A confession
Posted: Wed Feb 23, 2011 11:08 pm
I have to admit it, I love chess.
I first learned the way our noble warfare is conducted, when around ten years old. Problem was I grew up in a culture that did not understand en passant.
I was taught by an uncle, but didn't play anyone, the school didn't have a chess club to the best of my knowledge. My only contact with chess for around 5 years was my local library and chess books.
I left school at 15 in 1964 and went to work at Lancashire Dynamo at nearby Oxted and for the first time in my life came across people who played chess for real.
They made a very nice set out of nuts and bolts, like one half of a butterfly nut, became a knight, cut both halves of the butterfly nut off and you are a slot short of a bishop, a simple screw and a bolt and you had a serviceable pawn, you get the idea.
I have always had a fond regard for engineering, the pleasure of a fine bridge, or the soaring of sound architecture.
In a subtle sense, chess is mental engineering, the fact that our creations can beat us, is a testament to our creative powers.
The paradox is, why is poker so rich and chess so poor?
Possibly because chess is more honourable than poker, as far as I can see poker, is the science of the 'con artist'
My next memory of chess, is playing an employee of my stepfather's named Silas, he won all the time.
I first learned the way our noble warfare is conducted, when around ten years old. Problem was I grew up in a culture that did not understand en passant.
I was taught by an uncle, but didn't play anyone, the school didn't have a chess club to the best of my knowledge. My only contact with chess for around 5 years was my local library and chess books.
I left school at 15 in 1964 and went to work at Lancashire Dynamo at nearby Oxted and for the first time in my life came across people who played chess for real.
They made a very nice set out of nuts and bolts, like one half of a butterfly nut, became a knight, cut both halves of the butterfly nut off and you are a slot short of a bishop, a simple screw and a bolt and you had a serviceable pawn, you get the idea.
I have always had a fond regard for engineering, the pleasure of a fine bridge, or the soaring of sound architecture.
In a subtle sense, chess is mental engineering, the fact that our creations can beat us, is a testament to our creative powers.
The paradox is, why is poker so rich and chess so poor?
Possibly because chess is more honourable than poker, as far as I can see poker, is the science of the 'con artist'
My next memory of chess, is playing an employee of my stepfather's named Silas, he won all the time.