So, I’m right around 60 years old at this writing, and it’s certainly too late for me to become a grandmaster (more on that later), but it’s never too late for me or for anyone to learn something new. For others, it’s French cooking or the Italian language or even ballroom dancing, but for me it’s chess.

Why chess? Great question. In part it’s because in my mind it’s something I really *should* be good at (I’m a mathematician, after all) but in reality it’s something I’m just really bad at. Like, *really* really bad. I know the rules, and I know the one most popular opening (push that pawn forward!) and then I just flail across the chessboard like an angry toddler.

But mostly, it’s because chess is fun. Really, it is! I’ve just started playing in a local chess club (consisting of four people, myself included) and we’re very chatty and very social and we even talk through our moves, along the lines of “I’m thinking of doing this, but then you might do that, and so maybe I’ll try this other move, but no, that’s not good either…”. It’s a universal game, played across the years and across the globe. It’s cheap (no special shoes or clothes or equipment beyond a $20 chess set), and once you know which pieces move where, you’re up and running.

Anyways! There’s a lot to learn, from openings with exotic names (the Italian, the Queen’s Gambit of course, the Ruy López, the King’s Fianchetto, and so on) to strategy terms (the anti-Sicilian, the skewer, the Zwischenzug) to endgames (the Arabian, the dovetail, the smothered mate, and the swallow’s tail mate). Full confession: aside from the Queen’s Gambit I don’t know any of these, and I just googled “common chess terms” to find some interesting ones. I’m not even sure if I spelled them correctly.

It’s one thing to play chess, for fun. It’s quite another to devote oneself to sitting down with books and videos and a tutor and actually learning how to play well.

Let’s see how I do. If nothing else, it’ll give me a better understanding of the frustrations of my own students as they strive to move from a surface-level knowledge to a deeper fluency in mathematics.