I may have mentioned her in the past, usually to point out how awesome and smart she is. Her mother and I do our best to help her become the best person she can possibly be. That means giving her exposure to all kinds of new experiences, letting her try her hand at a variety of activities, and encouraging her in those things she finds interesting.
Nah, I'm just funnin' ya, we're doing our best to turn her into a total nerd like us.
Grace is forced to watch Star Trek, watches us play D&D on the weekends, and is carefully shielded from all things sports. She gets books and miniatures for her birthday, and there are Star Wars ornaments on her Christmas tree. The indoctrination is in full swing.
Of course, one has to apply a steady hand with such brainwashing. Push too far, and you could end up with a cheerleader, or one of those student government types who shops at Tommy American Air Postal...whatever. Or she could be the wrong kind of geek, like one of those pathetic CCG junkies. Blecch.
So we've done our best to pace ourselves, never trying to push her too hard in any one direction. The iron fist of nerd culture must be wrapped in the velvet glove of subtlety (although I've always felt that analogy is a little suspect, I mean, when the Hell is a velvet glove subtle?)
Anyway, we try to allow her to find her own way, and only occasionally erecting blockades in her path to help, ahem, direct her.
So when it was time for her to pick clubs for aftercare, we left the decision up to her. On the day she was to sign up, one of her little friends from aftercare ran up to her and said "You should sign up for Chess Club! I'm in that on Mondays, and we could be in it together!"
My daughter, affect completely flat, responded: "okay."
And like that, she was in Chess Club. I hadn't even known that there was a Chess Club for the Kindergarten classes. But it all fit, I mean she loves playing board games with us, and chess teaches the fundamentals of sportsmanship, taking turns and following rules.
When she found out that I sponsor the Chess Club at my school, she was even more excited. Here was something else that Daddy and daughter could share!
Except... I suck at chess. I mean really, truly suck at playing the game. I never play the game, and my "Chess Club" is actually a front for our actual activities; playing much better games like Carcassone, Munchkin, Pandemic and Battletech.
So, whereas every geek father dreams of the day his child is good enough to beat him at a game, I knew I wouldn't have very long to wait.
I just didn't think it would be after one lesson.
We had a teacher work day today, and now that my little girl is in Kindergarten, that means she is off school on those days. Her brother went to preschool as normal, but she got to come in to school with Mommy and Daddy, about which she was very excited.
So she was in my room while I was entering grades, and Mommy was enduring a meeting. The girl child had been reading Charlotte's Web for a while, and finally got tired of reading. The wifi was acting wonky, so she couldn't play games on my laptop, so she started exploring my classroom.
She found a chess set, and immediately wanted me to play a game with her. I explained that I had to get all my grades entered, and talked about all the students that wanted me to post the grades on Edline to see if they had been saved by the last minute work that I was nice enough to let them do at the last minute, and that I had been warning them about all nine weeks which they had ignored repeatedly and which...
Fuck 'em. "Set up the board, sweetie."
So as I pulled up a chair, she started to ask me which pieces went where. I told her, because of course I remember the piece order. But then it was time to place the King and Queen, and I realized that there is probably some rule about which one goes on the left or right. But for the life of me...
"The Queen always stands on her own color Daddy."
Well shit. I need to remember that.
So we started a game. It did not last for too long, as I finally just said "let's start over." She was down to like four pieces, and was already doomed.
I don't think you do a child any favors by pulling your punches or letting them win. To her credit, she handled losing pieces well (which happened a lot,) and repeated her mantra that as long as she was having fun, the game was still worth playing.
So after declaring the first massacre a practice game, we set up another board and started again. She was a little better, and was trying to think ahead. I pointed out a few cases where I had set up a trap for her, and also those times where Daddy's terrible skills had set a trap for himself. I encouraged her to watch for those, and take advantage of Daddy when he made such mistakes.
Once again, the outcome was foregone, and we decided to quit and go to lunch.
After lunch, I assented to one more game. This time, I gave her more hints about when I was trapping her, or when she was about to leave a piece open. For this game, I was going to show her an actual checkmate, and I was lining her up to have her king bracketed by my rooks. It was a little too Darth Vader, really: "All too easy..."
But then it happened. It probably should have happened like eight moves prior, but neither of us saw it. She was stuck, and nearly every one of her pieces was blocked; anywhere they moved was a deathtrap. She was irked that she could not move anyone, so I pointed out that her bishop could still slide off to the side of the board. It wouldn't help, but at least he wouldn't get captured.
Except it would help. It would threaten my King. It would force my King to move...no, not there....how about...no. Huh. My little girl had me in checkmate.
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| If you can't spot it, the bishop in question is to the left. My king has exactly three spaces he can move to, and they are all covered by the bishop, or one of the two pawns. That's what checkmate looks like, kiddies. |
I had to explain this several times. She kept trying to get me to move, like she was taking pity on me or something. She had never played a game where you were supposed to leave your opponent with nowhere to run. It felt anticlimactic to her, even when I did the cool melodramatic "knock over your own King" move.
She had won, and all she could say was: "Oh. Can we play that again?"
On the one hand, I'm so proud of her. She beat her old man at Chess at age five! But then again, I left my left flank wide open, and she didn't even spot it and go for the carotid.
We got a lot of work ahead of us on this kid, but she'll figure it out. I have no doubt both her skill and her bloodthirst will improve with practice, and in no time at all, she will be leaving opponents on the Chessboard, black and blue.
That's when I teach her Battletech, and destroy her utterly. A daddy still has to have his pride, right?
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