» Sunday, 23 January A.D. 2011
swapping pieces
We had an unusually early dinner tonight, so I was able to play a game of chess with each of the girls tonight. Becca played a decent game; I tried to help her to avoid silly moves and to explain to her what moves were particularly good. She's at least thinking about things like attacking the center and so forth.
Ally's game was a little more interesting. She opened up with 1. h4 (“I'm attacking the center!” “Well, no, not really...”) and the game proceeded from there. We played for a while and I eventually maneuvered her into checkmate.
“I don't want the game to be done!” she said.
Mentally preparing for a discussion of being a good sport, I asked, “Why not?”
“Because I only have two pieces,” she replied, indicating my pieces next to her.
“You want to capture more pieces, and then the game can be over?” I asked. She nodded and I permitted her king to engage in a feat unknown to his kinsmen throughout the ages. The next bit of the game was then spent in me coming up with creative ways for her to take my pieces, usually by prompting her when opportunities arose, while trying to be careful to not totally give away the game.
After she had captured most of my “real” pieces, and I had sniped away her pawns, she indicated that it would be OK for me to capture pieces, too. So I went to work with my queen, along with prompting about what pieces to capture when. We wound up with my king and queen versus her king and you can probably guess the rest. She seemed happy enough about the whole thing, and we did have a chance to demonstrate good sportsmanship too.
posted by Nate @ 9:19PM