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Patrick Carroll
United States
Carver
Minnesota
"If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly." (GK Chesterton)
"That's how the light gets in." (Leonard Cohen)
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When I was twelve, I desperately wanted to learn to play chess. It just looked like the coolest game ever. I had a chess set, and a new kid in the neighborhood taught me to play--but then I never saw him again. I didn't know anyone else who played, but eventually I taught it to a friend, and he'd reluctantly play now and then. There were no chess computers in those days, but I bought a book called Solitaire Chess and worked my way through that.
When I was thirteen, the same friend bought Waterloo. Though its components looked cheap, overall it promised to be the best board game I'd ever seen. Like chess maybe (wargames were advertised as "military chess" then), only plainer-looking and more complex, covering an intriguing historical subject.
Throughout high school, we played wargames a lot--almost every day, it seems--and we played chess a couple times.
There was a chess club in our high school, but I avoided that like the plague. In those days, social status meant everything, and the chess club was strictly for what today would be called nerds or geeks (we called them "four-o's," which I guess must have referred to the 4.0 grade-point average, though it sounded a lot more derogatory, like calling someone with glasses "four eyes"). I kept that side of myself strictly private, studying chess books alone in my room--the same room where we played most of our wargames. I was shy anyway; it was hard for me to mingle anywhere.
Another reason I steered clear of the chess club was that I feared the competition. I hadn't played much at all, and I knew most club members would be way ahead of me on the learning curve. I didn't want to look stupid in front of others. Maybe if I just studied those chess books, I'd learn enough secrets that I'd someday be able to face the competition and hold my own.
Several years later, I put that to the test, playing chess with another friend and with a fellow at work. Though I remembered enough to play a sound opening and form a strong position, I made serious tactical blunders and lost most every time. The book learning wasn't enough; I needed to practice like everybody else.
I pretty much gave up on chess at that point, and I stuck to wargames for years afterward. Wargames always impressed even the chess players I knew. Wargames were bigger and more complex. It took some time and effort just to learn how to play a wargame--to say nothing of learning how to play one well.
Learning the rules and mechanics of a wargame--even a very complicated one--was also something I could do on my own. To a large extent, it was something that required more study than practice. It helped to set the game up and play through a few turns while referring to the rules, but learning those rules was the first stage in learning the game. And often enough, it turned out to also be the last stage. Rather than play a game I had learned, I'd usually start learning some new wargame I'd become interested in.
For a stretch of many years, just learning one wargame after another constituted my whole hobby life. I might tell myself I wanted to pick one good wargame and play it over and over until I had mastered it, but then I'd be unable to choose the game. Or if I did choose a game, I'd grow tired of it after playing only a few times--almost always solitaire.
But that was one appeal of wargames: they could be played solitaire, if only just to learn the rules. A game like chess would have required me to find an opponent. And then, if I found an opponent, I'd have to face that competition again; and I'd probably suffer one humiliating loss after another, as before.
I loved wargames because they were absorbing. They were about as satisfying to the intellect as chess, and they captured the imagination as well. Wargaming led me to an interest in military history, and I'd find reading material to complement the games. Playing a wargame was almost like time-traveling to a famous battlefield and trying my hand at generalship. Chess had none of that; it was abstract.
But along came the home computer, and good chess software soon followed. Here was my chance to finally become a decent chess player without having to face others. I bought Chessmaster 2100 and set out to become at least an intermediate-level player.
Well, history repeated itself: I was defeated time after time due to my faulty tactics (or to just not paying enough attention). It soon became frustrating and discouraging. If I had fought my way through, maybe I'd have accomplished my goal. But it got to where my goal didn't matter to me.
I was like the fabled fox walking away from the sour grapes, I suppose. But to my mind, chess really did start looking sour. The kind of thinking it required me to do was just not any fun for me to do. I could force myself to do it for a while. But then I'd end up wondering why I was forcing myself to do something I didn't like just for the sake of playing a game. Games are supposed to be playful and fun and amusing, right? This one was damned hard work.
So, back to wargames I went. And to computer games as well.
Some computer games got my goat too, though. It often seemed like my AI opponent must be cheating, because I'd be clobbered from out of nowhere. Once again I was trying to entertain myself with something that turned out to be hard, unforgiving work. That didn't make sense, and it wasn't fun.
Wargames were different. Except for the rare designed-for-solitaire game, I was always playing both sides against each other. Many gamers scoff at that, but it was perfect for me. It meant setting up my own challenges and meeting them as best I could. It meant creating and playing out the scenarios I wanted to try. It meant experimenting as I liked, always learning more and more. And best of all perhaps, it meant I'd win and lose every game; there was a perfect balance there. The game was never too hard for me; I was never outmatched.
The only downside of board wargames was that they were clunky in comparison to computer games--especially when played solo. In a two-player wargame, you and your opponent share the setup and take-down tasks, and you also take turns. When you play that game solitaire, it takes twice as long to set the game up or put it away, and you have to make all the moves for both sides. Because of that, I drifted toward playing more and more computer games in spite of my above-mentioned frustration with them.
Luckily, there was an easy fix for the frustration. Most computer games could be adjusted to various difficulty levels. If I lost too often on Normal level, I could switch to Easy and start enjoying the game again.
Indeed, that had been the case with Chessmaster 2100 too. My problem there was that I'd always win on Novice level but always lose badly on the next level up, Intermediate. There were no degrees in between.
With the passing years, software improved. Today I can find chess software that not only has many grades of difficulty but also numerous chess "personalities" (styles) to play against. A decent program will evaluate my skill and automatically set me up with a suitable match, pitting me against slightly stronger opponents as my skill develops.
Enough time has gone by that those sour grapes I had turned away from are beginning to look sweet again. Inspired in part by an online article, "Is Chess a Wargame?" I've been gingerly stepping around the base of the vine, playing quick games of chess on low difficulty settings. I've been winning and patting myself on the back, trying to rebuild my courage.
Meanwhile, I've also been getting back into board wargames again. A ten-year hiatus ended about three years ago, when I found that there are some reasonably small, simple wargames around that are actually pretty darned fun to play.
Unfortunately, I'm partial to tactical wargames, and those are usually the most fiddly and complicated. If I tackle even a moderately complex wargame, I have a bunch of rules to learn. And the older I get, the more resistant I am to learning new rules. So I keep buying more wargames, but they just sit for long periods of time while I'm psyching myself up to learn the rules, set up the game, and play. I'm good once a game is under way, but between games I worry and procrastinate.
Chess, in contrast, is a game I already know. No rules to learn, and on the computer it sets up instantly. I'm just afraid to play. I'm liable to do something stupid again and damn myself as a blathering idiot.
My lifelong struggle with chess and wargames is parallel to another two sometimes hobbies: music and languages.
At times I've taken up a musical instrument with the intention of learning to play it reasonably well. The most recent in that series is the tin whistle. I have several whistles and a small stack of music books beside me right now. But they've been there a few years, and I'm still just a beginner. I'd like to be able to play well, but I can't make myself practice every day for any length of time. I'll stick with it for a couple weeks or so, then start skipping days. And without my realizing it, weeks and then months will go by without practice.
It's the same with chess.
On another nearby table is a stack of foreign-language books. They're bookmarked because for a long while I was diligently studying those languages. But I haven't touched the books in months, and it must be a year or so since I've listened to recordings of the languages in my car during my daily commute. Looking at the stack of books now, I balk. It's too much work to delve in and study such things. The grammar is too complicated, the vocabulary too big. It all takes so much time.
Just as with wargames.
I'd love to be good at all these things--the Irish whistle, chess, languages, and wargames. But practice?
I'm afraid to practice the whistle; I'll hit too many sour notes and get discouraged all over again. I'm afraid to practice chess too; there's a good chance I'll blunder away yet another game and conclude that I just have no aptitude for it.
As to languages, I can't find the time to practice them. It's just as hard to find the time to set up and practice wargames. After a long day's work--and an evening workout, and supper, and washing dishes, and exchanging at least a few pleasantries with my wife--it's nearly bedtime. Then on weekends there are always chores to do and errands to run.
Between fear building up and time running out, I don't stand a chance of doing any of the things I'd love to do. Not unless I find a good dose of courage and inspiration somewhere. Or just swallow my pride, make time, and start taking action.
I suppose it all comes back around to something I've been trying to work on lately--dropping the ego and lightening up. That goes sharply against my grain--against the habits I've built up over a lifetime. But a quote from G. K. Chesterton keeps haunting me these days: "If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly."
In a similar vein is the chorus from a Leonard Cohen song:
"Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in."
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