a rugs life

During the winter, Rada and I play alot of chess, not so much so this time of year. But given the unrelenting rain, she pulled out the set last weekend and we set up the pieces.

She’s not a very good loser so I usually let her win the first few games. My strategy is to play the game in earnest until I’m just about to checkmate her, and then stop trying and let her ‘catch up’ and eventually win.

This time she started out as usual, chatty and silly, making the kings and bishops have little conversations. But a few moves later, interestingly, she got me into check. I quickly recovered, and returned to planning my strategy to ‘almost’ checkmate her,  only to have her put me into check again. I recovered once more, but a few moves later she put me into check a third time and I realized with a pang that I was cornered. She’d checkmated me.

I was flabbergasted and annoyed. What a little twerp: who did she think she was, beating me at age 8, huh?

On the outside I was all proud and happy… “wow, sweetie! What a great job. Well done!”

But I continued to feel the uncomfortable surprise of having been sucessfully ambushed by someone of whom I’d always thought myself smarter. Gradually, however, a grudging admiration emerged. For the first time she had beat me fair and square. Way to go, girl.