Brown grime covering your clothes, sweat beading on your arms as the scorching sun sets, and the distinctive smell of a nearby barbecue. Chances are, when you imagine this description, a baseball game is in progress. Now, if the setting changed and you were now in a quiet room, tapping your finger on a desk with a puzzled look on your face, a baseball game wouldn't even cross your mind. This is because this environment is ideal for chess! The classic game whose objective is to see who can capture the other team's game piece called the king. Although the goals and environments in baseball and chess appear to be opposites, both require an astute ability to use a variety of similar strategies to succeed. One strategic similarity that baseball and chess share is the organization of defense. In baseball, when you are on defense, it is essential to constantly rearrange your team's position on the field based on certain situations. Most of the time you are adapting to the hitter's skills. Since each hitter has a unique strength, whether hitting the ball to the left field or bunting, the defense should move to increase the chances of preventing the ball from reaching the outfield or preventing a hit. For example, usually if there is a left-handed hitter at the plate, the defense will want to move to his right because hitting the ball to that side is easier and more likely to happen. The same idea applies to right-handed hitters, only the defense is aligned further to the left than normal fielding positions. Chess is very similar in that, depending on which of your opponent's pieces poses a threat to your king, you have to line up your pieces. in a certain way to defend themselves... middle of paper... maybe they will find themselves successful on a recurring basis. Pretending to have a plan for every move your opponent makes will surely confuse his minds and leave him wondering whether to act habitually or abnormally. Your enemy's confusion will bring him to the end. Despite the two games' different goals, rules, and environments, baseball and chess both use similar strategies to deceive and overthrow your opponent. Strategically, both have similar ways to set up defense, make a sacrifice to gain the upper hand, and beat the opponent by playing one step ahead. So the next time you find yourself in a stadium and smell the Franks grilling nearby, strangely enough you might start thinking about chess, because after looking beyond the obvious, you'll see that the games of baseball and chess are more related than previously believed..