I went back to the chess club last night. One fellow wearing a Ron Paul button had the delicate features and acne of a teenager, but his voice and comportment suggested him as an adult. I overheard him talking with someone about a failed bid for the South Dakota State Senate which convinced me that his look did belie his true age. The local county commissioner plays chess as well, and from what I saw his game is very strong; he was the state champion as a youngster. The Grandmaster stopped in but only for a few moments to discuss a tournament this Saturday. I wonder if I'll ever see him play anyone from the club; from what I observe chess protocol frowns upon the wasting of a Grandmaster's time.
But the Grandmaster's time and conversation were the irony: he was talking about his kids and wife, kvetching the way most normal people do: "I was busy... who's gonna watch the kids..." and so on. It's so strange to see a person in the mundane whose name only a week before you circled in the New York Times. It puts fame into a different light for those of us who pursue a modest amount: perhaps a name in a newspaper is even more sad than anonymity because it's a lie that you avoid the malaise of day-to-day living we all experience.
My best moment, however, was when the organizer of the chess club, Mr R, opened up and told me a little bit about his life. I'd played twice, losing the first game playing black1 while being impatient, then having a complete collapse when my opponent, J, turned the board around and let me play white. J is a jolly fellow who managed to repeat the word "devastation" without sounding condescending. His matter of fact "I devastated you" description was as emotionally mute as a box score. After being left to ponder my "devastating move2" that lead to my "devastating loss," Mr R pulled up a chair. He gave me a chess puzzle which I failed miserably. It was a simple test of whether I could think more than one move ahead at a time.
Mr R revealed that he is a Chicago native and at the tender age of 5 was written up in The Tribune as a chess prodigy. He said "I didn't have the nickel it took to get from where I lived to the chess tournaments" and I took this on as a euphemism. Did his parents care? How rough were the times? I made my closer examination of his face seem casual and guessed he was in the waning years of his 70s. He continued, probably aware he'd got my attention, saying that after missing that opportunity for "a nickel" he fought in World War 2 which was more evidence that he was likely a youngster during the depression and the misfortune of that timing was what held him back from the game. During the war he said he played anyone he could and "never lost" a game of chess. He thought he was "pretty good" at the time and may have come back to the game, but he returned home to married life and children. Mr R's pivot point in life and chess was when he and his wife parted ways and it was in this aftermath that he started to play again, entering tournaments while he was in his 40s - the same type of tournaments he would have played when in as an adolescent if he'd had that nickel. I wonder what it's like to look at the precocious teenager on the other side of the board who is the younger form of you, the form that had the opportunity to play without the baggage of depression, war, and a failed marriage.
Whether he intended it or not, I think he was trying to tell me that he too had started late and with many obstacles. Earlier in the week he had called me to encourage me to come back to the chess club after I'd skipped a week. I offered the excuse of having an infant - my presumed carte blanche to invoke everyone's false sense that a family is an excuse not to play regularly, to put a pause button on the game so that life can go on. He didn't respond and we spent an uncomfortable moment listening to a white noise resembling the type of crackling you might hear on your television when there's snow.
Last night, after telling me about himself he gave me three magazines, recommending I start with Chess Life For Kids.
1In chess, white always gets the first turn. This is a small advantage since you get a chance to control the tempo of the game in the first moves. What throws me off as much is that most of my books are from the white perspective so I'm just used to looking at things that way.
2Reading my chess book this morning I realized that there is a name for my bad play with black: "Damiano's Defense." Here is what Pandolfini says: "Other than resigning, or making a suicidal decision... this is practically the worst defense Black has."