I have to admit, I never thought I would learn to play chess. The game gets a bad rap, especially on TV shows and in movies. Let's face it; it's never a bunch of cool kids whenever they show the chess club and it always leads to bunch of bad stereotypes.
My first venture in to the game of chess came at age eighteen. My brother was home for the weekend from school and asked if I wanted to play him. I laughed and let him know that wouldn't be happening any time soon. But my brother being who he is, he persisted and I ended up relenting to his imploring.
As we sat down to the chess board, I was not expecting much. Honestly, I thought it was going to be more like checkers when I looked at the board. How wrong I was. It was nothing like checkers! All of the different pieces enthralled me and caught my imagination. And how they moved, this was truly a new and exciting experience for me. It was a game of strategy and I was immediately hooked. In fact, I was the one who ended up doing the pestering to play chess from then on, although he never complained.
It never gets old for me. There's always a new strategy to try and no reason to follow the same pattern. No other game provides the constant promise of combining moves and game pieces in an attack manner that differs each time I sit down at a chess board. Sometimes I sacrifice my pawns to pave the way for my more important pieces to assail my opponent. Other times I like to let my knights go charging ahead of the pack to see just how much damage I can do with those two pieces. I like to have fun with it, never forgetting why I became hooked on the game.
This game lets you be creative and actually use your mind. It's not just a bunch of button pushing and loud noises, which are all videogames are these days. It allows true face-to-face interaction with another player. The game forces you to see your opponent, hear your opponent, and study your opponent. When was the last time that a videogames was able to give you that? So give it a try if you haven't already. You won't be disappointed.
