The thing is: it never happened. I never managed to find the time; there was always something more important to do, like hoovering, cleaning the bathroom or watching nonsense on television. It was clear that I didn’t have the enthusiasm or determination to prepare: I just needed to go. I looked through the Meetup calendar, and chose the next available meeting.
I arrived at the Elephant and Castle Tube station and quickly got my bearings. I walked past the aging sixties shopping centre which was once a symbol of forward looking modernity and caught a glimpse of a modernist residential complex. A few streets away there was a lot of building activity; the area had changed since I had started my quest. New modern tower blocks, clad in brown coloured panels, were slowly growing from a temporary waste land. As I walked towards a road junction, I passed a church known as the Modern Tabernacle. Its neo-classical appearance was as striking as it was familiar.
In the distance, I could see my destination: a small shopping centre that was located beneath a brutalist residential block. I crossed a road, and walked inside, eagerly looking around for any hints of chess related activities. I saw two chess boards set up on a couple of tables towards the back of the centre. There were around five people; two of them engrossed in a game. I walked over to the group, said hello, smiled, and sat down.
On the morning of the Meetup, I bumped into a colleague on a train; we were both heading to our ‘head office’. I asked him whether he could play chess. It turned out he could, and he just happened to have a chess app on his phone.
‘Okay, I’ll take you through the different pieces. Those ones, called the pawns, can only go forward. Here’s the rooks, the ones in the corners; they can go horizontally and vertically. You see that one? That’s the bishop: he can go only in diagonals. That one is the knight. That’s the most curious one since it can move in an L-shape - you’ll see what I mean in a minute’ I roughly knew what the pieces were called, but I had never been exposed to such a direct explanation of how they moved. After telling me about the role of the king and the queen, my colleague confessed to being a former ‘chess geek’.
‘Okay, here’s a typical opening move – the pawn goes forward two steps, and then it’s the computer’s go. Ah, I see what it’s done. Now, I’m going to move this piece to here - and then it does this. You see?’ What followed was an utterly baffling narrative of a game. I didn’t follow a word of it. I was hoping that aspects of his enthusiastic narrative would suddenly become clear, but it didn’t: I was enveloped in a mist of confusion. Fifteen minutes later, we arrived at our destination and my fifteen minute chess lesson was done. I felt non-the-wiser. In fact, I felt worried.
‘Would you like a game?’ asked a young man who had moved to sit down opposite me.
‘Oh, I’m not very good…’ I said, instinctively and immediately explaining my chess ineptitude.
‘Neither am I. I’m very rusty. You’ll be probably be better than me’.
Aware that we had entered a game of mutual apologies about our collective competence, I played my trump card: ‘I, er, should say that I’ve never played a game’.
My first ever chess opponent was called Alessio. Alessio was an Italian from Sardinia. He was in his early twenties, and was a goth. He wasn’t one of these pretend goths who had a practical hair-cut, a pair of jeans, some Doc Marten boots and a t-shirt advertising a band you’ve never heard of; Alessio was a proper goth. He was the type of goth that had long black hair, black clothing, and wore a surprising amount of eye liner.
‘Do you know how to set the board up? Can you talk me through the moves that they make?’ I asked, suddenly becoming distracted by how nice his eyes were. Alessio agreed. He set up the board, and showed me how the pieces moved. There was something satisfying with the physical action of moving the knight and the king between different squares. After ten minutes of messing around, it was time for my first ever game.
I picked up my white pawn and moved it two steps forward, replicating a move that I had seen on my colleague’s mobile phone a few hours earlier. Alessio stared at the board for a couple of seconds before he moved one of his pawns. I had no idea about the significance of this move, so I moved another pawn. Gradually, the game opened up. Alessio explained to me about the power of different pieces, the rules when one piece can ‘eat’ another piece, and how you need to move your king if you are placed ‘in check’.
As we played, I learnt a bit more about Alessio. He had been in London for a year, and this was his first time at the chess Meetup group. He lived not too far away in Peckham, and was trying to move into the ‘social care’ sector. He had studied in Italy, and was trying to ‘find his feet’ in London.
I started to get a feeling for the game. I looked at the board and began to see different moves; I could see their effect and their consequences. I gathered echoes of understanding about what it meant to play defensively; I could see the role of the pawns, and I was introduced to the idea of a deliberate sacrifice. I began to see the attraction of Chess.
In my ignorance, I kept making terrible moves. Alessio was kind enough to highlight my terrible mistakes, occasionally asking me whether I really wanted to move my queen to a certain square. I insisted that my ‘bad moves’ should stand, since it was the only way that I would learn. Suddenly, he had my king in check. I moved it about into any old square, my eyes rapidly searching the unfamiliar board, wondering what to do, whilst trying to remember the various rules about the different pieces, searching ahead for different knock-on effects.
I realised that I didn’t have a chess history; I didn’t have knowledge of earlier games to draw upon. I was, in effect, shooting in the dark, my force was blundering about, taking pieces whenever it could. My knight moved randomly around the board and I copied Alessio’s bishop movements, trying to remember what piece did what. The only strategy I was applying was one of survival.
‘You’ve won’.
‘What?’
‘You’ve won! Look. Here’s my king. I can’t move anywhere. You’ve blocked me in. It’s checkmate. You’ve won’.
I was pretty sure that Alessio let me win. Or, alternatively, I had blundered my way across the board and had inadvertently stumbled across a lucky configuration of pieces. I was pleased. I was also relieved that my first game was over.
Ten minutes later, Alessio decided to head off home. I shook his hand and thanked him for the game. It had been good fun; he had been a great teacher. When he had gone, I turned my attention to the other members of the group.
Everyone else was Colombian. A chap called Josh, who was wearing a high visibility jacket, was playing a game with Alberto. I tried to concentrate, to try to understand the board, but by the time I began to understand the relationships between some of the pieces a new move was made, changing the configuration of the board. Josh and Alberto chatted in Spanish. As they talked, I watched their body language and tried to figure out who was winning. I got up and walked to the café bar, which was being intermittently serviced by a range of different workers. It seemed to serve a combination of breakfasts, some South American specialities, and beers. I opted for a Colombian beer.
By the time I returned from the bar, Alberto had won. Josh asked me whether I wanted a game. I agreed. I set up the board, putting some of the pieces in different places, and made the first moves. Josh was an aggressive player; his big hitting pieces started to move forward. I had no idea how to respond to the threat. I made a move. Josh smiled and shook his head.
‘If you move there the king will be in check’ Josh said. He pointed towards the board, illustrating my clearly ridiculous move. He was right. He suggested that I moved my bishop so I could respond to his attack. I thought it was a very good idea, so I accepted his suggestion.
In a period of about ten minutes Josh had attacked my bishop, knight and queen.
‘You’re in trouble, man’ said Josh, smiling at his success and my incompetence. I could do nothing other than to move my king about, putting off its inevitable capture for as long as I could. My king was surrounded. The game was over. It had been a brutal match. I reached over and shook his hand.
‘Come on Friday. There is a tournament.’
‘A tournament? It’s every Friday?’
‘Yes, every Friday. Tomorrow. Come and play!’
I finished my beer and looked around. The other game was coming to an end. Josh walked towards the back of the shopping centre towards a bicycle that had been parked up against a wall. He put his helmet on, zipped up his high visibility clothing, chatted to some of his friends, and then wheeled it out of the shopping centre. It was time to go home. I picked up my bag and put on my baseball cap.
‘Come back any time’ said the Colombian manager, as I walked past the counter where I had bought my beer. ‘Thank you!’ I replied. Moments later, I was on the street, walking past the Modern Tabernacle and a street preacher who was shouting about the love of Jesus. I rounded a corner to a bus stop that I guessed would take me to Lewisham.
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