8 things I learned last month, all in one day
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On the Saturday before Thanksgiving, I drove with our two boys to an elementary school in North Seattle. This was the location of their first chess tournament, an entry level smaller event for elementary and junior high school aged kids. They’ve just started playing with more commitment, and when we found out there was a tournament when we were already planing to be in town, they jumped at it, but as we started to drive, I could feel their misgivings grow.
At home, my kids are enchanted with a 1500 year old game, this analogue, three-dimensional game of strategy and deep thinking. A quick search informs me that chess began in some form in the 6th century in India, spreading across the Middle East and finally into southern Europe five hundred years later. The modern rules of chess began to be formulated at the dawn of the 15th century in Italy, the Renaissance, the time of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. At home, nobody is judging anything. The stakes are low, but for brotherly competition.
But now we’ve ventured out of the safety of our home. We’re driving to an unknown building filled with mostly unknown people and an unknown experience. I’m proud of the boys’ willingness to jump into something totally unknown. Openness to new experience is an indicator of emotional health. By this measure, they’re doing great.
It is a whole other world, the world of chess. Walking into the cafeteria where chess boards were set up neatly on lunch tables, watching the officials with clip boards walking briskly back and forth, hearing mentions of things that still constituted for us an unknown language— all of this was alien. It felt like being a studio arts major walking into a board meeting at a technology company, or a barista walking into a military staff meeting. The boys pretended to be confident, though I could see the hesitation in their steps.
Viewed from the Netflix series The Queen’s Gambit, as well as glimpses through movies like Searching for Bobby Fisher or the delightful French movie Queen to Play, my understanding of chess is basic at best. I know how the pieces move. I vaguely know about castling. But the kids, even in their nascent experience, have been talking about openings and middle games and end games and forking. I have a lot to learn. We all do.
The other kids were not at the tournament out of a new interest. They come from schools with chess teams and chess coaches. They know what it means when someone came out to yell “pairings are posted!” and where they are supposed to go, and what happens at the game analysis table after a match.
Over the day of this junior level tournament, the rules were explained by a brusque man in a black t-shirt emblazoned with the logo of a rock band who stood next to a distinguished looking man in a grey sweater: no talking, no commenting, no telling your opponent what to do in any way or by any inference. My boys listened, eyes widening as the seriousness of the day settled in. And then the administrators kicked the parents out of the cafeteria, and the games began.
Here are the lessons that emerged over the day— that apply to every single one of us: