The third game

So, I have been searching sites and blogs on the internet to start to understand some basic chess strategy. I have learned that controlling the center is very important. I also learned some decent opening moves that help me get a stronger position in the beginning of the game. But this time, instead of dying a slow death, he took me by surprise and ended it with one swift move. I had "castled" my king into the corner, but Todd had pushed his pawn right up in front of the king. When I captured his pawn with my king, I was exposed to his rook. All he had to do was sweep his queen in and I was done for. I noticed that even though I had tried to take the center, my pieces were still too tightly hemmed in and not well developed. I will need to work on that.

Of course, with a slow inevitable death, it's fun to sweep the board clean in anger,  but with a sudden defeat my only strategy was to jump on top of my husband's head and bury him in the pillows. I need to work on being a better loser. It's gonna take a lot of losses before i am goingt o get anywhere with this.

The first two games

I am feeling like my husband and I are getting too caught up in our own interests each night and I was looking for a way to engage. We both love games, but two-person games that we both like are few. Scrabble is absolutely off-limits, as my husband Todd has memorized the entire Scrabble dictionary. Quarto is great, especially because I can win most of the time. (He contests this). Chess has been one of those off-limits areas as well because Todd excels in it, but he enjoys playing it so much, that I feel like it is time for me to give it a chance. So the first two games this week went horribly. I have no idea what I am doing and by the time the box was filled with most of my valuable pieces, I just went kamakazi with my few left standing and recklessly lost. Okay, the second game I could not even bear to wait to the end, I just swept the remaining men off the board in anger. Real mature. Going to do some research and am going to do better next time.