It all started the night before.
We were at my sister’s house for our monthly family get-together. As Janine’s birthday had been during the previous month, we were obliged to attend. The boys enjoyed going to my sister’s house, anyway, as there were lots of toys there that they only saw once a month, at best.
Dinner had been quite successful. The boys ate their usual big dinner — a single sausage roll each. Given the attraction of new toys, eating always comes a poor second in their list of priorities. They only ate at all because we insisted. Their preference was to skip dinner and keep playing.
After dinner, while the adults had a leisurely conversation over coffee, the boys and their cousins disappeared to other parts of the house.
It was only as we were getting ready to leave did I track them down. I found Colin with his seven-year-old cousin Mark. Mark was teaching Colin how to play chess.
Naturally, I watched eagerly. I’ve always enjoyed chess, though I haven’t played a serious game for more than a decade. I’d been wondering if the boys were old enough to learn, and it was apparent that the answer was “Yes”.
With a little assistance from his dad (“Move that bishop there, Colin. Now move your queen over here,”) Colin eventually won. He didn’t know he’d checkmated his cousin, as he had no idea of the idea of the game.
Colin’s method of working out if he was winning was interesting. If he’d captured more pieces than the other player, he was winning. It didn’t matter if they were pawns or queens — it was the number that counted.
It was now past time to go, but there was no way Colin had been prepared to go until he’d finished his game.
“Can we play again?” Colin asked me.
“No, it’s time to go home,” I said as I stood up.
“I want to play again,” he insisted, staying stubbornly seated.
“It’s time to go home,” I repeated sternly.
He was tired. It only took a minute of firmly telling him that we were going before he gave up. Now, if it’d been Andrew, it would’ve taken at least five minutes of complex negotiations, but his elder brother is more amenable.
As I put Colin into the car, he made his tactical move.
“Will you play chess with me, Daddy?”
“Tomorrow,” I replied, falling into the trap.
“I want to play another game tonight!”
“It’s too late. It’ll be bedtime when we get home.”
“Can we play chess before bed?”
“No, Colin. Tomorrow, I’ll play with you. I promise,” I answered, sealing my doom.
By the time we arrived home, Andrew was already fast asleep, and Colin was barely conscious.
“Will you play chess with me?” Colin asked me drowsily, as I took him out of the car.
One thing that occurs with kids as they grow older is their concentration span improves. The ability to keep their focus on one thing for an extended period of time is critical for school. I’m happy to say that Colin’s proven his ability in this area beyond reasonable doubt. Now, if he could just learn to remember the answers he’d been given, life would start to become easier.
“Tomorrow,” I promised gently.
The next morning, Colin remembered that promise. I took shameless advantage of his enthusiasm to make him eat a good breakfast. All I had to do was to tell him that we couldn’t play until he’d had his breakfast. Andrew was also keen to learn so, after they’d finished eating, I had two eager young boys watching as I dragged out my old magnetic chess set.
“I’ll start by showing you how all the pieces move.”
“I already know,” Colin replied haughtily.
“But Andrew doesn’t,” I pointed out.
I started with the major pieces.
“This piece is called the rook or castle. You can call it either.”
“I’m going to call it a castle,” Colin stated. His brother quickly agreed.
“And, this piece is called a knight.”
“I’m going to call it a horsey,” Andrew said.
“That’s okay,” I replied. I think almost every young kid starts by calling it that.
“I’m going to call it a knight,” Colin said. “And I’m going to call this one a horsey,” he added pointing at the other knight.
I raised my eyebrows at that. I’d never considered calling the same pieces different names.
“And I’m going to call this one a knight,” Andrew said, pointing to his second knight.
Okay, I can live with that. Rather than two knights, or two horsey’s, they had one of each.
After explaining the knight’s complex movement, I quickly went through the other pieces. They seemed to understand, though I expected to have to keep correcting.
The game started. Colin took the white pieces, and Andrew took the black.
“Black is the best,” Andrew told his brother. He seemed to sincerely believe that. Each time he seemed to be in front, he’d remind Colin that black was the best colour.
I took a minimalistic approach to helping. I let them choose what they wanted to move, and then only intervened to help them with options available for that piece. At one point, Andrew was all set to checkmate Colin, but didn’t realise. Colin didn’t realise either. It was another dozen moves before Colin finally moved his king out of danger.
The game extended for quite some time. While I’d explained about trying to capture the opposing king, Colin seemed more interested in just capturing as many pieces as they could. Andrew just wanted to get his pawns down to the eighth row, so they could be changed into something else. I didn’t push them in their choices, so they had pawns promoted into knights (or horsey’s — I never quite worked out which), queens and bishops.
Eventually, Andrew ran out of pawns to promote. He was down to his king, a rook and a bishop. He kept asking me if he could change his king into something else, and was very disappointed when I told him that it couldn’t.
By this stage, Colin was down to his king and a single pawn. Without a lot of effort, he got the pawn to the end row and transformed it into a queen. Soon afterwards, he captured Andrew’s rook. I knew, even if they didn’t, that that meant that Andrew couldn’t win.
“Who’s winning, Daddy?” Colin asked me.
“I think you are,” I answered.
“I don’t want Colin to win!” Andrew interjected, throwing himself to the floor, sulking.
“Why don’t you do move your bishop there?” I suggested.
He made the move I pointed out.
“Now, you are attacking his king. What do you say?” I said, trying to sound cheerful.
“Check!” he said happily.
“That’s not fair. I want to win!” Colin wailed.
“I want to win. I don’t like losing!” Andrew snarled back, tears starting to fall again.
I looked at Andrew’s teary face. I then peered across at Colin’s trembling lower lip.
I knew when I was beaten. I wasn’t even playing, and I’d been well and truly defeated by a masterful tactical assault from the two young competitors in front of me.
Checkmate.
I did the only thing possible. I arranged for the game to end in a draw. That way no one lost.
“Does that mean we both won?” Colin asked cheerfully.
At the happy faces on both my sons, I nodded my head in surrender.
“Yes, Colin. You both won.”