Here’s the analysis of a game of chess I played the other day:

With computers surpassing humans in chess, engines are able to analyse a chess game to see how accurate the moves played were.

The better the moves are according to the engine, the more likely you will get a good, excellent or best move by the engine’s standards. On the other hand, moves that the engine deems questionable are labelled inaccuracies, mistakes or blunders, in order of how bad the move was. Blunders are basically the engine’s way of saying what on Earth are you doing?

The accumulation of these moves result in an overall accuracy number, out of 100.

In this game, I played a game with 19.3 accuracy. Which is literally a fail according to the chess engine.

But it’s okay, because only one statistic matters.

I didn’t blunder.

It doesn’t matter that the whole game had eight inaccuracies and nine mistakes. Although many moves played were pretty bad, they were good enough to prevent an immediate win for the other player.

Only one move decided the game: a single blunder on move 22 from my opponent. They resigned the move after.

In many domains, part of the formula of success is knowing which mistakes are fatal and which ones aren’t. Consider these findings:

• The highest performing athletes are the ones who avoid injury;
• The most successful investors are the ones who could lose all their stocks and still survive;
• The person that wins a game of chess is the one who makes the least worst mistakes.

This isn’t to say success means making no mistakes. Athletes make bad plays all the time. All investors choose a wrong stock at some stage. No human chess game is ever played perfectly.

The key is making the least worst mistakes. If you know which decisions are fatal, you will eventually prevail over those who don’t.

Yet, how do we know when a mistake will end us? We can’t know what is fatal unless we experience it ourselves, right? Here are two suggestions:

1. Learn from others

Chances are, you’re not the first person to start a task. People have tried what you’re trying and have made the mistakes for you.

Learn from them.

2. Remember that it is not the end

Let’s say you do make a fatal mistake. You get injured. You lose all your money on stocks. You lose a close game of chess.

Is your life over?

No! Mistakes are a natural part of life. You will grow and learn from this mistake and do better in the next battle. None of us are beyond encounters with total stupidity.

Indeed, if we never made some huge blunders from time to time, life would be pretty boring.