My Head Hurts
Jun. 7th, 2005 09:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
liralenJet likes chess.
He has always loved John's handmade chess set, wood inlay board and lathed pieces. He asked me to get them down for him, and we went through the dance of the opening moves of a chess game. I was explaining how the pieces each moved to their own character. And he explained back to me how the Monster (his name for a rook, after seeing the first Harry Potter movie, I don't blame him) moves straight. The Pointy one moves like triangles. The Horse ("no, there's no knight. I don't see a knight, where is he?") jumps everything because see... horses jump (as Jet gallops around the room).
And then he proceeds to beat me, making his own semi-random moves, but once he figured out the "killing" he started getting serious with my taking a piece and him figuring out how to take mine. Okay, so he had help from me and from John, but we could both see Jet starting to get the idea of thinking at least one move ahead, as in what could I do if he did a certain move.
Of course, after a timeout for dinner, Jet wanted to play again.
And I hate chess. I had a bad experience as the worst player on a chess team, once, and that was enough for me. So John's playing with him, now. But, man, a four-year-old that likes chess... it's not fair. I really don't want to discourage him, but it's just hard.
He has always loved John's handmade chess set, wood inlay board and lathed pieces. He asked me to get them down for him, and we went through the dance of the opening moves of a chess game. I was explaining how the pieces each moved to their own character. And he explained back to me how the Monster (his name for a rook, after seeing the first Harry Potter movie, I don't blame him) moves straight. The Pointy one moves like triangles. The Horse ("no, there's no knight. I don't see a knight, where is he?") jumps everything because see... horses jump (as Jet gallops around the room).
And then he proceeds to beat me, making his own semi-random moves, but once he figured out the "killing" he started getting serious with my taking a piece and him figuring out how to take mine. Okay, so he had help from me and from John, but we could both see Jet starting to get the idea of thinking at least one move ahead, as in what could I do if he did a certain move.
Of course, after a timeout for dinner, Jet wanted to play again.
And I hate chess. I had a bad experience as the worst player on a chess team, once, and that was enough for me. So John's playing with him, now. But, man, a four-year-old that likes chess... it's not fair. I really don't want to discourage him, but it's just hard.
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Re: May you find love...
Date: 2005-06-08 05:34 pm (UTC)And, yes, if I encourage him now and don't communicate the dislike in such a way that it'll turn him off it deliberately, it could be a very sweet game for him. He's got John's spacial capabilities, seeing the whole board, and that's something I could never do that well.
Re: May you find love...
Date: 2005-06-08 05:37 pm (UTC)One of the things you could do with him, the next time you play, is tell him that you yourself don't like the game very much, but you'll play with him because it's important for him. I don't know how he'd take to that, because I've never met the kid, but you could help him understand the distinction between disliking chess, and liking playing chess with him, because it's with him.
Just a thought.
Re: May you find love...
Date: 2005-06-08 05:41 pm (UTC)Plus playing with him and emphasizing that I'll do it for him is a possibly a better way than just talking about it. And would probably do more good. I just grumble a lot when I'm playing chess and need to make sure he knows that that isn't against him, either.
It's a good boundaries issue, though, that doesn't hurt repeating.