Back To Chess

When you write a blog for 18 years, you occasionally end up repeating stories or at least covering similar topics multiple times. For example, I shared that I learned how to play chess in third grade when one of my classmates taught many of the kids in the class how to play. While the longer version of the story is here and I've since learned that my classmate graduated from Harvard and now writes children's books. I'm bringing up chess again. 

My sixth grader, The Moose, recently signed up for chess.com. I believe that some of his classmates started to play and he wants to join them. He still has a lot to learn, and I look forward to working with him over the next few months, but I decided to login to my own chess.com account. It turns out that my last match was in July 2010. That's a long time ago! I played my first match on the website in over a dozen years on Monday against someone from Iran. This was almost as big as the US-Iran World Cup match, and the end result was the same in that I won. The only difference is that I didn't have a groin/abdominal injury like Christian Pulisic after a big move in my match! 

I was rusty, but it was fun playing again. Later, I started a match with someone in Algeria. Even playing poorly, I came 13 seconds away from winning a match I should have lost convincingly. So now, I'm all in for playing chess again. One match a night which cannot exceed 20 minutes is a good way to get back into chess. I definitely feel like I'm using my, um, what's that thing inside your head called? Maybe chess will help me remember. 

On Tuesday, I played again and lost to someone in Vietnam. Not satisfied with that match, I played another one against someone else in Australia and lost again. Then, I defeated someone from Chile and called it a night. I even won using a pawn for checkmate!

I find it interesting that in my 5 matches this week  I still haven't played anyone in North America. Chess really is an international game where language isn't necessary. This can definitely become addicting. I'll need to make sure to only play a few matches a night. Sleep is good!