June 5th:
Turtles 6 (2) - Stop Out Rebels 2 (1)
By Glenn "BPOAE" Tims
You
want to join the chess club at school, you don’t know what all the pieces do,
and you want me to teach you in one weekend? Phew, that’s a toughie alright.
Howsabout we do it this way . . . the best way to learn something is to relate
it to things you know about, so what say we use the Turts from yesterdays game
to explain the chess pieces, how they move and what they’re good for?
You
have the pawn/foot soldiers, the prancing knights, the rock solid and stern
rooks, the flighty bishops, the seeing-all-knowing-all queen, and the resolute
king whose job it is to protect the keep, as it were. I know you’ve seen them
enough from the sideline that you’ll know which piece suits each Turt, so I
don’t need to go through that right now, and anyway, there’s some other stuff
you need to know first.
In
chess, it’s usually black versus white. Black is, of course, usually the colour
of the “baddies”, the heathens, the miscreants, the “Mister Meaners” as Horse
Bradley used to call them when thundering at the quivering generally white,
podgy-ish sport- and sun-deprived girlie-swots of 3A (excluding the current
BPOAE, of course) . . . but that’s another story. Seeing as how the Turts have
both those colours already, it’s lucky the opposition were in red, cos just like
in war they don’t want to accidentally shoot or pass to the wrong side, though
as you’ll recall there was a great square ball by one of our rooks to one of
their players, which lead to an inevitable goal . . .
And to
bring in a quote of a favourite of the motherland, Sun Tzu said in the Art of
War, that you must “know your enemy”, which in this case wasn’t the oppo so
much, but the fact that, as the quote from one of their players right from the
Turts kicking-off said when looking at the rotund-ish figure of the Tartan
Tadger, “hey, stop hiding the ball in your shirt”. Yes, the black and white
stripes on the Turts shirts don’t look too parallel any more these days, except
of course on Chris Lavis (rhymes with Davis). So it’s a question of knowing
which team will run out of puff first. Luckily, and cleverly, Kingy had done
well and the Turts had 4 on the inter-change bench whereas the oppo only had 1.
Well,
chess always starts with what’s called the “opening”, which is the exploratory
probing by each team to see how good the other side really is going to be on the
day. They test each others’ defence and flex their muscles : some of the bigger
more powerful pieces move out of the back line into the other half of the board
but came right back again cos Kingy tells them to get back where they belong
when he feels like he needs more protection around his castle, there’s lots of
mucking around in the middle of the board by the twinkle-hoofed knights, big
diagonal movements from the bishops, and a couple of straight up or laterally
across the field manoeuvres by the rooks.
The
second phase to a chess game after the initial opening moves is what they call
the mid-game, when the real down and dirty play starts. Each side has figured
out how the other side plays, which of their pieces are able to move the best,
how to block them, fork them, trap them, or simply how to nobble them. There
can be a lot of to-ing and fro-ing when each side is trying to get an advantage
which only requires one single slip up (as Davey J so ably demonstrated) and
that could be the end of that.
For the
Turts, the mid-game phase revolves the half-time drink. For you, it’d be a
Popsicle from the freezer. Can’t quite remember who scored when, but at that
point of the game, it was 2-1 to the Turts.
And
just like in Kasparov v Fisher, there were some brilliant plays, ploys, ambits,
King-side defences, or Rook-pawn attacks which everyone remembers well . . .
and others not quite so convincing : like when that exponent of the long
diagonal ball, Davey J, got a sore head when he headed the ball on one occasion,
so called the two rooks over to help out in case there were more headers that
might come his way; when the Tartan
Tadger blasted a shot over the top from “closer than the length of my dick” as
Wal so aptly put it after the game; when one of our rooks made a great square
ball right to the feet of their advancing centre forward who duly scored; or
when the keep was under grave attack and everyone including Kingy crowded around
but the oppo still managed to pop it over the top of everyone and get it into
the net anyway.
And
naturally, there were some good moves, including the great service to the far
post from Rory, our guest Geordie; Chris/Muzza/Wilkinson the Junior and Zil
prancing around in the mid-field and jumping over desperate defensive moves from
the oppo; some intricate passing manoeuvres from the back; and some
lightening-quick forays right into the heart of the enemy territory from long
range or by unexpected pieces – but that’s where you have to be to
create
the maximum havoc and to be able to strike at the heart of the enemy.
Near
the end of the game when the outcome was inevitable, we made a few sacrificial
moves by reducing our forces with self-induced injuries, and one of our players
even took an early shower assuming that it was all over bar the shouting and
wouldn’t be needed any more. Which was a bit of gamble seeing as how our one of
our rooks had only just regained his base foundational strength in the legs from
a fortnight ago and the other looked like he was about to crumble, again.
One of
the joys of chess is taking their pieces, it’s a feeling of power, of triumph,
of success and especially when there’s no immediate retaliation from a piece you
didn’t see out of the corner of your eye or due to the light-headedness
of the moment and you forget all about defence for the next few minutes. The
oppo do get disheartened when you take pieces, and you definitely will feel much
better . . . and at the end of this game, we certainly felt a lot better than
they did, in fact 6 times to 2 better!!
So with
respect to the goals themselves, Tel’s goal was a very direct and no-nonsense
free header from a corner with their defence non-existant, Wal got a good
through ball to run on to and smash past their hapless keeper, GT got a great
one from the just inside the penalty box (but what he was doing so far out of
position we’ll never know), and the Tartan
Tadger only got one this week though it was a lovely Brazilian-styled
back-heel.
And
another 2 goals from PK, who’s definitely got the scent of the goal now – he’s
beginning to specialise in the acutely angled blast from 2 feet short of the
by-line at an impossible angle with the keeper guarding the near post and with a
multitude of Turts in the clear on the 6-yard line waiting for a cross that’ll
never come . . . and still scoring! In fact, he’s scored so many goals this
season that he’s getting a bit blasé and hardly even bothers to celebrate
anymore. Another 70 games at full-back would see his attitude sorted out and
thankful for any and all the time he gets to spend at the front line.
Another
aspect of any game is the reputation that precedes you, and in this case it’s a
wonderful thing. I think the oppo were resigned to their fate right from the
outset, seeing as how the Turts are unbeaten this season and have scored 50-odd
goals so far. You know you’re going to lose but you have to
keep
playing till the inevitable does come to pass. And that’s how chess is
sometimes too.
So
that’s how all the pieces work, and the basic aim of the game. Score more than
they do by taking more pieces (of their morale?), use your resources and place
your pieces in the best places to make best use of their particular skills or
lack thereof, and protect your King. Who is, of course, the piece who can only
move one square at a time as he’s not as mobile as everyone else is.
So
that’s all the pieces and the basics of the strategy, we’ll deal with tactics
next week . . .
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