Passing the torch

Shaw beat his old man at a game of chess this week. I did give him an "are you sure? stare" early in the game where he was about to lose his Queen and he quickly realized his error and I let him rethink his move. Other than that, he beat me fair and square. He plays aggressively and he's clearly thinking 2 or 3 moves ahead at this early stage. For those who know chess, it is a complex game but one that even a 9 yr old who has only been playing for 3 or 4 months can grasp and even excel at.

Here's what happened to me: A smart player will usually make an escape route for the king within the first two or three moves of a game. I did that but then later in the game I used a castle maneuver where the rook and the king kinda trade places (there can be no players between the king and the rook and it has to be a first move for both players and the rook takes the king's place and the king goes one space before where the rook was) So, my king was behind three pawns and Shaw got on to my back row and I couldn't block, capture or escape. It was checkmate!

For a few decades, computers could not beat humans at chess but that weakness only seemed to be a function of not being able to consider all of the millions of possibilities in the given time and then making a decision. The human didn't consider the millions of possibilities but only the 3 or 4 moves that mattered. In the last decade, computers gained enough speed to consider the millions of possibilities in the given time and they finally beat the human chess masters.

It's a pleasure to watch Shaw weed out the fluff and focus on the moves that matter and be thinking of strategy and be willing to sacrifice a player to achieve a goal.

When I was a kid, I attended the Stowell family reunion each summer and part of the festivities was always a checkers tournament. It was single elimination in the interest of time and there were always two or three checker boards around Gramma and Grampa's house and you had to look at the chart and just schedule a game with you opponent and then the championship of the world game would be played Saturday night and for a long time, Grampa Stowell was always the champ. When I was about 14 or so, my older sister Lauri met and fell in love and became engaged to Kevin and he attended his first Stowell reunion and he beat all takers and rose to the top of the bracket and the championship game was to be played between Grampa Stowell and this new guy- Kevin. Well, he beat Grampa Stowell and I remember Gramma Stowell actually **GASPING** in shock that someone could beat Grampa Stowell. She was visibly shaken. I was 14 and shouldn't have had the life experience to understand that and put it into any context but I knew it was a big deal- the younger generation rising to the occasion...

Congratulations to Shaw on a big win! You GO boy!