on chess

I’m a terrible chess player, one of the worst I know. On my previous laptop even the easiest setting was unbeatable (though in all fairness to myself, even my friends who play well couldn’t beat the lowest setting). On my new laptop the lowest setting is beatable, and I just keep moving it up until I can win 50% of the time– and that’s still not very high.

The odd thing is, I got off to a very fast start with the game. I think I was 4 or 5 years old, and on PBS they had a show where they recreated classic chess matches with the stop-action technique, so that the pieces seemed to be moving by themselves. The whole thing seemed like magic, especially when a piece was captured and would simply disappear from the screen.

From watching that show, I was able to figure out most of the move rules for the pieces. The one thing I really got wrong was the castling. For some reason I thought that it could be used for any two of your pieces to trade places at any time, leading to some pretty wild moves on my part.

I was eventually able to talk my aunt and uncle into getting me a “chess set” one day, though I think they didn’t realize I was serious, and what I ended up with was a $1.99 magnetic type set. But I remember being so delighted that I didn’t even care.

For whatever reason, I gradually lost interest in the elementary school years, without ever having played in child tournaments or anything. When I picked it up again years later, I was so horrible that it’s almost as if there were damage to the chess center of my brain or something. A little kid beat me fair and square the last time I tried a competitive match. Other than things I don’t care to do (such as deer hunting) there are few skills that I admire more despite having less facility at myself than chess. (ADDENDUM: the grammar is quite faulty here. For the record, I do not admire deer hunting.)

All of you talented chess players out there, I salute you. But I’ll have to watch from the sidelines.