#4 Chess

A board game like no other, chess is probably one of the oldest board game and still the one of the best out there. Beginning with sixteen pieces; eight pawns lined up in the front row, the rooks, knights and bishops in the rear to support the royalty and cause disarray in the opposing army. With such pieces you’ll be amazed at how much variations and how many possibilities the game contains.

I got my first glimpse of the game when my grandfather and brother played the game when I was a kid. They were so engrossed with the game that the barely moved. Even if I didn’t understand what was happening I could sense the seriousness that surrounded them. It took minutes for them to move a single piece and sometimes they would snap out from their trance and smile sheepishly as if the other guy telepathically told the other guy a joke. It was such an amazing experience, it was a very quiet game but it was quite amusing. And from that moment I was hooked to the game.

At first it was very hard to start playing the game. I didn’t know anything about chess other than the fact that horse moved in a L-shaped but even in that I was mistaken since I moved the horse five sometimes six squares farther than it should have landed. My father who I knew was as good a player as they come told me that if wanted to learn chess I should read a chess book. That was very disappointing.  At that age I was really scared of big old books and the chess book my father had was a big old book.  And once you open it, it gets much harder as the text inside was a language alien to me. Letters and numbers side by side, weird symbols, and just the length of the introduction made me dizzy. The introduction was such a drag ten pages in it was still talking about history and the great games that happened in the past. That was very annoying and that made me close the book.

But the book fiasco did not stop me from wanting to learn the game. I asked my brother how and he taught me. He was the one who really taught me the basics. Every time I played with him, he would talk about how controlling the center was important and that piece development was more import than capturing enemy pieces. He was not a really good chess player but he was decent enough to defeat medium level computer opponents. Sometimes I would just watch him play at the computer and comment on the moves he just did. As I played with him I got better and a time came that I could finally made him think twice. It was like the first time I saw him play chess with my grandfather but instead he was playing with me. The first time I beat my brother I was so happy that I literally jumped and announced it in the household. He was pretty embarrassed then.

As I got better I began challenging my dad to a game. At first we’d play a handicap game, he playing without a queen and even then I couldn’t beat him. So I played a lot of chess in school with my buddies and I got better and better everyday that my dad and I would play a serious game.

I am still trying to beat my dad at this game. I still have a lot to learn but someday I’d beat him too.