It’s late on Sunday evening, and I’m wondering what to do with the last hours of the weekend. I’ve setup camp in the living room - sat at the dining table with the netbook. W is somehow knitting, and watching television simultaneously. I have no idea how she does that.
I considered playing the computer at chess, but that almost always ends up in bitter defeat these days. Once upon a time I would have run it close, but doing something like that requires dedication, hard work, energy, and time. Those last two resources are in short supply around here.
I used to play chess a lot - more than most people imagine. I read books about it - about the theory, the ideas of the masters, the great games, and the famous characters - Morphy, Fischer, Spassky, Kasparov, and Karpov.
For a couple of years myself and a co-worker played nearly every lunchtime as an excuse to get away from our desks. I won nearly every game we played, and admired his tenacity in offering to play again, and again, and again. One particular game sticks in my mind where I lost my queen early in the game. Several colleagues realised I might lose, and started watching - and witnessed perhaps the best game I ever played from that point forwards.
My most memorable opponent was perhaps a company director who thought himself quite good. We only ever played twice - the first time I was chatting with people and taking phone calls while we played - and lost. The second time I tried rather harder, and systematically deconstructed him. It was awful, but I couldn’t help thinking he brought it upon himself - having displayed such confidence in his ability.
I went to a chess club once.
You know those quiet kids that you remember from school who didn’t fit in? The ones who didn’t really look after themselves - or rather, they didn’t seem as concerned as everybody else with brushing their hair, or making anything like a good first impression. It turns out they went to the chess club.
Nobody took any notice of me on my arrival, and I spent the greater part of the evening teaching the girlfriend of a player how to play. I’m guessing I was one of the few people there that didn’t nervously leer at her.
After perhaps an hour, a tall, charismatic guy with dark hair breezed into the room and greeted several of the members who looked up from their boards. He spotted me, and offered to give me a game.
It all started rather quietly, and I couldn’t believe I wasn’t being torn apart. As time wore on, my position got better, and better. He became an ashen, gaunt figure, head in his hands at the other end of the board. An audience formed.
Although he eventually won, he tried to sign me up for the local team immediately. It turned out he played in european competitions, and had just received the shock of his life.
I’m not quite sure why, but I never went back.