I was introduced to chess at a young age. The earliest I would guess being about 5 years old. I had little patience for it then and getting down all the pieces and how they moved was a real pain. Once I mastered the basics, everything else came much easier. I’m no grand master, or even master, but I can beat almost everyone my age or younger and most adults.

I organized a chess tournament at the American Home and went on to win it. Since then, the other teachers have been playing fairly regularly. I know that chess has helped me become more analytical and ordered in my problem solving. I just didn’t have any way to explain it. I found the following on the internets while looking up some Benjamin Franklin quotes for coworker.

The Game of Chess is not merely an idle amusement; several very valuable qualities of the mind, useful in the course of human life, are to be acquired and strengthened by it, so as to become habits ready on all occasions; for life is a kind of Chess, in which we have often points to gain, and competitors or adversaries to contend with, and in which there is a vast variety of good and ill events, that are, in some degree, the effect of prudence, or the want of it. By playing at Chess then, we may learn: 1st, Foresight, which looks a little into futurity, and considers the consequences that may attend an action … 2nd, Circumspection, which surveys the whole Chess-board, or scene of action: - the relation of the several Pieces, and their situations; … 3rd, Caution, not to make our moves too hastily…

- Benjamin Franklin “The Morals of Chess” (article) (1750)

I always thought of chess as Russia’s game. All the famous chess players I know of are Russian. Turns out the Russians thought it was America’s game! Oh well, I hope to keep playing and I hope the teachers get better so I can play them and get a real challenge! I posted this in my LJ. If you don’t play chess at all, you might still find this funny.

[The Immortal Game is the name given to a game played in 1851 by Adolf Anderssen and Lionel Kieseritzky. It is one of the most famous chess games of all time]