End Game (A Revisitation)

As smart and clever as I may be, I have positively no aptitude for strategic thinking. I can come up with a thousand great words for Scrabble, but cannot properly exploit them by angling them towards high-value tiles or taking said tiles away from my opponent. At least I have some ability in half of that game. I'm hopelessly lost in the so-called game of kings, chess. They say a grandmaster can see a number of moves into the future, often forfeiting well before it comes to an inevitable checkmate. I can't see one move into the future. I just move pieces around, aimlessly striking out at targets of apparent opportunity with no long term plan.

A very hazy understanding comes at last when the game reaches the closing stage called 'end game'. Most of the pieces are by now removed from the board, with just a handful remaining on either side. Here finally do I start to to enjoy myself. There is room to move about the board, and few enough elements that I can follow what's going on. Once a friend of mine and I tried starting the game at this point. I think I came closer to winning than ever before.

I'll tell you a game that suits me considerably better: Stratego. That's a little more my speed. As with chess, you have several types of pieces, each with different qualities. As with chess, you have your forces on one side of the board, facing your opponent on the other side. Unlike chess, there are intermittent obstacles marking the center line. The thing to do was to place your mines at those entrances. This still left a gap, which you fortified with your top pieces. One type of piece could clear the mine without harm, but this was not a fatal weakness to the strategy. I used to do all right at Stratego.

I accept that I will likely never be more than passable among middling competition at chess, no matter how much I work at it. I do have strengths, but that will just never be one of them, and that's ok because there's no significant amount of money in chess. I'm far more broken up over my probably lifetime inadequacy at each of the so-called major sports, as one can make a living at them in a number of capacities if very skilled. My shortcomings at games like chess or Risk are by comparison extremely easy to come to terms with.