The Live Game

I never thought we would actually play for money. He said something about Kasparov, and I asked if he played chess.

"Oui."

"For money?"

"Oui."

Then he asked something in French that I didn't understand, but eventually made out the word "Elo." Elo is another word for chess rating, named after the guy who invented the formula (that's synecdoche).

Alex had told me what to do in a situation like this: just be honest. Explain, simply and clearly, why he has no chance of winning, and he will want to play. So I just said, "Twenty three hundred."

His friend translated, "Deux mille trois cent."

He shook his head. "Impossible (im-pahs-see-bluh)!"

"Deux mille trois cent," I said.

I didn't expect it to work. I figured, if he did play for money, it would be for a nominal sum like a euro a game. It was just easier to tell the truth than to make up a lie.

But the next time I saw him at the club, when I half-jokingly said, "Echecs?" he was all for it. We got out an undersized set they had lying around and started setting up the pieces. We agreed on ten euros per game. I asked what his Elo was, and he said 1600.

When we were about to start, I noticed he had his queen and king on the wrong squares. That set off alarm bells. He couldn't be for real, could he? I started to wonder if this was some kind of elaborate hustle. But I also noticed he took a long time to set up his pieces (the time it takes you to set up the board is closely correlated with your playing strength), and something about the way his fingers moved over the pieces suggested he wasn't a good player. If he was hustling me, he was an exceptionally good actor.

And indeed, he went for Scholar's Mate, a basic opening trap in which white tries to checkmate black in the first four moves. The problem is, so long as black deflects the mate threat, white's position is compromised. In just a few more moves he had slipped into a hopeless position and, as is typical of beginners, started taking a long time on his moves only after the game was already decided.

While he thought I had time to consider the situation. He had clearly lied about his rating. In the context of competitive chess, someone rated 1600 is not a strong player, but it's also a long way from a rank beginner. Assuming you have never played chess seriously, you could study hard for a year and not reach that level. But this guy was a beginner, a real one. I would bet a lot that he had never played in a tournament or cracked a chess book. I was starting to regret bringing up chess in the first place. I was now sure he would quit after at most a few more games and the paltry sum I would win would not be worth damaging my lucrative reputation as the dumb American.

He made a few more moves and resigned when he lost his queen. We played one more game, which he lost just as quickly. After that he suggested playing just for fun, no money. Of course I declined. There are a lot of situations in which I would be happy to play chess for fun, but this is not one of them. In the gambling world, the last thing you can ever do is play a game you've spent years of your life mastering for free against some yokel who wants to try his luck. At that point they have no incentive to play for money. He dug into his pocket for two ten euro notes and forked them over disgustedly. I tried to suggest that he would win the money back at the poker table, but the language barrier intervened again.

I was left with the same question you always confront in gambling: What was he thinking?

My best guess is his reasoning went something like this: This dumb American is lying about his rating. He probably doesn't know anything about chess at all. Neither do I, but I'm smart, and chess is a smart person's game. I always outsmart him at the poker table, so I'll find some way to outsmart him at chess.

Chess and poker share the common characteristic that many people are excessively willing to accept them as metaphors - chess as a metaphor for intelligence, poker as a metaphor for manliness. In this light it is interesting that, while men will generally admit that they are not good chess players, nearly all in their heart of hearts believe themselves to be good poker players. In reality, of course, both chess and poker require specific skill sets that must be learned.

Or maybe he just wanted to play for fun. But that wasn't the feeling I got. I really believe that he thought he would win. He was visibly upset after he lost.

This is a variation on a theme at the poker club. Really it is the theme of the poker club: surface idiocy concealing unfathomable mysteries. The biggest mystery is, Who are these guys? The poker game starts every day at 3:00 (2:00 on the weekend) and often goes late into the night. The regulars show up every day. They can't all be making money. In fact, given the substantial rake the house collects, and the amount of money I am carrying away, hardly any of them can be making money. They don't look like rich guys. They're not especially well-dressed or groomed. And the schedule doesn't leave them much time to have jobs. I know the French welfare system is generous, but I don't see how it can be that generous.