My wife calls me her “chess lad” ever since I re-started playing. I was part of the chess club in high school, but things were different back then. We were about a dozen filthy casuals, playing the odd game and doing a few mate in 2 puzzles once a week after school. Mr. Rosen, the math teacher, officially was in charge, but unofficially, Mr. Brown, the greatest supply teacher ever, held the reins.

I used to have this notion that the purest games of chess was played between two novices who barely knew how the pieces moved because then it was a battle of pure wits, rather than whomever memorized more lines of prep would emerge victorious. I even took a lot of pride in the fact that I had won the club’s first in-house tournament in that fashion – with zero knowledge on opening theory except on how to avoid scholar’s mate.

I now realize in retrospect how foolish I was. That’s like saying the best games of basketball are played between elementary school kids learning to dribble for the first time. Admittedly, I might have came up with that idea to protect my own fragile ego. If I beat you, it’s because my raw intellect was superior and if you beat me, you were probably some nerd who took lessons and read chess books. Ironically, after I won our one and only in-house tournament, Mr Brown gifted me a book from his own personal collection. “My Best Games of Chess” by Alexander Alekhine.

He explained to me that Alekhine was one of the greats, and the former reigning World Champion of chess. That summer, I remember trying to play through the games on my own. I had a chess set from Walmart my brother received as a birthday gift as a child that went largely unused. A pawn was missing, but a AAA battery or a penny would always be around to sub in. Replaying the games on our pink carpeted living room floors, I could never quite understand what made those games so great, despite my best efforts. I pretty much stopped playing chess afterwards, until last December – a 15 year hiatus.

Nowadays, the whole landscape is different because of the computer engines, and the internet and youtube. I’m grateful to be back and learning a lot. Chess is so much better when you know what the H is going on. You have grandmasters giving free lessons on youtube and twitch, chess engines to analyze and replay positions to learn from your mistakes, and millions of players around the world to play against at any given time in the palm of your hand.

Right now, my goal is just to get good enough to surprise my cousin’s son. He’s another chess fiend in the family, having taken years of lessons and played in many tournaments. We played when he was 9 years old and I barely squeaked out a victory. Now he’s just started high school and I hope to dear god I can at least keep up. Being middle aged is just about trying to defy father time by making kids think you’re cool and can still hang.