Checkmate: A powerful word to any chess player. Many know that this word means the end of a chess match, because a victor has been decided. However, few know how to even go about performing a checkmate on someone. Basically, checkmate occurs when your king will be captured on your next move, and there is no move you can make that will protect it. The easiest way to do this is when your opponent has no other pieces on the board, although this is quite rare, and commonly only in a “blow out” game.
I myself am an avid chess player. I wasn’t the best at my school, by far, but I plaid in my free time, and was learning new ways to crush my opponents. My very first tournament was my freshman year in High School, I was playing fifth board (the lowest possible position, although I was grateful to even be on the team). Walking through the glass doors into the local chess club, I took a quick look around to let the setting sink in. I was standing in a long room, not that wide though, with several tables and chairs scattered throughout. The lights were on in the front of the room, and it was darker closer to the back of the room.
When I glanced to my right, I noticed one of the schools we would be competing against. If I saw them at the mall, I would think they were just everyday ordinary people with no special story. But not these guys, I knew where they were coming from. They were the team from Franklin High School; my team had plaid them many times in the past and lost every time. They’re a tough opponent; they can crush someone in just a few moves. They think ahead too, not just a few moves, but sometimes a dozen or two moves into the future, predicting which move will give them the best advantage against you. They’re like one of those chess game analyzing programs. They’re gods.
I looked around the rest of the room, and noticed that I was the second to arrive from my team. Our first board (the best player), and our coach, were chatting it up at a table. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t join in on their conversation; I’m rather shy, particularly with upper classmen, even if we share the same interests such as computer programming, chess, or short stories. If I would do these activities with a group, I would usually do them with people in my same grade, that way I wouldn’t feel like I’m not worthy of their intellectual capability (although I do feel comfortable working with my girlfriend, she’s my age, but a genius. We love revising each other’s writing). Walking over to them on the carpeted flooring, I noticed Jeff, the first board, got up from his seat and came to me.
“Hey, Dravin,” he said. I didn’t like it when people called me ‘Dravin’, I prefer ‘Drave’, but I never correct anyone except my close friends. I don’t know why, shyness? Anyways, Jeff challenged me to a game of chess. It was just a warm up game to get our minds focused and in the butt-kicking chess mode that we’re known for. That’s right, our school is the one that is known for getting all hyper and stuff over everything. It isn’t unordinary for someone to jump on top of a table at our school in the middle of a practice match and yell some kind of battle cry.
I traveled to the dark corner in the back of the room, and sat down in front of Jeff. We performed the quick ritual of shaking hands, and wishing each other luck on the match. We started the game off with the very first opening I ever learned, the “Four Knights Attack”. We both developed our pieces by moving important ones out across the board, in order to open up opportunities to bypass the defense of our opponent. No matter what I tried, though, I couldn’t ever break his defense. His king was protected by pawns, and rooks. Then, out of the blue, Jeff did a series of moves that resulted in a forced checkmate. Game over, I lost. Not like I expected a victory, I was playing a senior for crying out loud. Being on the team as a freshman was unheard of, but yet there were two of us this year.
After the game, I looked around the room to notice that the other three members of our team had arrived, and were crowding around a chess game between our second board (Shane), and third board (John). Just as I was about to go over to join them, our coach pulled us all to a table to talk to us about the upcoming two games we would be playing. First up was a weaker opponent, Springfield High School. We needed to beat them 5 games to 0 so that we could be tied with Franklin going into our next match. Then we would be playing a more difficult team, chances are we would lose, but at the very least if we wiped the other team out we would have a fighting chance.
Shortly after his talk to us, the coach from the Springfield team announced that it was time to begin the second round – the round my team would be playing our first game in. He led us down a set of stairs into a basement. It was carpeted, with white walls, and brown flooring. There were tables and chairs all over the place, and in the far corner were five chess boards. The room was slightly cold, and seemed like it had not been used very often. As I traveled across the room, I located the board with the number “5” written on it, and I sat at the position of black. I watched as my opponent sat down. He was skinny, with brown hair, and looked around my age. Nervous, I shook his hand, and waited for the coach of the other team to read out the rules. When he was done, I struck the clock, indicating for the game to begin.
I had studied many openings the night before, but was not prepared for the one my opponent did. He moved the pawn in front of his king one space forward. Having never seen this move before, I did not know how to respond. I was intimidated- This move was not done by people at my level. After a minute of thinking, I decided to ignore his moves until I could figure out what he was doing. As I started pushing my main pieces, he began pushing his pawns in some weird formation I had never seen before.
Throughout most of the game, we were always within one pawn of being tied with each other, neither of us took an advantage. However, I was always down on time. I took my time thinking about each move, and what my opponent could possibly be doing with these strange maneuvers. There was also the added stress of playing with a clock, I commonly felt like I was in the hot seat on “Who Wants to be a Millionaire”. I could just hear the heartbeat music in the background as I asked myself what my next move should be.
Eventually we both got down to three pawns, and one rook each. A rook is a powerful piece, enough to checkmate with, and so is the pawn if it can be promote it to a rook or queen (which is done by advancing it to my opponent’s back rank). I had a little more than five minutes on my clock, and my opponent had over an hour left. I had pretty much assumed I would lose; I began making moves much more quickly. Thankfully, so did my opponent, likely in an attempt to give me less time to think about the position. I was told many times never to do this, and he paid the price for not knowing this. We both moved so quickly that we were spending more time taking notation (writing down our moves) than analyzing the board. Notation takes around 5 seconds each move, so it was taking a lot of time off my clock. With less than three minutes remaining, I somehow captured my opponent’s rook, all of his pawns, and he captured my rook, and two of my pawns, allowing me to promote my pawn to a queen.
This was it, the final moves. A queen was more than enough to checkmate with. Because I was up by more than 5 points now, notation was not required. As I forced him into a corner, I pulled my queen across the board, and placed it for the checkmate. I had won my first tournament game, and it took two hours! I was the last to finish, but glad to be able to come out with a victory.
Shortly after, I shook hands with my opponent, and traveled back up the stairs to meet with the rest of my team. Everyone from my team had won; we blew them out, so we were going into this next game even. I quickly ate my lunch, a baloney sandwich with cheese and lettuce, and then I heard my coach announce it was time for the final round. This was it; I needed to pull off at least a draw to keep my team from getting hurt. I felt strained from my last match; spending two hours on one game can really take a toll on you.
When I sat down at the same board again, I shook the hand of my opponent, and waited as the rules of the tournament were repeated to me. Then I struck the clock, and waited for my opponent to make his first move. He opened with the “Scandinavian”, a very common opening for someone at my level. It pleased me that I would not be working with foreign ideas this match. Unfortunately, I thought about my moves too quickly. The last game, I had almost run out of time, so I was afraid to think too long about my moves this game. As I pulled my bishop out, and my opponent snatched it with his queen, I realized how terrible of an idea this was. Terrified, I tried to push out the thought that I was now down by so many points, and I pulled up my knight to launch a counter attack on his rook. This resulted in my opponent pulling his queen down, capturing my pawn, and putting me in one of the most humiliating checkmates I’ve ever witnessed.
I shook his hand, and walked out of the room. We were the first to finish, and it took hours for us all to be done. Thankfully, I did not lose the tournament for us, only one other player from my team won. I reviewed both games with my friends to figure out what I could improve from in them.
That day I learned an important lesson. In a situation where you have to make a decision in a short amount of time, you should take time to think about it, and don’t take less time than necessary. Just because you’re timed doesn’t mean you can’t think through everything. To this day, I have not made another stupid blunder like that.
