Games and Fun

If I let myself do anything, I play games. It's always been that way. Chess is probably my greatest love, but it wasn't the first. Before that there was checkers and Uno and the day I realized I would never, ever lose at tic-tac-toe again.

If they go center, you have to go corner. If they go corner, you have to go center.

I play all out. It doesn't matter if it's a drunken game of Bullshit with nothing on the line, I fight tooth and nail to win until the very end. This is why I value games and why I'm good at them. I can immerse myself totally in a game. The game becomes my whole world. Most people get bored or frustrated or distracted and they check out like when a movie is so silly that you fall out of it and realize you're in a theater watching a screen. That almost never happens to me with games.



So I win most of the time, but of course the joke is usually on me for being so caught up in these little struggles.

Sometimes this worries me. At the very least there's an element of cowardice in my game playing, in preferring challenges with nothing real at stake. Games don't produce anything, usually they don't matter to anyone but you. I used to worry about spending so much time on pursuits that have no value except what I give them.

This is true of games, but it is true of everything else, too. You make the value in whatever you choose to do. If you can play a game wholeheartedly maybe that is okay. I respect professional athletes, for example.

But games have a hermetic quality not common with other pursuits. Even though you are playing with someone, really you are always playing yourself. To me the social component is beside the point. I'm alone with my thoughts and strategies.

Most games, if played enough, bottom out in insipidness. I spent a lot of time in high school playing the board game Risk. There is really only one strategic principle you have to understand in Risk: never attack. If at least one player in your game does not know this, it can still be fun, but if everyone knows it the game becomes very boring.

A few games (chess is one) reveal deeper layers of nuance and subtlety the more you learn. These games are the most interesting, but also the most dangerous. I stopped playing chess competitively in high school, partly because I was sick of it, but partly because I got scared at the extent to which it had colonized my mind. When you are dreaming a game regularly maybe it is time to stop.

If I could choose to be good at something else, I would. I especially envy artists and musicians, who create something that is beautiful to others. This is why I persisted with a creative writing major when it was obvious to everyone I could not write a story.

A few weeks ago my dad and brother left the chess board out in the middle of a game, intending to resume it later. My mom thought they were done and put the board away. I had been watching the game for a minute so I had the position in my head and was able to set it back up. It struck me that I had never before been able to use a talent to help others so directly.

Chess can be beautiful, but it is a very esoteric beauty. I was playing a blitz game and I thrilled when a kibitzer said, "This game has special sauce." There was nothing really special about the game, but I liked that he thought there was.

Once in college someone organized an ultimate frisbee party around a chess theme. Everyone must have thought I was behind it somehow, but I wasn't. I would never have dared. A chess party! I feel this is a fantasy that I will get to act out only once in my life, and it is no accident that it didn't work out.

The idea was that I would play a girl from the women's ultimate team who was also a strong player (I knew her from national high school tournaments). As each person entered the party, they got a chess piece, and they were supposed to drink from their beer each time their piece was moved on the board. She played the opening inaccurately and got a passive, difficult position, whereas my game "played itself." She started to move very slowly. Attention drifted from the game. I was playing all of my moves instantly, but to no avail. I wanted to grab someone by the shoulders and say, "Look, I'm crushing her." But you can't say that, and the party was a failure.

I know better now than to try to quit playing games completely. I have been drawn to them for my whole life. (I have taken three breaks from writing this post to play online chess.) And it's not so bad. I have fun playing games. No, fun is not really the word. I am absorbed. For a few minutes or a few hours I focus totally on a problem. In a way I live in the moment, although that phrase usually means the exact opposite of what I do.

So it is fitting but scary to play games for money. As far as poker goes, I don't especially like it. It depends largely on human interaction, which doesn't appeal to me. The strategic part of the game is easy to learn and what really separates the best players cannot be taught. It is all about intimidation, posturing, and gleaning a little more information about your opponent's hand based on an intuitive "read."

It is probably good that I not like the game I play for money. That can help me establish distance and objectivity. It puts me at a lower risk for becoming addicted, playing compulsively even when there is no profit.

I hope I'm good.