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Another 'flattery' piece...
Feb. 7th, 2011 04:59 pmIn 1978, I enrolled in Hayes B. Jacobs' course on writing nonfiction articles at Manhattan's New School for Social Research. I did this so as to have something to occupy my mind while Galina took her ESL course upstairs in the same building. If I learned only one thing from that course, it was that the only true path to becoming a writer lay in writing. Not in taking notes, not in making outlines, and not in taking courses, but writing. Jacobs had a standing assignment for his class: submit a piece of writing each week. He went through all submittals with a sharp editor's pencil and provided constructive comments and suggestions. His frank approach to the business of writing has stayed with me.
I will be the first to admit that I averaged about one submission every 2–3 weeks during that course, but that was probably three sigmas above the average for the group. The course of two-plus Idol seasons has helped me fall into a weekly writing rhythm that, sadly, I would lose once Idol went away. Maybe things are changing, I don't know, but the following represents a treatment of the very first idea that came to mind for the 'is the sincerest form of flattery' prompt.
Hilton paused by the pairings just long enough to catch sight of his board number before continuing on through the door of the community center where the county's annual chess championship was being held. It wasn't that he liked being late to everything, but that he liked doing what had to be done to be on time even less.
When he got to his board, Hilton stopped and stared at his opponent, and experienced just the slightest tinge of déjà vu. The previous year, Hilton had been paired with this same snot-nosed kid, who had been rated in class D and who, despite that, had given Hilton a proper shellacking with some sort of off-the-wall gambit opening. The game was a considered such a great upset victory for the kid that it had even been published in the county newspaper. People still kidded Hilton about it.
So here he was, a year later, still rated in class A (that no-man's-land between class B and expert), paired against this kid whose rating was now knocking on the door between class C and class B. The color assignment was the same, too, and the kid had already moved his Queen pawn up two spaces and punched his clock.
Hilton put his stuff on his chair and went off to find the tournament director.
"I think you made a mistake in the pairings, Wes," said Hilton to Wes Smith, the TD.
"What do you mean, 'a mistake'?" said Smith.
"You've got me paired against that kid again, with the same color assignments!"
"And the 'mistake' would be—?"
"You can't do that. It's against the pairing rules."
"If this was the same tournament, it would be," explained Smith. "But this is the first round of a new competition, and first-round pairings are pretty straightforward: top half plays the bottom half, and colors alternate. Your pairing was spit out by a computer, uninfluenced by human hands." Smith paused for a second and gave Hilton a close look. "Hey, don't look so glum! Look at this as an opportunity to exact your revenge. Same opponent, same colors. You've got a shot at showing everyone that last year's result was just a lucky break for the kid."
Hilton grumbled as he walked back to his board. The kid has played his Queen pawn up two, just as he had the previous year, almost as if he was challenging Hilton to respond with the the Queen pawn up two from his side of the board, just as Hilton had the previous year. Then, instead of continuing with a standard double-Queen-pawn opening, the kid had veered off into a back-of-the-book gambit by pushing his King pawn up two squares, as if offering it to Black for free.
Hilton had accepted the pawn, whereupon White offered yet another pawn, which Hilton had captured, too, after which Hilton found himself in the middle of a violent and short losing battle. After the game, Hilton had cracked open his opening reference, which informed him that the variation the kid had played was sharp, but fundamentally unsound, and that Black ought to emerge from the opening phase of the game with a marked advantage. That had been the extent of Hilton's research into the opening, as he was running late to an appointment.
By the time Hilton had settled himself on his chair in the here-and-now, almost 10 minutes of his allotted time had passed. The face of the kid across the board from him was as expressive as the surface of that same board on which the pieces stood. Hilton tried to put the clock's ticking out of his mind as he thought about his first move.
"Okay, if I don't push my Queen pawn up to meet his, it'll be as if I'm admitting that I'm afraid of his opening skill, so even if I beat the little twerp" and here, Hilton interrupted his thinking process.
"What am I talking about? Of course I'm going to beat the little twerp, there's no doubt about that!" Hilton smiled a little at this point.
"Where was I? Oh, yeah, if I don't play the Queen pawn like I did last year, folks won't talk about my win, but about how I avoided the kid's opening, despite the fact the kid's opening stinks."
Then Hilton's eyebrows jerked up slightly as a new thought came to him.
"Like it or not, there's the psychological angle, too. If I don't push the Queen pawn, that'll probably boost the kid's confidence and make him think he's already got me on the run. On the flip side, if I do push the pawn, he'll have to figure I've done my analysis and that I'm totally ready to take on his inferior opening setup, which'll force him to play some other move, which means—bingo!—we're in that part of the opening manual that I almost know by heart."
Hilton all but sneered as he pushed his Queen pawn up two spaces and punched his clock, which now showed 15 elapsed minutes. Without hesitation, the kid reached out and pushed his King pawn up two spaces, then punched his clock, restarting Hilton's.
"Oh, for—!" thought Hilton, as his heart sank very nearly to his feet.
"I knew it! I knew it! He's trying to play the same gambit. I tell you, this kid's got a lot of nerve. He probably knows this opening backward and forward." Hilton pursed his lips and let his breath out slowly through his nostrils.
"So, what do I do now?" he wondered.
Hilton was not the kind of player who did well in sharp, open games, which is why he was still a class A player. Sure, given the position on the board, he could still transpose into an opening that would avoid the kid's ghastly gambit—the French and Caro-Kann Defenses came to mind here—but none of those openings were very much to Hilton's preferred style of play. Still, they were preferable to that gambit.
As Hilton pondered what to do, the word went around the room that he—one of the top players in the county—had now spent nearly 18 minutes of his hour and was still deciding on his second move. Players rose from their boards and wandered by to see what was going on.
"Are they coming by to see if I'm getting my ass handed to me again?" wondered Hilton. The thought didn't help calm Hilton's inner chess player, who was still hard at work mentally cursing the fact that he had pushed the Queen pawn on his first move.
Suddenly, realizing that he was wasting valuable minutes of thinking time, Hilton decided that he would not take the proffered King pawn, so he pushed his Queen Bishop pawn up one square, creating the classic pawn structure of the Caro-Kann Defense.
With this move, the crowd around the board started to break up. One player was heard to whisper, as he headed back to his own board: "A move like that—choosing not to play into your opponent's strength—that's got to be the sincerest form of flattery!" His friends nodded in agreement.
Meanwhile, back at Hilton's board, the kid was already reaching out to make his next move. Neither he nor Hilton realized it, but the kid had already won the game; what was left was simply a matter of technique.
I will be the first to admit that I averaged about one submission every 2–3 weeks during that course, but that was probably three sigmas above the average for the group. The course of two-plus Idol seasons has helped me fall into a weekly writing rhythm that, sadly, I would lose once Idol went away. Maybe things are changing, I don't know, but the following represents a treatment of the very first idea that came to mind for the 'is the sincerest form of flattery' prompt.
Hilton paused by the pairings just long enough to catch sight of his board number before continuing on through the door of the community center where the county's annual chess championship was being held. It wasn't that he liked being late to everything, but that he liked doing what had to be done to be on time even less.
When he got to his board, Hilton stopped and stared at his opponent, and experienced just the slightest tinge of déjà vu. The previous year, Hilton had been paired with this same snot-nosed kid, who had been rated in class D and who, despite that, had given Hilton a proper shellacking with some sort of off-the-wall gambit opening. The game was a considered such a great upset victory for the kid that it had even been published in the county newspaper. People still kidded Hilton about it.
So here he was, a year later, still rated in class A (that no-man's-land between class B and expert), paired against this kid whose rating was now knocking on the door between class C and class B. The color assignment was the same, too, and the kid had already moved his Queen pawn up two spaces and punched his clock.
Hilton put his stuff on his chair and went off to find the tournament director.
"I think you made a mistake in the pairings, Wes," said Hilton to Wes Smith, the TD.
"What do you mean, 'a mistake'?" said Smith.
"You've got me paired against that kid again, with the same color assignments!"
"And the 'mistake' would be—?"
"You can't do that. It's against the pairing rules."
"If this was the same tournament, it would be," explained Smith. "But this is the first round of a new competition, and first-round pairings are pretty straightforward: top half plays the bottom half, and colors alternate. Your pairing was spit out by a computer, uninfluenced by human hands." Smith paused for a second and gave Hilton a close look. "Hey, don't look so glum! Look at this as an opportunity to exact your revenge. Same opponent, same colors. You've got a shot at showing everyone that last year's result was just a lucky break for the kid."
Hilton grumbled as he walked back to his board. The kid has played his Queen pawn up two, just as he had the previous year, almost as if he was challenging Hilton to respond with the the Queen pawn up two from his side of the board, just as Hilton had the previous year. Then, instead of continuing with a standard double-Queen-pawn opening, the kid had veered off into a back-of-the-book gambit by pushing his King pawn up two squares, as if offering it to Black for free.
Hilton had accepted the pawn, whereupon White offered yet another pawn, which Hilton had captured, too, after which Hilton found himself in the middle of a violent and short losing battle. After the game, Hilton had cracked open his opening reference, which informed him that the variation the kid had played was sharp, but fundamentally unsound, and that Black ought to emerge from the opening phase of the game with a marked advantage. That had been the extent of Hilton's research into the opening, as he was running late to an appointment.
By the time Hilton had settled himself on his chair in the here-and-now, almost 10 minutes of his allotted time had passed. The face of the kid across the board from him was as expressive as the surface of that same board on which the pieces stood. Hilton tried to put the clock's ticking out of his mind as he thought about his first move.
"Okay, if I don't push my Queen pawn up to meet his, it'll be as if I'm admitting that I'm afraid of his opening skill, so even if I beat the little twerp" and here, Hilton interrupted his thinking process.
"What am I talking about? Of course I'm going to beat the little twerp, there's no doubt about that!" Hilton smiled a little at this point.
"Where was I? Oh, yeah, if I don't play the Queen pawn like I did last year, folks won't talk about my win, but about how I avoided the kid's opening, despite the fact the kid's opening stinks."
Then Hilton's eyebrows jerked up slightly as a new thought came to him.
"Like it or not, there's the psychological angle, too. If I don't push the Queen pawn, that'll probably boost the kid's confidence and make him think he's already got me on the run. On the flip side, if I do push the pawn, he'll have to figure I've done my analysis and that I'm totally ready to take on his inferior opening setup, which'll force him to play some other move, which means—bingo!—we're in that part of the opening manual that I almost know by heart."
Hilton all but sneered as he pushed his Queen pawn up two spaces and punched his clock, which now showed 15 elapsed minutes. Without hesitation, the kid reached out and pushed his King pawn up two spaces, then punched his clock, restarting Hilton's.
"Oh, for—!" thought Hilton, as his heart sank very nearly to his feet.
"I knew it! I knew it! He's trying to play the same gambit. I tell you, this kid's got a lot of nerve. He probably knows this opening backward and forward." Hilton pursed his lips and let his breath out slowly through his nostrils.
"So, what do I do now?" he wondered.
Hilton was not the kind of player who did well in sharp, open games, which is why he was still a class A player. Sure, given the position on the board, he could still transpose into an opening that would avoid the kid's ghastly gambit—the French and Caro-Kann Defenses came to mind here—but none of those openings were very much to Hilton's preferred style of play. Still, they were preferable to that gambit.
As Hilton pondered what to do, the word went around the room that he—one of the top players in the county—had now spent nearly 18 minutes of his hour and was still deciding on his second move. Players rose from their boards and wandered by to see what was going on.
"Are they coming by to see if I'm getting my ass handed to me again?" wondered Hilton. The thought didn't help calm Hilton's inner chess player, who was still hard at work mentally cursing the fact that he had pushed the Queen pawn on his first move.
Suddenly, realizing that he was wasting valuable minutes of thinking time, Hilton decided that he would not take the proffered King pawn, so he pushed his Queen Bishop pawn up one square, creating the classic pawn structure of the Caro-Kann Defense.
With this move, the crowd around the board started to break up. One player was heard to whisper, as he headed back to his own board: "A move like that—choosing not to play into your opponent's strength—that's got to be the sincerest form of flattery!" His friends nodded in agreement.
Meanwhile, back at Hilton's board, the kid was already reaching out to make his next move. Neither he nor Hilton realized it, but the kid had already won the game; what was left was simply a matter of technique.
