Opening Moves

Daigoro, as is fitting for the son of a gamer, is very interested in the board games and video games that daddy plays. Recently, Marli took it upon herself to educate Daigoro in the finer art of Chess, at which she is consistently able to wipe the floor with me.

For the record, I am not a great strategic thinker. I do think that I am a very good tactical thinker. Tactical thinking, while not a obstacle in chess, will almost always lose to strategic thinking.

Daigoro at this point is about six years old. He is asking to play chess. We're happy to oblige, of course, but we have to walk the fine line of presenting a challenge and not putting him off games altogether. Marli has adopted her father's strategy of never playing sub-optimally for a child's benefit. Unfortunately, this has the effect of putting Daigoro on one heck of a losing streak.

I've made clear to Daigoro that I'm willing to play at a variety of difficulty levels, like the difficulty levels in video games. Marli takes a different tack. As long as Daigoro continues to enjoy chess, I'm happy with either approach.