Chess and forgetting

Today I learned something that would've made a great blog post and then forgot about it, so I guess I should say I've learned to write things down right away. 

On the chess front, I learned that I can almost lose a game when I am astonishingly ahead (I had two rooks, two knights, and a bishop left, the computer only had a knight) and I also learned a little about the history of chess. It used to be more boring until they spiced things up, giving the queen much more power, introducing castling, en passant, and the pawn trade rule, and changing how the bishop moves. The Italians called the newly improved queen "furioso" and called the game "rabid chess" because it was so much faster. Considering that tournament games are still several hours long, I would have hated to see chess back in the day,

Chess, chess, and more chess

Adam and I pick a new activity to try every year. So far we've done golf,  cake decorating, fencing, and drawing. We alternate who gets to pick each year (and I bet you can guess which years I was pregnant) and this year it was Adam's turn to pick. He picked chess. Historically speaking, every time we play chess I end up in tears so I am giving myself mucho credit for not vetoing his choice. Today I learned that I like playing chess on the computer even less than I like playing it in person, but such is life. The plan is to play online and get ranked so that we will be playing people of our own skill level so that I might enjoy it more. I think the only way I will learn to like chess is if I get really good at it and that, my friends, would take a lot of study.... A lot of study that I'm not sure I have the will or the time to do.