A prominent West Vancouver shopping mall recently made the decision to ban a bunch of chess players from setting up shop in their food court, a practice that had been going on for approximately half a century.
For this action the shopping mall has taken a lot of heat, with people taking to social media to voice their outrage, some going so far as to proclaim that they will never again set foot inside the mall so long as this chess question remains unsolved. I, however, applaud this plucky little mall for standing up to Big Chess.
I’ve always found chess to be a game best played by someone else.
When I was a kid, that someone else was my older brother. He was a studious, highly intelligent, meticulous boy who became passionate about the game, devouring books about it before racking up win after win against both humans and 1980s computers. (“You have died of dysentery. I mean, checkmate.”)
At various points I would stupidly agree to play against him. As far as I can remember those games would go something like this. First I’d move one of my little guys, then he’d move one of his little guys. Then I’d move one more little guy while rolling my dice, smashing all his pieces and yelling “my wizard plays the fart spell!”
He’d calmly set the board back up with an exasperated sigh, make one more move and then say “checkmate.”
We tried playing again when I was a little older and wiser. The games were a little more competitive as I learned the rules better – the Pope goes diagonal! – but I never learned the rules well enough to realize that real players use clocks to keep the games from going on too long.
During these games we’d make a few moves and as soon as the board got a bit crowded my brother, the planner, would survey the situation for what seemed like hours, playing out every conceivable move and counter-move from both sides. Then he’d call me up at my friend’s house where I’d long since gone to play hockey in the basement:
Brother: Hello, is Andy there? It’s his brother.
Confused adult-type person: Yeah, he is. Just a minute.
Andy: Hello? Hey, what’s up?
Brother: Checkmate.
That was the end of my chess-playing days until very recently when I vowed to make myself a better human being starting with a few simple things like learning the guitar, mastering chess and becoming an American citizen so I can vote against Donald Trump.
I downloaded a chess app and, low and behold, won a few games. Then I challenged my brother to a long overdue rematch. We found a chess website and played slowly over a few days. It was going swimmingly until I finally noticed that he’d taken roughly all of my pieces without me even realizing it.
I blame the computer. Where was the sad trombone noise every time I lost a piece?
Last I checked, my king was sneaking off the board and trying to hide in one of those pervy ads that shows up on every website in the world: “14 Sexy Things To Wear the First Time You Meet Jennifer Aniston’s Hair. Also: Checkmate!”
I went back to my app and discovered the reason for my unfounded confidence: I’d been playing against the computer set at a difficulty level of “drowsy dachshund.”
I was planning to practise more but then my landlords got HBO so I’ve spent all my free time watching all five seasons of Game of Thrones, which is basically just chess with more prostitutes. (“Oooooo, I’ll be your queen – you can put me anywhere. Also, checkmate!)
The point is, I suck at chess. And deep down inside, most of you know that you probably do too, unless you are one of the masters of the mall.
The mall must not want these showboats in the food court reminding us all how dumb and unambitious and uncultured we are because we don’t understand “queenside castling” or “controlling the centre” or “why you’d sew leather elbow patches on a tweed sport coat.” That’s not a good way to convince mall-goers that they need to buy bath beads and Orange Juliuses and 17 different phone plans and something that costs $400 from Eddie Bauer. A pair of socks, maybe.
No doubt the mall would rather see a bunch of wealthy aristocrats setting up shop for a Monopoly marathon. Cutthroat capitalist sharks throwing ridiculous sums of fake money at plastic houses that go eternally up in price while circling a drab, unimaginative board for hours on end? Now that is a game for a West Vancouver mall.
Set up the board! I’ll bring the thimble.
Andy Prest is the sports editor for the North Shore News and writes a biweekly humour/lifestyle column. He can be reached via email at [email protected].
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