Checkmate

Not exactly what I wrote. This works, but what I wrote is better and clearer.

Jerry (holding a large hammer):  He never sees it coming.

RJ (to Verne):  Why doesn’t your chess set have a hammer?

V:  It’s an upgrade.

Stick a Twinkie In My Eye

You can’t win a game of chess in one move (unless your opponent resigns after one move). But if you’re Black you can win after two moves.  If you’re White you can win after three.  They’re called Fools Mate:

 

Fool sold separately.

It’s Not So Good To Be King

Give up, Verne. Just give up.

Hulk Smash Chess

I’m losing my mind. I started to post this yesterday, got distracted and forgot about it.  I have ADD. AND take meds. And still can’t stay on task.

Hopeless.

 

There Are No Unicorns in Chess

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. I screwed up. If a pawn gets to the end of the board it can become any piece, not just a queen.

Again, with these insistent expectations of scrupulous accuracy.

Dammit Jim, I’m a cartoonist, not an editor!

Frosty the Snow Pawn

Sometimes you hit it out of the park.  Sometimes you strike out.

And sometimes you hit a lazy pop fly that gets caught in the sun and dropped by the shortstop with a Jagermeister hangover.

You’re still on base.  Still in the game.

Barely.

Top Five Reasons You Don’t Want to Play Chess with Izzy

5.  If she captures you she makes you do the Humpty Dance.

4.  Her pawns mock you with, “Red Rover, Red Rover, send Loser right over.”

3.  She gets glitter all over the board.

2  Her knights aren’t board-broken.

1.  She NEVER loses.

Checkmates

I was on the chess team in 8th grade.  This was at all hispanic Bel Air Jr. High School in El Paso, TX.   I was the only anglo kid.  They called me Miguel Frito.    

Let’s make a list.  White kid.  Thick glasses. Three hundred hispanic kids.  Middle School. Puberty.  Band Nerd.  Chess Club.   Desperate need to blend into the background.  Impossible to blend into the background. You couldn’t create a better recipe for life long dependence on therapy if you tried.   

I remember being driven to the first day of classes and the radio was playing Three Dog Night’s, “Black and White”.  

The ink is black, the page is white
Together we learn to read and write
A child is black, a child is white
The whole world looks upon the sight, a beautiful sight

Uh-huh.  Skinny white kid caught in gang crossfire.  Details at ten.  

I was terrified. 

But it turned out to be a great year.  The hispanic kids seemed to appreciate the irony of a majority kid at a minority school and instead of ostracizing me, they embraced me.  I was actually popular.   Girls talked to me.  They thought the Chess Boy was cool.  

And the next year we moved across the freeway and I went to all white Eastwood High School.   And I was not popular.  And girls did not talk to me.  

And the Chess Boy was no longer cool.  

I had blended in.

And disappeared.