Day 369: Check Mate

I haven’t played chess in years. In fact, I don’t know that I have ever played since I was married. In addition to not having played in years, I was never very good at chess to start with. However today, when one of the Afghan nurses I have been working with asked me to play, I figured that even though I was a little rusty, I could still take him. So we took out the board, set it up, and started to play. It took about three moves until he had his first kill. Before too long he started saying “danger” in his best English to warn me before I was about to make a bad move. Even with him helping me avoid bad moves, he still beat me in game number one after only about five minutes. I should have quit then. However, my competitive nature got the better of me and I challenged him to a rematch. I figured I was just a little rusty and game two would end much better for me. I actually started out doing pretty well. A few times I heard him mutter “besyar khoob” (very good) when I made a somewhat intelligent move. At one point I even had his King in range and was able to call out "check". However, I think at this point he decided to put me out of my misery and within just a few more moves he had me...check mate! Although, I played poorly, it was actually pretty fun and a nice break from the medical in-processing we have been doing over the past few days here at the police training center.

Hey, maybe I could challenge him to a game of one-on-one basketball? I might just be able to beat him at that...maybe.