Chess With My Son

My son and I have made a tradition of getting together to watch the Super Bowl each year. Admittedly, it has not always been consistent. For example, my work schedule simply did not allow it last year. Hell, I hardly even got a chance to watch any of that Super Bowl myself.

This year, however, my schedule was surprisingly clear. That was great, because it allowed us to continue the tradition, which involves, admittedly, eating some crappy food (in terms of health, not taste), such as Buffalo wings and ice cream sundays and root beer floats in frosted glasses. 

Well as it turns out, we also played some chess on this day. I had admittedly not played chess in years, for some reason. But my son had taken an interest in relearning how to play. 

Indeed, years ago, I had attempted to teach him how to play chess. Indeed, he learned how to move each piece, but he seemed mostly not interested in learning. Now, he feels that chess has a lot of value and can teach him a little about life. So I gladly am trying to help him learn.

Chess is a game that requires patience and time to develop skills, to get better. I have urged my son to be patient. He will get better, of that I am very confident. It took me a long time to learn, although I am thankful for two family members in particularly who helped me to learn and develop my game early on, and to a friend who came later, and really improve my game as an adult. First, my grandfather was the one who largely taught me to play, and matches with him and my father reinforced that. My father was much better than either of us, and indeed, he was the measuring stick by which I compared my game to for a long time. Later on, a coworker named Mr. Mike helped me to develop my game considerably more, pointing out weaknesses and flaws, and to view my strategic approach much more differently. Granted, I went many years without really playing chess, and surely some of those lessons have been lost in the years which have passed, although some of the most important things that Mike taught me, I still use, and was trying to impress upon my son as vitally important when trying to succeed at chess, as well. 

Right now, he is still just getting used to learning how to move the pieces again. As of the moment that I am writing and publishing this, we have played five matches, with the last three of them having been played on Super Bowl Sunday. I told him that this was the chess set that he had originally learned to play on, and he was impressed. It felt like a good idea to gift it to him, as well. It really is a beautiful chess set. 

Below are two pictures from the first of a series of chess matches that we played on Super Bowl Sunday, although it should be noted that we had played two matches a few days earlier, as well. Also, I decided that it would be fitting to add a picture of my son playing chess from not long after I obtained this particular chess set in Krakow, Poland, in June of 2013. The first two pictures are from this past Sunday, while the bottom picture probably dates back to either 2013 or 2014, and surely no later than 2015.