One day Mr F. met the chess player. Six weeks before the chess player had stopped smoking. He told F. how easy it had been for him to give up on this bad habitude. Mr F. had tried to abstain from cigarettes for the last three years but he had never fully succeeded.

The chess player said that his future plan was to only smoke the good tasting cigarettes and to skip the huge majority of cigarettes which were awful and which in the past he had only smoked because of thoughtlessness. When Mr F. heard this he smiled. He knew how to play chess but against the chess player he would not have stood the slightest chance. Mr F. continued the conversation with a question.

Mr F.: Have you ever made a bad move in chess?

Chess player: Of course I have. I make many bad moves. Most of my opponents make even worse moves though.

Mr F.: But wouldn’t it be more clever not to make any bad moves anymore? In this way you would even win more chess games.

Chess player: You are right, Mr F. The problem being that the quality of a move usually is not clear for me when I make it. Only the course of the game can show a posteriori if a move was good.

Mr F.: Do you really think that you will be able to distinguish the good from the bad cigarettes when you cannot even tell the difference between good and bad moves in chess? Actually when rethinking about your plan: just go on. You are already following it.