10:25 pm.
“What’s this”?
“It’s the current item 6: Invent an interestingly flavoured loaf of bread every week”.
This week’s Item 6: Jack Daniels bread. Good, eh?
“So this flavour is….”?
“Jack Daniels bread”.
(Many noises of slurping and grunting followed).
“Mmmph. Not bad”.
The Gaffer steadily continued to cut himself another corner of bread until the loaf began to take on a hexagonal nature, as I dutifully set up the chessboard on the bar next to my pint.
“And how many games have you played this week”?
“Against the computer? Hundreds”.
“And how many have you won”?
“None”.
The Gaffer picked at either his upper teeth or moustache with a matchstick that may well once have belonged to me while I toyed with a cigar, helped myself to a pint, and settled back onto my barstool.
He deftly moved the pawn in front of his Queen forward two spaces.
“So how does it work, points – wise? Pawns are worth one, castles two…”
“Well, technically, pawns are one, rooks five, queen nine, and knights and bishops 3, but I tend to regard bishops as more important…”
“Because…”
“Because while you’ve two, you’ve got great power. Lose one, and you can only control white or black squares. So I tend to regard a single bishop as worth half a horse”.
He straightened up behind the bar.
“Bloody hell, does that make sense? How much Jack Daniels is in this bread? It’s very moist”.
“No need for butter”.
“Damn right. Are you gonna go, or what”?
I moved the pawn in front of my left knight forward two, which caused consternation, of a sort.
“No, no, no! What the bloody hell are you DOING”?
“Eh?”
A finger waggled in the general direction of my face.
“That’s an opening move worthy of Kasparov”!
I was beginning to sense I was already on shaky ground.
“How’d you mean”?
The Gaffer placed both palms on the bar, astride the board.
“Look, the most powerful squares on the board are the four centre ones, right”?
“So I hear”.
“So most NORMAL people will try to keep those squares occupied in one form or another”.
“I’m not most people”.
“Obviously. D’you want to start again”?
“Aye, go on then”.
I popped my pawn back, he did likewise. Then he put his back to his original move.
This time, I moved a knight out to cover one of the centre squares. He gazed on approvingly, a Gandalf –like glint in one eye.
I was playing Black. My last move was the Knight in top left. Gotcha!
“That’s more like it, my boy”.
We both scratched our beards and continued to rue the board.
Half an hour later, I had one of his bishops in the bag, three centre squares occupied, and had just bagged his queen. Now he was tugging at a forelock.
I grinned and reached out for the bread knife.
“More Jack Daniels loaf, Jim”?
12:05pm
“Look, you’ve gotta sign it so I can put it on my blog as proof I won”.
He looked at the scrap of paper I’d written out.
A battle well fought ought be toasted.
“Jimmy Whiteside? I haven’t been Jimmy Whiteside since I was seven years old”!
“Cross out the MY, then”.
The Gaffer signed it, and we raised fresh glasses, chinking them together above the crumbs that remained of the loaf.
He’d pretty much scoffed the lot, and I’d put almost half a bottle in that sucker.
I put the board away, glowing that after five years of trying, I’d finally managed to outwit him.
It’s not only during the game that you think about your tactics – you’ve got to plan your lead – in, too.
It’s not just on the chessboard that you’ve got to use your loaf.
Something tells me this notebook’s not just gonna be full of song lyrics, come June…
One down, 39 to go.
