My youngest daughter, 10, is taking gifted classes at her school. As part of her instruction, the teacher introduced chess to class. This makes me happy because, if for nothing else, I’m now playing chess for the first time in twenty-some years. Just about every night, the youngest and I pull out the chess board for a few matches. I’m happy to report that she beat me for the first time last night with no assistance whatsoever from me. It took a few tears and quite a few beat downs to get to that point, but I am absolutely proud of her accomplishment.
Taking chess up for the first time in a long time has been an interesting prospect for me. I really wasn’t very good at it growing up – on more than one occasion, someone I taught to play beat me the second or third game after I instructed them. Like many things, I find approaching it with the wisdom that comes with age brings a new perspective. As the Chinese proverb says, I’m ready to learn and the teacher has appeared in the form of a ten-year old girl, though I will admit that the internet has also served up a lesson or two.
A very wise acquaintance of Ms. Boss and I once told us that he and his wife did not play games together for the sake of their marriage. Ms. Boss and I have ignored this advice and occasionally suffered the consequences. For the denser partner in the marriage, Ms. Boss pointed out that the lesson here is that marriage should be about cooperation and never about competition. A smart woman, that Ms. Boss.
One of the games Ms. Boss and I play with a minimal amount of acrimony is backgammon. While backgammon does involve a certain amount of skill, luck plays a heavy part in it. We used to play online when I worked midnights and she was stuck at home with the kids. We didn’t play for the sake of backgammon, we played for the conversations we had on the side that allowed us to be together while not being together.
I used to love playing games as a kid – Monopoly, Pay Day, chess, backgammon, cards – we spent hours playing with other kids and the occasional adult. Unfortunately, playing with my kids has often become a frustrating experience – they just can’t seem to stay focused. That’s why playing with my newly-minted chess player has been so rewarding. She’s actively engaged and studying the game.
One of my favorite games growing up was Bonkers! (for the record, the exclamation point was part of the title, not an indication of my excitement) Bonkers! was a board game that changed every time you played it based on the tiles that you played on the board. I’m sure the fact that few have ever heard of it is an indication of the quality of the game. Being the forty-something and often full of nostalgia, I might possibly weep openly if I were to run across an opportunity to own this game again.