I grew up playing checkers and other board games like Clue and Guess Who. Don't get me wrong, these are wonderful games but they aren't really challenging. When I was young I didn't really have the attention span to spend too much time learning new games I considered to be boring, like chess. I mean, why spend a few hours moving pieces around a board when you can blow up someones battleship in 20 minutes? Makes sense right?
Needless to say, I've grown a lot more patient with the years and I finally learned how to play chess. I've played a few games in the last 2 years but since we don't have a chess board I never challenged Matt. So when we went for an afternoon tea in a local shop and I saw a chess board I knew we would have to go head to head.
I am definitely a speed chess player. As soon as Matt made his move I made mine within a minute and then Matt would take 5 minutes to think of his next move. Maybe the game wasn't made for me? Maybe I should be one of those people that play it with the timer beside the board? Or maybe I should have spent 5 minutes on each move because as you can see below, it didn't work out too well.
When Matt started to remove my pieces from the board with increasing speed I decided it would probably be pretty stupid to assume that I could win. So instead I decided if I was going down, I would take as many of his pieces with me as I could. All in all it was a great game (even if it was 2 hours long) and I definitely want to play again. But next time it will be at home, in pj's, wrapped in a warm comfy blanket. That way I can nap while Matt is deciding his next move :)
The two chess photos are actually beautiful. I kind of like how you wrote this actually, it flows really nicely.
ReplyDeletechess is great, I think there's a lot you can learn about yourself when you take your time to really try to win the game with everything you've got, being as patient as you can and thinking about each move. Since chess has no near misses or lucky breaks other than your opponent's blunders, perhaps a win or a loss is decided in the first few moves by a strategic decision that was made, maybe unconsciously, never imagining that that was the game right there. And then after such a game when you've really tried patiently to win and put all your energy into it, you can look back, interpret, and see some quite fundamental elements of your psyche. I, too, lack the natural patience to regularly put so much energy into a game, but when I have done it, it's been an insightful experience.
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