Me Vs the Master

I was told of an old man here.

A master of chess.

He plays everyone.

And beats them all.

Mr. Adler. He’s an old man from Germany, a professional chess player. He sits in the lounge all day as daring souls compete with him in chess. He crushes them every time. Everyone knew of the unbeatable man. I had only heard of him.

That was, of course, when I saw one of the young New daughters engaged in a match against him. I went over to watch. It was entertaining. Mr. Adler has a way of telling you what he’s doing as he’s doing it. In a German accent he would tell her “good, good. And now you see I am going to move zis here like zis, you see?” or, “ah but now I am going to do zis. See?” he plays the whole game like that. It’s quite nice in my opinion.

It was a massacre. Two games. He destroyed her each time. She was a good sport though, and it was widely expected. All the while I stood by in observation. Every now and then Mr. Adler would tell me the move he was making. Perhaps it was because I nodded with knowledge, or perhaps it was because I kept a knowing silence, but Mr. Adler turned to the others and said, “ah see he knows. This young man knows. He has brains you see. Perhaps you can play after. Yes after.”

After the second game he asked who wants to play.

What the heck.

It had been a long time since I played chess.

I knew I’d lose like every one else.

So we started. I was white. Like always, and my mother does the same, I opened by bringing out both my knights. I love my knights. They’re sneaky, they’re annoying, they’re effective. The game went on. He took my pawn, I took his. The game goes on. People come to watch. He takes my knight. I take his. The game goes on. Every time he takes my piece I take one of his. Eventually we had hardly had any pieces left, but I had the upper hand. I got sloppy. He took a key piece of mine. What it came down to was his king, pawn, and rook. My king, knight, pawn, and bishop. We danced around for a bit. His wife started to nag him leave. So, in a strong German accent,

Let’s call it a draw.

I tied him.