The Guardian Weekend | 27 February 2021 47where the rook is really powerful.” Reader, he was
annoying me already. The stifl ed urge to say “up
your butt” was giving me indigestion. We moved on.
It’s actually three games : openings, where you
set up a powerful position without losing your
defence; exchanges, in which you take and lose
pieces, aiming to come out on top; and endgame.
There are also two categories of endgame, but
no time for that now. He’s already moved. Huh!
It’s just a pawn. I remember that
happening a lot, the uneventful
shunting about of the small pieces.
I want to get my big guns out, but
I don’t want to lose them. “You
can’t protect everything, you need
to prioritise,” he says. “Wait,” he
said, as he casually lifted my bishop
off the board. “Are you making
notes?” “No.” “I can clearly see the
word ‘annoying’.”
His best advice was how to
make your peace with losing
your pieces; it’s not by not caring.
If you have a plan, which you
are watching unfold, each loss
becomes a win, and your plan’s
derailing no more than a puzzle for
a new plan.
Without a plan, I had lost before
the exchanges even began; my
pieces were just roaming about,
awaiting disaster. “Are you sure you
want to do that?” he said after a
period of carnage, “because that’s
check mate – and putting yourself
into checkmate is illegal.” “Yes. Yes I am.”
I won the second game, which was so
exhilarating that I didn’t realise until hours later
that he’d let me. I don’t think this is a meditative
game : it’s more like playing the slots, only
without the grinding sense of pointlessness
and self-hatred. If it improves your focus, it’s
by incentivising the act of sitting down and
concentrating, rather than fostering any sense
of peace. But I’ll have to get back to you with
defi nitive fi ndings once I’ve won fair and square,
which could be years Body & mindZoe Williams
My 2021 started in brain fog: a persistent sense of having not done something, usually
because I hadn’t; my concentration totally shot. I think it was the lack of external events- it makes the days blend. The answer to this, apparently, is chess. If you can’t focus, you
should play the game in which your focus is tota l: it’s like sit-ups for the mind. Lots of
people took it up having watched The Queen’s Gambit ; I took it up to get the hours of my
day back, which is ironic, because it takes ages.
The problem was , I ha dn’t played since I was eight , when I got put in a schools’ tournament
because I was the only person who knew the rules, and I put someone in check mate in two
fl uky moves. After that, the teachers thought I was a chess genius, so I decided to give it up
rather than tarnish my new glow. “Chess geniuses”, they thought. “So temperamental.”
I still know the basic capabilities of each piece, but nothing more: luckily, Mr Z plays a lot
and off ered to teach me. Ah, luck; such a fl uid concept. “Before we start,” he said, “show me
The fi anchetto is where
you move your bishop
in front of your
knight to control
more of the boardWhat I learned
here
opd
KELLIE FRENCH/THE GUARDIAN. JUMPER: VINTAGE VALENTINO FROM GOLDSMITHVINTAGE.COM. MAKEUP AND HAIR: SARAH CHERRY
Will playing chess sharpen my mind?
Just don’t let me lose
Solutions
Quiz
1 Clive Sinclair and
Chris Curry.
2 Shepherd dog.
3 Prester John.
4 Mary Astell.
5 HSBC.
6 Muscle.
7 Wikipedia (20thanniversary logo).
8 Lil Wayne and
Kodak Black.
9 Number homophones:
won; too; fore; ate; nein.
10 Non-native fi sh in the UK.
11 Neolithic sites
on Orkney.
12 Country ranking byarea and population.
13 Observed during
a solar eclipse.
14 Won three consecutive
league titles.
15 Fatally run over:
dray; tram; laundry van.Crossword See right.KASOMK
BRUNE I RHODES
UNK I NR
AGRA HOGMANAY
EIOLL
PRADESH B I HAR
AMQ S
STAVE GUJARAT
HITI N
BORDEAUX NADU
MLMOAH
JACOBI TAGORE
SWL E AA