bluewaterrider
Senior Member
I was thinking of a scene from the 1990s movie "Fresh" featuring Samuel L. Jackson. The titular character is a young boy living in a drug-infested neighborhood who is estranged from his father. Both love each other, but the father is apparently an alcoholic who was ordered by the court not to have official contact with his son. Nevertheless, the son visits him every chance he gets to play chess with him in the park. In the scene that comes to mind, the father notes that the son, like many chess players the world over, seems to have an inordinate liking for his Queen and Knights, and plays as if losing them is actually painful. Fresh will use this counsel in the larger context of his life in the slums to deal with the drug dealers blighting his life and those of others in very unexpected ways, but I couldn't help but think how well Jackson really was describing the psychology of chess players in a far more general sense.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PFHy2D30avc
Somewhat fascinating to see, though I understood perfectly why; my opponent allows the taking of bishop, knight, and rook in exchange for my queen.
No mystery why he wanted to initiate the trade; taking his queen in retaliation for mine would destroy my castle and my king's protection.
No mystery why he ignores my sacking of his first piece: Who would ignore his (my) queen being taken? Surely I wouldn't fail to respond to my woman being taken away. It's the most powerful piece on the board, and greatest among those that have count-able value. And then he'd simply take my piece after the trade and have an advantage in position with my king all opened up for further attack. But I don't retaliate in that way. I just keep doing what I was doing.
No mystery why he allows my taking of his second piece; I've allowed his Queen to escape! Even after he took my own! He's escaped! And he still has his "super" piece! Hurray!
But there's no way to prevent my taking of his 3rd piece now, and I've not only kept the all-important shielding of my own king, I've destroyed HIS castle, while actually winning the exchange we had in terms of pure point value.
The queen he took from me was worth 9 points. My taking of his rook and knight and bishop with my own bishop was worth roughly 11.
Score one for Samuel Jackson.