Another one down

Several years ago I wrote a blog entry about the fateful day when my eldest son beat me in a mile on the track.  I set it up with the great speech from Return of the King when Aragon stirs the troops by saying something like, "The day will come when the race of men will fade. . . but that day is not this day."  The blog post ended with my saying, "At least I still have chess."  Well, not anymore.

Casey got on this kick a couple of months ago of playing chess.  He has read some books, plays with his friends, and even watched Searching for Bobby Fisher.  But I continued to beat him.  This afternoon, though, we got playing and I made a pretty brash move which lost some material, but put him a pretty tight spot.  I figured that I'd be able to corner him and win pretty easily.  But he made one good move after another, extricating himself from the corner, and maintaining his lead in material.  Then he started doing what I told him to do in a previous game: when you're up material, trade every chance you get.  So he traded it down pretty well, and it became a race to promote a pawn.  I took another chance, and he smelled it out.  So I had to give up another piece in stopping the promotion.

Then, I was hoping he couldn't finish.  It looked for a bit like I might induce him into making a silly move and letting me back in it, but in the end it was I who made the silly move.  He ended it.

For a competitive person like myself, it is such a bittersweet moment when your kids beat you.  I'm really, really proud of him, and I love to see him win and do well at things.  But at my expense??

At least I've beat him at the game of having awesome kids!