Learning to Play Chess

I’ve written before about our family’s competitiveness in playing games (see here and here).

One of the early memories I have of living in the new home my parents built in 1963 is of my father teaching my brother and me how to play chess. We moved into the house in October 1963, so our chess lesson must have happened sometime in late 1963 or early 1964. I’m pretty sure it took place before my sister was born in the fall of 1964. (Why I remember that, I have no idea.) So I was probably seven and a half to eight years old, and my brother was six to six and a half.

All three of us sat on the floor in the living room, which had a large area of free space covered with wall-to-wall wool carpet. (My parents were very proud of that wall-to-wall wool carpet. There were hardwood floors under the carpet, but the carpet was a sign of elegance to them.) The carpet was a little scratchy.

My father put down the chess board, lined up the pieces in their two ranks, and taught us how each piece moved. Both of us kids knew how to play checkers, and we were familiar with the concept of pieces having certain directions in which they could move. But, of course, chess is much more complicated than checkers. In chess, most pieces can move forward and back (but not pawns), and every piece has different rules about its movement.

And we knew about making kings in checkers, so the notion of pawns turning into other pieces when they made it to the far end of the board seemed reasonable.

Still, it took about an hour or so for us to learn and remember what each piece did. Dad lined up pieces on the board and asked us what each piece could do. Finally, we remembered enough that he thought we could play a game.

We played Dad against my brother and me. Dad won the first game, but we won the second. Neither game took very long. To this day, I have no idea if he let us win that second game, and it’s too late to ask him now.

Chess never became one of my favorite games. To play well takes time and study. I never liked long games like Monopoly. I wanted the immediate gratification of the win or loss.

I played chess casually through grade school and high school, but I’ve rarely played since then. My husband isn’t much for board games. I read a few books on playing, but never mastered real patterns in the play. So I was never able to be competitive at chess—sometimes I won in family games, but sometimes I lost. Where’s the fun in that?

My brother, on the other hand, mathematician and scientist that he was, learned to play pretty well. I don’t recall if there was a chess club at his high school, but I do remember that he played with high school friends. When I went to Europe on a People to People trip in high school, I bought a pocket chess set as my gift to my brother.

As the days grow shorter, I think of chess more often. My dad must have taught us on a chilly weekend afternoon. At least, that’s how I remember it. I remember it as a day when my father spent time with just the two of us, which didn’t happen that often. A day when we learned a new skill. A day when we learned it well enough to beat our father. To beat him honestly, I hope.

What games do you remember your parents teaching you?