Checkmate

As if playing dungeon crawls until bedtime wasn't enough, I had to get up early this morning to take Kelly to her first of five once-a-week sessions of the Chess Club. Reports are that she enjoyed it, and when I suggested we play chess using the chess program on Mac OS X, she was pretty enthusiastic.

Now I play a rather weak game of chess, it's been maybe thirty years since I played with any seriousness, after all. My main strategy is to capture as many pieces as I can. Well, against Kelly, a rank beginner, this works fine. I beat her in the first game, then relented against her in the second, after her repeated playful pleas of "please don't kill me!"

I actually had a hard time not checkmating her, and had to take back several moves before I managed to give her my final bishop, leading to a draw. I told her that I didn't want to let her win deliberately, because I felt that soon enough she'd learn how to beat me on her own, and then it would feel that much sweeter. I sure hope I'm right.