I ran out of time.” Actually, I have really started to think that I should just be faster. And I have actually started to think that the clock and my opponent beat me. Which is really the case.

Which brings me back to my thought of moral victory.

Thinking that I would have won had the clock not run out is akin to a moral victory. Or at least in my mind. I would have won if the time had not run out. I was better than my foe, but the time ran out. I would have won, but the other guy scored more points. Oops. No points in chess. But the thought is the same. “I woulld have won if…” does not make sense in the context of any contest. Unless of course, you finish the sentence with, “my opponent was not better than me.”

Now that I think of it, making excuses for losing is definitely not a moral victory. After all, a moral victory means that you played well or that you defended your principals well (according to the internet). Which does not mean that you played well but the clock beat you.

Which brings me back to my original thought. There are no moral victories in chess. Oh sure, you or I may play well, but when the clock runs out, you have either won or lost or drawn. You might take solace in the fact that you played well. I do. But it is not a moral victory. After all, as I already said (and hopefully backed up), there are no moral victories in chess.

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