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Blogs by Stephen Kata
Games 10/15/2011 9:50:38 AM
Games have the power: to teach, to train, to educate, to reveal and build character.
At 14, I was learning chess by playing against members of my HS chess team. I lost and lost and lost,
until one day I played particularly well and it was down to end game. My opponent still had the advantage.
I was down to a rook and some pawns and he still had his queen and some pawns. He kept checking me
unmercifully and I kept escaping. He must have checked me 25 times. I knew he couldn't mate me without
the help of another piece, and if he ever stopped checking me, I had him. He had castled earlier, and his
king was still in the last row, trapped behind 3 pawns. I kept trying not to look at his king, but it didn't matter.
He was so sure he had me, he wasn't paying attention to it. Finally the moment came when he stopped
checking me, to regroup. I zipped my rook down to the last row and checked. He was shocked, and had to
interpose and lose his queen before losing the game.
Lessons learned: be persistent, don't give up, and things are not always as they seem.
