It’s Chess Grandma Learning a New Game
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(Photo by Michal Parzuchowski of Unsplash)
Earlier, I had been losing my chances at getting a hole-in-one in our Mini Golf game.
“I’ve just won the gold cup and the gold medal,” she proudly taunted me.
Not wanting to look like a poor loser, I quickly congratulated her with a thumbs up on the screen.
Then we shifted to another of her favorites, the Cooking Pizza game, where she quickly ordered me around, nudging me not to gawk behind the sink, but to wash the plates clean, put them on the counter, and zoom back to the customers getting in the virtual pizza parlor.
“Quick, Lola, don’t go bumming around!” She was fast and adroitly demanding, a shadow of her mom who is my polar opposite.
Yet, like her Lola, my granddaughter was patient. Before she almost lost her cool with my slow feet, she good-naturedly put on a new game, Chess, on screen. A first in our forays on Facetime. Whew, she is testing me, I told myself, wary but secretly delighted that I could play the game which I had been trying to learn and master in many aborted attempts for decades.
Chess on Facetime
She knew the basics, for sure, since I could see how she maneuvered each piece to play as the game progressed.
As for me, I was totally clueless. I tried to put my side Pawns ahead first. She was fast on track, though, eating my soldiers as soon as they processed on the board. She somersaulted with her Knights. I slid my Rook on every available Pawn.
Soon she was gobbling my Bishops and Knights and Pawns before I could detect there was no way for me to go but ballistic! In a blast, we were checkmating with each other until the game ended in a draw. My first half-win in a long, long while. I back patted myself, sensing a sudden rush of victory. I have not lost my marbles yet.
Then she opened the chess board for another set, and soon we were engaged in a fierce battle of wits—my hunches and premonitions against my nine-year-old apo’s firm resolve to win.
In a whirling dervish of moves and tactics, I managed to keep my King and Bishop and two Pawns intact. She was left only with her King. As I anticipated her next move, her mom hollered from the back, “Time’s up! Say goodbye to your Lola!”
She did not look too happy when she said goodbye on screen. I was not happy either. I had caved in to a cardinal sin, greed, and right before my granddaughter’s eyes yet!
Co-analyzing our debacle later with her grandpa, he thought we were both naïve. He told me that if my granddaughter really knew the conduct of the game, she would have just resigned and called it quits, and I, not knowing any better, should have told her so instead of waiting for her next move.
As for me, I was totally clueless. I tried to put my side Pawns ahead first. She was fast on track, though, eating my soldiers as soon as they processed on the board.
There are two popular chess moves, PK4 and Queen’s Gambit, said her grandpa. “These two moves will allow the Bishop, the Knight and the Queen to move freely.”
Pawn King P4 means moving the Pawn two squares in front of the King. On the other hand, the Queen’s Gambit, also known as QP3, puts the Pawn on the third square in front of the Queen. With these opening moves, a player can easily control the middle squares or center of the chess board.
Next time, he advised, “You should tell your granddaughter there are rules of conduct in chess. You just don’t eat the pieces as in dama, or checkers. It is not perdigana, as it is popularly known in Filipino barbershops, probably derived from the Spanish word pierden, or lose."
Patria Cabatuando-Rivera is a writer from Toronto, Ontario, in Canada. A book she co-edited, Magdaragat: An Anthology of Filipino-Canadian Writing, was released by Cormorant Books in 2024.
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