Sunday, November 16, 2008

Chess


The Willits Chess Club hosted their first open tournament on Saturday, with players of all ages in the county invited to register for the day-long event. The assembly room of the Grange Building was organized to have the adults playing on one side, and the youth on the other. From the club's website, it looks like an effort has been made to include chess in the classrooms at Blosser Lane Elementary School in order to foster skills in abstract analysis through the fun of a game. While the club has pictures of both boys and girls enjoying chess, when I stopped by this tournament to take pictures, only men were playing in the adult group on this day.

No, I wasn't interested in playing. Yes, I'm an intelligent person. Looks like the black queen in this picture caught the white king with no where to run.

4 comments:

Ron Bloomquist said...

I believe you are right.

Looks like "Checkmate" to me!!

I like your variety of topics; restaurants to wilderness, meeting halls to music.

Well done!

Saretta said...

One day I'll learn how to play chess...it looks so interesting!

USelaine said...

Ron - Thank you. I'm trying to put together a crazy patchwork quilt of all the different social and geographical aspects I find in Willits and Little Lake Valley. What I post to the blog is limited to the Outlet Creek watershed, to give it a geographical framework, but the arts and humanities "moments" really make it the place it is. I'm grateful for your visits, and I take inspiration from your blog.

Saretta - It really seems to be very widely played. I think it is most enjoyed by people who take satisfaction in strategic competition. The different moving pieces each have uniquely specified scopes of movement, and the better player you are, the better you are at imagining all the potential moves your opponent might make, and can then adjust your anticipations with every move she makes in counterpoint to your own moves. The variables are vast, and some tactical gambits are given names, etc. It can become quite an obsession for some people.

Thank you both for commenting.

Knoxville Girl said...

"It takes all the running that you can do, to stay in the same place." - Red Queen to Alice.
Willits has quite a lot of activities!