By one metric (lifetime record versus my cousin Mary, who is six), I am good at chess (10-2-0). By another metric (performance against the computer at chess.com on a level called "Silly", which is below "Easy") I am bad at chess (0-4-0). It seems obvious that one of these metrics is a better indicator of quality than the other, so I suppose it's incumbent upon me to just sort of now live life as a person who is bad at chess, at least until I improve (and not just by beating Mary until those two losses become statistically insignificant).
I'm not bad at chess merely insofar as I can't think enough steps ahead, either, which is what I thought about when I used to think, abstractly, about how and why I was so bad at chess. The problem in this scenario (which, again, I largely just imagined in the half-decade or so when I just didn't play chess at all), would be that I would go to move and -- oh no! -- realize all of the sudden that either my bishop or my rook was doomed, doomed, and I could only save one of them. In fact, I am a much less tragic, and much more stupid, chess player than this. I lose my important pieces not so much by grinding ineluctabilities as much as by wild, arms-flailing acts of stupidity. "I will just move my queen here, to bide her royal time," I think, and then the computer snipes her off with its bishop that I should, of course, have seen, what with its position five clear, unimpeded diagonal squares from the queen's landing. At no point here at the library where I'm playing my chess did I take off my cap in a gesture of resignation, as I realized that the computer had masterfully played me; rather, I made a kind of stuttering motion with my head and then grouchily flung my mouse cursor over to the corner to close out the game rather than sticking around to actually get mated. (This was against a computer, so don't worry, my resignation strategy wasn't like screwing up anyone else's stats).
Unlike say, backgammon or Scrabble, chess is a narrative game (the bishop attacked the queen!) and unlike say, Key to the Kingdom it's not a game with what anyone who's read a book would call an interestingly narrative game (the castles moved (?) to successfully box the king in again). But the hyperdiegetic story, of each person's relationship to chess, is an interesting one, as we negotiate, in chess, intimately but harmlessly (unless you're Luzhin), between ends that are tragic and ones that are stupid.
In news news, I am reading in addition to losing at chess, and I will soon lose my access to the Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, so I plan on writing here about that. Expect more. Happy reading.
