The game of kings, and other people. (Chess)

Member Name: MaryanneH

Product:	Chess
Date:	22/08/04 (170 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great game of skill

Disadvantages: I'm not very good at it

?So its your move then?

?Oh Ok, there!?

?Check Mate?

?Damn - ooh Ow?

?You alright?

?Course, I?m only in labour!?

?and that was the conversation that ended my last proper game of chess with my husband. I was induced at 9.30 in the morning, I wasn?t allowed out until the baby came and we had to do something, and chess is way more interesting than day time tele, even New Years Eve day time tele, strangely I lost three games in a row.

So what is chess? The game of kings, respected the world over. It brings up visions of snow covered Russian market squares with old men sat playing with there friends over a glass of vodka, playing with friends over a glass of red wine with cheese and biscuits on a long winters night in front of an open fire, or incredibly boring televised competitions that I never quite saw the point of. It originally was created in China in the time about 2 centuries BC, although there are some people who think it was created in India, they are wrong, well according to one website I was looking at.

Chess is one of those things that if your parents play, there is a very strong chance that you will, I don?t know many people who play, whose Dads didn?t teach them when they were little or if they didn?t they simply don?t play. My Dad, and Granddad (who was a master) spent many hours playing with me as a kid, and I still turned out really, really bad at it!

Anyway, down to the basics, chess is played on a board ? it?s called a chess board you know! Unless of course you?re playing with my mum then it becomes a draughts board. 64 squares alternating black and white and you must start with a corner white square on your right. Each player has 16 pieces and they must be set up in the same way each time, one is black and one is white. I
;ts only for 2 players, because they don?t make red or blue pieces.

The pieces:

8 pawns ? or prawns as anyone under the age of 8 calls them, the same age group also refers to the game as ?chest? Pawns are basically cannon fodder, they line up in front of the main pieces and looking at the board to start with you have to blast your way through your opponents pawns to get to the other pieces. However, if you look after them, they will look after you later in the game, don?t ever underestimate the value of a pawn ? unless you?re playing me, then you could probably win really easily with or without them.

2 Castles (Rooks) ? right, its blatantly obvious why people call them castles, I never, ever understood why anyone would call them rooks (in fact it was many years before I realised what people were on about when they did call them Rooks) Once they are out, they are quite useful pieces, but they often don?t fulfil their true potential in a game. They start in the corner and move in straight horizontal or vertical movements.

2 Knights ? The sexiest pieces on the board, well all knights are sexy right? and they don?t just move boringly in one direction, they can jump over pieces and move wonkily one square, one diagonal ? try teaching that to a 5 year old, they do get it eventually.

2 Bishops ? now if chess were invented today, as opposed to 2000 years ago, would the church have any influence at all, or knights and castles for that matter. It?s a great game of strategy but is very much influenced by times gone by. Bishops are quite useful pieces and are often the first main pieces to enter the game ? move diagonally only.

1 King and 1 Queen ? naturally one your king is captured its game over, but the Queen is a pretty good prize too, and way more powerful as a piece as she can move anywhere, so once again you men may like to thing you come out on
top but it?s the ladies who really have the power.

So what about the game itself? Now each piece has its own specific move and can?t do anything else and the idea is to move around the board, capturing your opponents pieces until you have their king, then you?ve won, ideally you should have worked out about 65000 possible combination of moved in advance, in reality at my level its usually reactive.

As with any game that?s been around for 2000 years, there are some other little rules that go in with it, that depends who you?re playing as to how strict they are, you can have timed games where you must make your move in 5 seconds (or whatever) and that really irritating move that school kids always take to heart ? ?if you touch a piece you?ve got to move it? Internet chess is way better from that point of view.

Then of course there are the really stupid rules that you know only ever came into existence because some ?Persian Prince? didn?t want to get beaten by his Granny so cheated and the cheating move became part of the rules ? the conversation may have gone something like this:

Granny: Ha, 2 moves and you?re toast little Princy!

Princy: Well actually Granny, because I?m not already in check I can move my castle up to my king, then the king just jumps over it like that, then you?re no where near me!

Granny: You cheat, that?s not a proper move!

Princy: Of course it is, tell her Jeeves.

Jeeves (nervous of having his head chopped off) Yes sire, of course it?s a proper move.

Jeeves, then proceeded to use it whilst playing his mate down at the local pub the following evening and so Castling is created!

On a similar vein, try this one:

Granny: So the prawn moves once or twice on its first move?

Princy: (sighs) Granny, how many times have I told
you its called a Pawn! And yes that?s right.

Granny: (smugly) Ok, so I?ll move this one 2 places then you can?t take me with your prawn ? Ha!

Princy: Well sorry Granny, you?ve forgotten about ?en passant?

Granny: En what?

Princy: If you move 2 places and I could have taken you with my pawn had you only moved one, I still move the pawn to the place you would have been had you only moved one and take you anyway. That?s right isn?t it Jeeves?

Jeeves: Yes of course sire!

Of course these days the only people who use en passant are smug irritating people that only use it to prove they know a really obscure move, and it rarely has any overall benefit to their game whatsoever.

Moving on, where can you play chess these days? With the invent of television and playstations I am sure the number of people playing chess in front of the fire has reduced drastically, although I?m sure the odd game of Strip chess still goes on, I know I can?t persuade hubby to play with me very often, even the strip version. So there are chess clubs around but of more use these days are probably the many internet chess sites. There are sites like Chessnet.com that have real time games or sites like chessworld.net which are like email chess so its not real time and you have up to a week to make your move, (which means you get to think a bit more) and naturally there are places like MSN where you can play, the great advantage here is of course that you can play people from all over the world, so would very rarely play the same person twice.

Chess sets themselves range from £3 from a cheapy toy shop to thousands of pounds. It would be nice to have a really lovely set but unless you have a nice library or games room to display it in there is not a lot of point. You can also get novelty sets
, Simpsons, middle earth, Star Wars ? which are great fun but must be confusing if you are used to a traditional one. Then there is battle chess for the computer, inspired possibly by Monty Pythons knights where each time you take a piece it attacks the defeated and in the case of a knight it chops his opponents? limbs off, and in some versions I?ve seen blood comes out ?Kill Bill? style.

In the mean time, the only person I get to play is my daughter and she?s still at the stage where she sulks when I win and is no where near good enough to beat me yet, although I?m sure it?ll happen one day.

So Check Mate, and thank you for reading.

Capital letters courtesy of: http://www.chuckleweb.co.uk/fixit.php

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