![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I haven't played chess regularly in 19 years. It's probably been 10 years since I've played at all. I was never very good, nor very competitive. My research group recently set up what is affectionately called "the library." It's a cubicle with a few shelves of shared reference books, a couple of comfy chairs, and a table with a bowl of munchies and a chessboard.
I don't know how I managed to guess the right person to ask for a game, out of 12 people in the research group and more than 100 in the company. I suspect that most people either would say, "sorry, I don't play chess," or they play very much more seriously than I do. Games aren't a whole lot of fun where one person is being vastly more competitive than the other, not to mention the fact that a smart competitive person who cares about chess is likely to play a lot of chess and become good at it. But this was another duffer, at almost exactly my level, and we had very pleasant game of it. Well, most of a pleasant game. We knocked most of the pieces off the board, and reached the point of an evenly-matched endgame where we had been chasing each other around the board for a while, and I asked, "Do you want to play this out? Or should we do that [experiment]?" And we walked away without concession or declaring it a draw, just deciding we wanted to do something else. It was very nice, and almost completely unlike chess.
I don't know how I managed to guess the right person to ask for a game, out of 12 people in the research group and more than 100 in the company. I suspect that most people either would say, "sorry, I don't play chess," or they play very much more seriously than I do. Games aren't a whole lot of fun where one person is being vastly more competitive than the other, not to mention the fact that a smart competitive person who cares about chess is likely to play a lot of chess and become good at it. But this was another duffer, at almost exactly my level, and we had very pleasant game of it. Well, most of a pleasant game. We knocked most of the pieces off the board, and reached the point of an evenly-matched endgame where we had been chasing each other around the board for a while, and I asked, "Do you want to play this out? Or should we do that [experiment]?" And we walked away without concession or declaring it a draw, just deciding we wanted to do something else. It was very nice, and almost completely unlike chess.
