Chess by chrism229, on Flickr
My son had just left after a Christmas holiday at home during which I had refreshed his knowledge of chess and got out a set I cast from gypsum in the late 1970's. All the pieces are birds, and are coloured with black shoe polish, or just plain beeswax. I was sad that I had no one to play with. But the little tyke has just started playing long distance chess with me by text message. "Pawn to e4" came the message this morning. I'll show him who's boss: pawn to e5 was my reply. We'll see.
At 11 or 12 I started trying to learn chess with one of my schoolmates. It was as basic as one gets when there's no mentor. Soon I learned I had a very cool uncle who was, by his own standards, quite good at the game. A couple of times we tried to play, but I was so chess-illiterate, when he started by telling me his next move would be a series of moves with a name, and I was intimidated and disgusted so I just told him I didn't want to learn anymore. My loss, I suppose, but a part of me was very sad that there was much too large a gap between his technical approach to teaching and my unsophisticated baby steps.
