Tuesday, July 27, 2004
En Passant
Reading Lysithea's account of her encounters in the wierd and wonderful world of competitive chess, I can't help but remember some of my own.
I remember the first tourney I played in. I was young. Very young, and very, very scared.
For some reason, when I play chess I get really petrified - the fear factor never quite wore off for me years later as a seasoned veteran.
The symptoms are beautifully described in medical textbooks. Sympathetic overdrive - pallor, sweating, nausea, butterflies in tummy, increased resp rate, and presumably pupillary dilation although I never did find time to look at myself in a mirror during tournaments.
The chap I was playing was probably about twice my age, but he was a kid too (I was a very young kid.)
Ponderously, with hands trembling, we exchanged piece after piece.
And then he made a mistake. I think my fear was probably rubbing off on him - as the game progressed, his confidence waned, just a little bit, little bit more... and then he blundered.
And suddenly I was the victor. David KOs Goliath.
I don't think I was a particularly inspired player, although I did make my school team. I always lived in awe of the other 3 guys on the team (our fifth board was frankly... poor. laughs) who all happened to be close buddies of mine.
There was A, our lead player and top board, who had the mind of a supercomputer (on electronic steroids). A was my best friend at the time (says a lot about me?) and I liked him because he was always calm, dependable, and underneath that facade of utter and absolute blandness lurked a quiet and very understated humour - with just that touch of a mean streak. He was a strange blend of BBC and HBC (hongkong). For some reason, many of the people I really liked back in those days were all born abroad. They were alive.
A played chess like Deep Blue. Calmly, deliberately, and he gradually overwhelmed you through sheer force of impeccable logic. If he'd been a tennis player he'd have michael chang, only much taller, much more powerful, and playing every shot from the baseline till his opponent fell dead of sheer boredom. :)
I lost touch with A somewhere along the way. He went off to the states to become a supercomputer (I think he works for IBM) and fulfill all his electronic fantasies, and became too important for the rest of us mere mortals.
Our second board was K, who is funnily enough my best friend today, and my best buddy of all time.
K has an american sense of humour, but nobody's perfect and I've forgiven him for it for all our lives. I was his best man at his wedding, and I gave a wedding speech nobody is ever likely to forget - or understand. Damn this strange hybrid accent I've grown into.....
K played chess with an interesting mix of common sense and sheer unpredictability. He had frequent flashes of quick brilliance which I was in awe of. In the blink of an eyelid he'd have you pinned to your back ranks and struggling.
But he was also fallible, as people who take risks often are, and once in a blue moon even I could get the upperhand with one of my much rarer moments of inspiration. K also collapsed occasionally out of sheer ? insanity for very little reason, but he was definitely cut out to be one of the powerhouses on our team.
Then there was our third board, Z, who I never really got to know very well. He grinned a lot and was quiet a lot of the time when he wasn't being horrendously perverted. He played chess a little less extravagently than K, but he was also more A-like. Very calculating, and also very deliberate (but not quite as formidably so).
I constantly resigned myself to playing as fourth board. A pale shadow of the other three, a more even mix of dependability (but not quite as cerebrally inclined, not quite as logical) and unpredictability. I was, to my mind however, predictably unpredictable. My risks were mostly calculated, and foreseen two to three moves in advance. In a word, easy to read, to the superior player.
The one day I had a major chessmaster moment was unfortunately in tourney vs Z. I'd much rather it'd happened against someone else, since we were playing in the individuals, and of course it'd have been better to knock someone else out from another school. It reflects poorly on your school if you have only a few, or no medal-winners, nevermind that they slaughtered each other off at the starting board.
I remember a strange sense of awareness. Of quickening. A slight prickling at the back of my neck. Hmm, funny that, it sounds a little like someone else's account of falling in love.
I saw. It was like learning a streetfighter combination attack quite by accident - and knowing what you'd just done, in advance. Almost like deja-vu.
It unfolded in my head as I stared blankly at the board. Not two, not three moves ahead, but ten.
I sat absolutely still, and analysed, and analysed, and analysed. It looked utterly infallible. It involved an initial gamble of a completely illogical sacrifice (I think it was a rook for a pawn), but somewhere down the line it resulted in a massive and overwhelming victory.
Z began to look a little nonplussed as the minutes rolled by. Finally, half an hour later I woke from my reverie and started the chain of events leading to the highest point in my chess career (and a national medal).
He was puzzled. And he looked up and saw fear in my eyes. And looked back down. Who sacrifices a rook for a pawn? About ten minutes later after a lot of deliberation, he took the bait.
And ten moves later, I was leading by a rook, two knights, a bishop and a queen. It was a bittersweet victory, but more a victory over myself in my head, than over Z.
(Sure I had other victories, even against the infamous V, from ACS who had a reputation for being completely and utterly clinically insane. Rumour has it that in his navy days he managed to misguide his crew and vessel several thousand miles off course thanks to a "misinterpretation" of his instructions. Accidental my foot. laugh)
I went home that night, and obsessively played the scenario out over and over again on my own little chess board, and discovered a fatal flaw in the grand plan. On move one, completely unforseen by myself, and thankfully, by Z. It wasn't about not falling for the gambit, but about responding to it differently.
My victory within a hair's breadth of becoming an utter, and absolute exercise in humiliation.
Heh heh.
Such is life, innit?
*****
Several years (funny, the first time I wrote that it came up as "tears") later, I flew halfway across the world to make a sacrifice.
It wasn't a gambit - I don't think I stood to win anything from it, and all scenarios led to loss.
It was completely illogical, and insensible. It was, metaphorically speaking, trading my queen for a pawn, the pawn being me. Intentionally, and cold-bloodedly, for the simple reason that the pawn needed to be lost.
Somehow, fate conspired against me and turned my sacrifice into a gambit - albeit a temporary one. And I emerged the transient victor, in a competition I hadn't even intended to enter.
It turned out to be an illusion, and the defeat came later, inexorably, and utterly predictably. But in that brief time, I walked on wind, hands held akimbo, and my soul was freed, and so, so happy.
She thought I'd meant it to be a gambit. I suppose that was equal parts Her, and equal parts her best friend's counsel - someone, I suspect, who is very much like K, who advised me not to even make the sacrifice in the first place, since it didn't make sense. And if even K thought it didn't make sense, then believe me, it so didn't.
I do have regrets today. But not because I made that insane trip across the world - rather, because I fell prey to stupidity, and cast aside the one person who brought laughter into my life, and eyes. I guess in a nutshell, I did it all because I was, and just had to be - myself. Would that the same could be said today, when older, "wiser", more mercenary and corrupted by "adulthood" (and this has nothing to do with age) all I can do is reminisce fondly on my younger days, and miss the few people who helped to shape me into someone better than I am today.
Sometimes, you just have to make that sacrifice, because it's written in your nature.
I remember the first tourney I played in. I was young. Very young, and very, very scared.
For some reason, when I play chess I get really petrified - the fear factor never quite wore off for me years later as a seasoned veteran.
The symptoms are beautifully described in medical textbooks. Sympathetic overdrive - pallor, sweating, nausea, butterflies in tummy, increased resp rate, and presumably pupillary dilation although I never did find time to look at myself in a mirror during tournaments.
The chap I was playing was probably about twice my age, but he was a kid too (I was a very young kid.)
Ponderously, with hands trembling, we exchanged piece after piece.
And then he made a mistake. I think my fear was probably rubbing off on him - as the game progressed, his confidence waned, just a little bit, little bit more... and then he blundered.
And suddenly I was the victor. David KOs Goliath.
I don't think I was a particularly inspired player, although I did make my school team. I always lived in awe of the other 3 guys on the team (our fifth board was frankly... poor. laughs) who all happened to be close buddies of mine.
There was A, our lead player and top board, who had the mind of a supercomputer (on electronic steroids). A was my best friend at the time (says a lot about me?) and I liked him because he was always calm, dependable, and underneath that facade of utter and absolute blandness lurked a quiet and very understated humour - with just that touch of a mean streak. He was a strange blend of BBC and HBC (hongkong). For some reason, many of the people I really liked back in those days were all born abroad. They were alive.
A played chess like Deep Blue. Calmly, deliberately, and he gradually overwhelmed you through sheer force of impeccable logic. If he'd been a tennis player he'd have michael chang, only much taller, much more powerful, and playing every shot from the baseline till his opponent fell dead of sheer boredom. :)
I lost touch with A somewhere along the way. He went off to the states to become a supercomputer (I think he works for IBM) and fulfill all his electronic fantasies, and became too important for the rest of us mere mortals.
Our second board was K, who is funnily enough my best friend today, and my best buddy of all time.
K has an american sense of humour, but nobody's perfect and I've forgiven him for it for all our lives. I was his best man at his wedding, and I gave a wedding speech nobody is ever likely to forget - or understand. Damn this strange hybrid accent I've grown into.....
K played chess with an interesting mix of common sense and sheer unpredictability. He had frequent flashes of quick brilliance which I was in awe of. In the blink of an eyelid he'd have you pinned to your back ranks and struggling.
But he was also fallible, as people who take risks often are, and once in a blue moon even I could get the upperhand with one of my much rarer moments of inspiration. K also collapsed occasionally out of sheer ? insanity for very little reason, but he was definitely cut out to be one of the powerhouses on our team.
Then there was our third board, Z, who I never really got to know very well. He grinned a lot and was quiet a lot of the time when he wasn't being horrendously perverted. He played chess a little less extravagently than K, but he was also more A-like. Very calculating, and also very deliberate (but not quite as formidably so).
I constantly resigned myself to playing as fourth board. A pale shadow of the other three, a more even mix of dependability (but not quite as cerebrally inclined, not quite as logical) and unpredictability. I was, to my mind however, predictably unpredictable. My risks were mostly calculated, and foreseen two to three moves in advance. In a word, easy to read, to the superior player.
The one day I had a major chessmaster moment was unfortunately in tourney vs Z. I'd much rather it'd happened against someone else, since we were playing in the individuals, and of course it'd have been better to knock someone else out from another school. It reflects poorly on your school if you have only a few, or no medal-winners, nevermind that they slaughtered each other off at the starting board.
I remember a strange sense of awareness. Of quickening. A slight prickling at the back of my neck. Hmm, funny that, it sounds a little like someone else's account of falling in love.
I saw. It was like learning a streetfighter combination attack quite by accident - and knowing what you'd just done, in advance. Almost like deja-vu.
It unfolded in my head as I stared blankly at the board. Not two, not three moves ahead, but ten.
I sat absolutely still, and analysed, and analysed, and analysed. It looked utterly infallible. It involved an initial gamble of a completely illogical sacrifice (I think it was a rook for a pawn), but somewhere down the line it resulted in a massive and overwhelming victory.
Z began to look a little nonplussed as the minutes rolled by. Finally, half an hour later I woke from my reverie and started the chain of events leading to the highest point in my chess career (and a national medal).
He was puzzled. And he looked up and saw fear in my eyes. And looked back down. Who sacrifices a rook for a pawn? About ten minutes later after a lot of deliberation, he took the bait.
And ten moves later, I was leading by a rook, two knights, a bishop and a queen. It was a bittersweet victory, but more a victory over myself in my head, than over Z.
(Sure I had other victories, even against the infamous V, from ACS who had a reputation for being completely and utterly clinically insane. Rumour has it that in his navy days he managed to misguide his crew and vessel several thousand miles off course thanks to a "misinterpretation" of his instructions. Accidental my foot. laugh)
I went home that night, and obsessively played the scenario out over and over again on my own little chess board, and discovered a fatal flaw in the grand plan. On move one, completely unforseen by myself, and thankfully, by Z. It wasn't about not falling for the gambit, but about responding to it differently.
My victory within a hair's breadth of becoming an utter, and absolute exercise in humiliation.
Heh heh.
Such is life, innit?
*****
Several years (funny, the first time I wrote that it came up as "tears") later, I flew halfway across the world to make a sacrifice.
It wasn't a gambit - I don't think I stood to win anything from it, and all scenarios led to loss.
It was completely illogical, and insensible. It was, metaphorically speaking, trading my queen for a pawn, the pawn being me. Intentionally, and cold-bloodedly, for the simple reason that the pawn needed to be lost.
Somehow, fate conspired against me and turned my sacrifice into a gambit - albeit a temporary one. And I emerged the transient victor, in a competition I hadn't even intended to enter.
It turned out to be an illusion, and the defeat came later, inexorably, and utterly predictably. But in that brief time, I walked on wind, hands held akimbo, and my soul was freed, and so, so happy.
She thought I'd meant it to be a gambit. I suppose that was equal parts Her, and equal parts her best friend's counsel - someone, I suspect, who is very much like K, who advised me not to even make the sacrifice in the first place, since it didn't make sense. And if even K thought it didn't make sense, then believe me, it so didn't.
I do have regrets today. But not because I made that insane trip across the world - rather, because I fell prey to stupidity, and cast aside the one person who brought laughter into my life, and eyes. I guess in a nutshell, I did it all because I was, and just had to be - myself. Would that the same could be said today, when older, "wiser", more mercenary and corrupted by "adulthood" (and this has nothing to do with age) all I can do is reminisce fondly on my younger days, and miss the few people who helped to shape me into someone better than I am today.
Sometimes, you just have to make that sacrifice, because it's written in your nature.
