My soul is dead. Just kidding, because something great happened today! I drew against Lara's dad in a game of chess.
I will have to explain a little for you to understand why this is so great. When you visit the Rodmans' house, it's non-stop gaming. They play ping pong, cards, chess, basketball, computer games, tennis, scrabble, go, and they're pretty competitive (the son in particular). Now when I was out bowling with the son and his cousin I noticed how rare it is that I win games with the Rodmans. In particular, I'd been getting my ass beaten in chess by the father ever since I finally got up the nerve to ask him to play. (I was probably better off before I first played him, because he was under the strange impression that I was the better player and that he was in for a beating. I guess it's because I talk pretty big.)
Well he must have been pretty confident because he decided to use a defense he recently learned from playing the computer. The result was that I won a pawn off him right away. Then I kept gaining material and hoped to God that I didn't blow it by making a dopey move. Well guess what I DID. It would have been much more embarrassing, though, had he eventually beaten me. Instead, he put me in a situation in which he could perpetually check my king, so I had to offer him a draw.
And that brings me to my final thought, which is that chess is 99% tactics and I guess about 60% not being a dope.
Right now I'm looking at an interesting
website on computer chess algorithms because some day I hope to BECOME A COMPUTER.