Celebration

Today is Papa’s birthday. Seventy-nine. I remember when he turned forty. I was only eight then, and because of various religious interpretations, we didn’t actually celebrate birthdays, but I knew it was significant. He’s stayed forty or fifty in my mind’s eye ever since.

Sixty just seemed like an extension — a little older, maybe a little slower, but basically the same. Seventy? Now nearly eighty.

You know what’s coming — “Soon I’ll find myself almost eighty, wondering where the time went…”

This was a bitter-sweet birthday, though: the first one without Nana. A few days ago, K asked him what he’d like for his birthday dinner. He thought about it for quite a while and asked if we had Nana’s Chinese casserole recipe.

“Nope, but I’m sure we could find it.”

When was the last time we had that? It must have been twenty-five to thirty years since I’d had that. Still, I knew what the recipe must look like: I found something seemingly identical and K tried to fix it while I was pulling up the mass of briars that had grown where our composter used to be. Neither one of us are experienced casserole makers, so it turned out a little, well, moist. But it tasted just like Papa and I remembered.

“Brings back some memories, doesn’t it Pop?” I asked. (I don’t know why, but I’ve taken to calling him Pop again. I used to call him that when I was in high school, but since L was born, he’s just been Papa.)

“Sure does.”

Smothered

I used to say I could play chess when I really couldn’t. I could move the pieces around, sure, but I really had no deeper understanding of the game, and I didn’t even really know some of the basics. Give me a rook and the king against the opponents lone king and I would have had no idea how to mate.

Even now, there’s one mate I can only barely understand and probably couldn’t pull off: mate with one knight, one bishop, and the king. Here’s a good intro:

Yet there’s one mate that’s in the realm of mortals. “Probably the most popular checkmate pattern, the Smothered Mate often fascinates new chess players and retains its popularity even after one becomes proficient.” So says Chess End Games, and that’s no exaggeration. Every time I’ve taught someone the smothered mate pattern, I’ve gotten looks of amazed awe. The knight pops into a square and mates the king from a distance — beautiful

But Chess End Games is selling it short. There are several ways to achieve a smothered mate in chess, but the most satisfying is with a queen sacrifice. Any win involving a queen sac (chess-speak there) is satisfying because, well, you’re sacrificing your queen, the most powerful piece on the board — until it isn’t. Queen sac smothered mates are rare, though, because most decent players see it coming and resign beforehand.

In fact, I’ve only done it once — last night.

It was a wild game, and I had taken a gamble that wasn’t paying off. In fact, not just down an exchange but down an entire rook, I felt sure mate was coming. My opponent sacrificed the exchange, though, taking my knight on f4.

I took with the pawn thinking that I might be able to slide the rook over to g2 to put pressure on g7. It would have been easily mitigated with a pawn move g6, but it was the only thing I saw.

Black took my undefended d4 pawn, threatening my rook. My first instinct was to continue with my plan and move my rook to g2, but then I saw it: my queen and knight were perfectly placed, and with black’s rook pair gone, it looked perfect.

Queen took on e6 with check. From here, mate was almost inevitable. Almost. I thought black might resign or bock with his rook, which would have led to mate with black’s king on h8 and white’s queen on f8 or d8 after having taken the double-attacked rook.

But black moved the king to h8 and my heart went pitter-patter. Could I get the smothered mate or would black resign?

The first move was to pop the knight in for a check. If black took with the rook, I was in trouble: my next move would have been to take with the queen, then black’s queen would deliver a nearly-fatal check on f2 and mate would have been coming. But black didn’t see it.

King to g8. “It’s going to happen!” I thought.

Knight to h6 gave a double check, so black cannot take the  knight or simply block the queen,

Black had to move back to h8 — or resign. “Oh, please don’t resign!

No resignation! Next came the most seemingly crazy move ever: the queen slid into g7 for check. Black could not take with the king because the knight defended the queen; black had to take with the rook.

The only problem is, in doing so, black took away the king’s only remaining flight square. The king was boxed in completely.

Knight to f7 for mate.

I can’t remember the last time I smiled so after a simple chess game.