Your Move

Chess is an interesting game. I enjoy playing it with my daughter. Unfortunately, 3,000 miles and busy lives tend to interfere with frequent games. One day we hit upon a solution. By using a Microsoft Excel® spreadsheet, my daughter made a chess board and set it up using colored text for the pieces. She is blue and I am orange. A move is made by cutting/pasting. The Excel® document is then attached to an e-mail.

As an extra bonus, we have fun getting creative with the subject line of the e-mails. For example, when I took one of her pawns, I wrote in the subject line, “A-pawn departure”. When she took one of my knights, she wrote, “Do I hear the sound of a horse galloping away?” (I know, all you ‘chess purists’ out there shudder when the knight is referred to as a horse). Capturing a rook prompted, “I hope you don’t feel too ‘rooked’.” The taking of a rook with a knight (which moves in an ‘L’ shape) was announced by “A c-rook-ed move”. “The ‘check’ is in the e-mail”, accompanied a very bad move which cost me one of my rooks. One of my favorites was a warning that read, “If you take my queen, I’ll take yours.” I believed her.

Chess games, like wars are won by developing and following good strategy. When we move a chess piece, we need to be aware of the consequence of each move, including the effect that (we hope) it will have on our opponent. If we can somehow get them to respond in a particular way that fits in with our strategy, we will win the game.

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