Notes

"What about the perspective of the pawn?"

Chess seems to be a solid task to tackle for the third paper. I've never played, so immediately I have more distance from the game than I would with track, gymnastics, lacrosse, etc. Dusty volumes from the 1950's fill a shelf section on the third floor of the library. Hits immediately jumped up from my search query, "How to play chess."

There's got to be a story -- or make that stories -- in the midst of this.

As I teach myself about the rules and wonders of chess, I'd like to set down some of the random facts I'm discovering on Wikipedia. (No worries, kids, I'll confirm all of these facts.)

"Chess can be played with a time control. This involves assigning each player a set amount of time to make moves. If a player's time runs out before the game is completed, he loses on time. The timing ranges from up to seven hours for long games to shorter rapid chess games usually lasting 30 minutes or one hour. Even shorter is blitz chess, with a time control of three to fifteen minutes per player and bullet chess, in which the allotment is under three minutes."

Seven hours!

"Introduced into the Iberian Peninsula by the Moors in the 10th century, it was described in a famous 13th century manuscript covering shatranj, backgammon, and dice named the Libro de los juegos.[6]" -- Yeah, Spain!

How about that? The queen is the most powerful piece.

Chess clubs formed in Europe and chess problems were printed in the newspaper. I've actually seen such problems in Newsday, though I never made any attempt to riddle through them.

Many male champions. Why do the men and women have separate championships???

(Clearly the chess scene has been waiting for me to join the circuit.)

"Chess moves can be annotated with punctuation marks and other symbols. For example ! indicates a good move, !! an excellent move, ? a mistake, ?? a blunder, !? an interesting move that may not be best or ?! a dubious move, but not easily refuted." Fabulous.

Stay posted as the adventure begins. Checkmate.