A student came up to a chess grandmaster. He showed him a position from his last losing game, and asked the grandmaster what he would do. The grandmaster studied the position for a long time, and then finally said “…I would not find myself in that position.”

Humor aside, I don’t think it’s just about finding oneself in a hopeless position.

Even the best chess player of all time, 21x World Champion Magnus Carlsen, has only won 46% of his games. Meaning more than half the time, he loses or its a draw.

Instead, there is a particular class of losing game.

I imagine the full unpacking of the saying would be something like “Because of my skill level, I would have avoided the 10 bad moves beforehand that led to this hopeless position.”

Even Grandmasters still lose.

But never because they made 10 bad moves in a row.