Rather than play a final today then, I found myself up against Mr Legal, who beat me in a way that seemed almost inevitable from the start. As he swiped his queen into the corner that I'd castled myself into, he quietly said, "Mate." I smiled in a resigned sort of way and pushed my chair back. We shook hands and the stress evaporated. This was the lesson I needed.
Back in the old days, in the fervent league of the Berkshire Under 15s, my snobbish opponent would have pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, smiled smugly and wandered off without a word, only to be patted on the back by his grinning teacher. I have vague memories of resetting the clocks, packing away the pieces and taking that final forlorn sip of Lilt from one of the school mugs. Mr Whitfield, who had been hovering round the board would then say things like: "You really blocked yourself in there, Stubbsy," and, "Why didn't you take the bishop with your knight?" which was less helpful than he'd hoped.
Mr Legal was a much more gracious victor today. He outsmarted me at every turn. He was quicker in the opening, cleverer in the middle game, more prepared, more insightful, better equipped towards the end and ruthlessly efficient. In fact there was only one move I made that came close to baffling him and even though it must have looked like it came from nowhere, he was more than capable of matching it with a clever solution. Yet, despite all that, there was no smug grin, no victory dance and no dismissive snobbishness. We both put the pieces away and we chatted about castling and playing against computers; he told me that he regularly plays his seventeen year old son (who must be some sort of prodigy) and I told him that I used to play a long time ago, in a diffident kind of way. And that was that.
Plus, brilliantly, I think I know what I can do to improve for next time.
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What I can't improve at it seems, is facebook debates. I had a discussion with someone today about Christmas lights: you know, the ones people string across the front of their houses. I don't mind writing about the discussion here because, after all, the thread evolved online in the first place. That person still has the right to reply, just as she did several hours ago.
In the end I had to sigh and give up. I've always been a fan of teasing out logical loopholes in somebody's argument by the simple strategy of asking questions. It's not aggressive, it doesn't assume anything and it prevents me from bombing off on some personal rant. Plus it gives me the opportunity to work out whether their argument puts me squarely in the wrong, which could end up being a huge personal improvement point for me. Additionally, it sometimes leads to people contradicting themselves with their own argument, forcing them to stumble into a startling conclusion and importantly, helping them to think about why they believe exactly what they believe. And everyone should ask that question.
Perhaps I'm just in chess playing mode tonight. It does all seem a rather strategic way of constructing a defence, when I write it down like this.
I stopped the conversation when she mentioned that she wished some people were homeless at Christmas-time. Again, there is nothing new here. This is precisely what she herself wrote online. Her argument was that Christmas lights were a waste of money and self-indulgent luxury items. People who live in poverty, she reasoned (like herself), would probably see this as a disgusting injustice; it would be a better world if some people were homeless, if they lost everything; then they would truly know what's important.
All this, I noted, while she tapped away at her tablet on a social network in a comfortable chair in her council-provided flat. I asked her if she was considering giving away her Christmas tree, but she didn't twig - she didn't understand! that this could be considered a 'luxury item' (by her own definition) and therefore was analogous to the whole issue of Christmas lights. At that point I had to resign. Where can you go in the face of such flint-faced opposition? I felt like Cnut, standing on the shore of the English Channel, trying to hold back the tide. She is a friend, and although I fundamentally disagree with her, I quickly realised that the conversation would have ended in either a humiliating logical checkmate or a childish unfriending.
Sometimes, you have to know which battles to pick.
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