Boys like chess.

I recall the days of yore when Ben (younger brother) and I discovered my parent's chess set.  It was a nice set of sculpted (molded?) chess pieces with long faces in cream and black.  In subsequent years, we had to re-learn what chess pieces looked like, because most people's chess pieces were more symbolic than the ones my parents had.

We would have been 11 or 12, and felt pretty clever.  We read through the instructions, set up the chess board, and started learn how to play.  It seemed like I did a good job of discovering ways that I could really wallop Ben.  Games would take a while, as we considered the ramifications of our moves and learned to plan three or four moves in advance.  Only, it couldn't last.

After a while, Ben discovered that he could beat me again and again due to my eagerness to get the game moving a bit faster.  He would carefully measure the benefits of each move, and I would react sometimes too impulsively, or allow sacrifices with a bit too much reckless abandon.  Good strategy, eh?  Make the other player want to get the game moving so that he's carelessly aggressive!

Well, for the last three days, we've had a sick boy in our house.  Ian has had a fever, and it's on its way out.  BUT>  he wasn't healthy enough to go to a baptism at church with the rest of the family so I stayed home with him.  I thought it was time to pull out our glass chess pieces, dig out some patience, and teach Ian how to play!

It was fun to watch him learn the rules and play with quite a bit of consistency (except he kept forgetting about knights every once in a while).  In the end, he beat me once, and I beat him once.  What a fun afternoon for a sick boy and his dad!