A Magical Game

A MAGICAL GAME

One of the things I hate the most to do on a lazy Sunday afternoon is to play wizard's chess. "Why would you hate to play chess?" Asked some while the other asked, "why would you even play chess?" When you have a friend as persuasive as mine, you would rather play chess (even if you suck at it, like me) than listen to all his brambles about Buddha being a Babylonian conspirator.

It was long ago when it started, the ritual of Sunday Squares ( that's a chess puzzle issued weekly in the columns of the daily prophet.) Though I don't remember when we started playing it, I clearly remember considering his "conspiracy theories" over the chess classes he offered.

My friend had a Wizard's Chess set hand-carved out of Mahogany and White Oak by his great grandfather, handed down to him as a gift for turning 12. It was the most ornate chess set I have ever seen, with detailing nothing as I have ever seen. The pawns were tiny soldiers in shining armor armed with a longsword. The bishops carried a long staff with which they poke a piece till it falls out of the board. The knight was a centaur with a lance so long that it could reach the knight on the other side of the king (almost). 

On top of being ostentatious, it was also enchanted. The pieces spring into life once placed on the board. The pieces need not be moved with hands. Once the pieces touch the board, It's just like the film "Night at the museum". The tiny figurines would run to their respective places on the board. They would remember if a game was dropped incomplete and the next time you put them back on board, they would resume the game if told to.

It was indeed fun to watch a wizard's chess. But playing one was never on my checklist. I was never any good at chess nevertheless, wizard's chess wasn't any more fun than normal chess. What makes the game more knotty is the expressions and body language the pieces exhibit. Once by mistake, I made a foolish move by saving a knight but losing the queen to the enemy's bishop. The smug look on the bishop's face and burning outrage on my knight's face were so humiliating that I decided to drop playing chess.

There was this one time when I was playing Wizard's chess with my friend. The match was going very well that I had a suspicion of something fishy going on. But I could never imagine what came next. I was playing the white while my friend the black. Almost after playing for 2 hours I somehow managed to corner his queen. I was so proud of myself that I thought I could actually win. But that happiness was short-lived. He promptly captured my queen with his bishop and laughed like a priest chanting a prayer with his mouthful of chocolate frogs. The black pieces all had a painted smug on their tiny faces and the white pieces looked slothful and unambitious like raindrops on a grave. Quite infuriating. In the subsequent moves, he check-mated my king swiftly with 2 bishops and a queen. It took me a while to catch up with what's been going. I had already captured one of his bishops, yet there they were, two bishops on the board holding my king in checkmate. Only when I scrutinized it just hit me that sometime between the game he had transfigured his black king into another bishop and I had been playing blind to it.

That was it. I was done. I was so pissed that I vowed never to play chess again.

But what good is life if you can't have a laugh at yourself? I did go back on my words and started playing chess again recently. I do now enjoy playing chess, even though I don't always win. I do use some tricks now and then, but the only thing that matters to me is that I spend a good time in it, with good people and that makes life a magical game.

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