Jeremy and I met at Caribou for a game of chess before The Night Shift Show tonight. I've been on a team with Jeremy for three years and only about a month ago we discovered our mutual passion. He's better than me, not by much, but better. I was on the defensive most of the game but I made him play it out and his victory wasn't decisive. I'm a bit rusty, I haven't played consistently in years, but the strategies, the way of thinking- move anticipation and prediction- stirred and came back quickly. I love the game and I love the mindset you have to be in to play it well.
My dad taught me to play chess when I was around 6 years old, I liked the game but wasn't any good at it. For a couple summers after that I took a chess class at "Whiz Kids College" a summer activities program based out of the local community college. That's where I really fell in love with the game, in a room full of prepubescent nerds just like me, but I was still pretty bad. I stopped playing for a while and picked it up again as a teenager, a lot of lessons and ideas about chess fell into place and I became pretty good, I beat my dad for the first time.
In college I had three great opponents- Drew, Samson, and Jeff. It was tough to find people that knew the game, wanted to play the game, and most importantly were good at it. Playing with someone with substantially less skill doesn't evoke the same kind of involvement or mental exercise that playing with someone with equal abilities does. Samson was my favorite person to play because we were the most evenly matched(Jeff slightly better than me, Drew slightly worse). He had an extremely grating personality and I didn't really like him. He quieted down and focused up when we sat down to play. We never talked, we just played, it was incredibly fun.
Since then I haven't been able to find a good chess partner. Recently I've discovered both Jeremy and Jimmy are great players and love chess. Hopefully there are many more games to come.
