Chess is MID

gustavo

When chess first began in India, it was perfect. All the pieces were perfectly balanced. There was an elephant, too. It was amazing until somebody brought it to Europe. Stinky, cheesy, smelly, disgusting Europeans changed the simple game of chess into a disgusting glob of sadness. WHERE IS THE ELEPHANT?! Maybe I’m being a bit harsh, though. Before disposing of chess as a whole, I will pinpoint the beaten-down, pathetic failures of modern chess.

When I want to play a board game, I want to get a casual game with moderate to decent brain use. Nobody wants to be sweaty and angry and sad and depressed and want to resign halfway into the game. There is no chance of redemption once you lose your vital pieces. Don’t even talk about the pawns, because they are a one-time use maggot that dies on impact with anything (But there are like eight). What is supposed to happen is that when you get to the end of the board with your pawns, you can resurrect your queen, but after the pawns go to pawn hell, they are stuck there. You are sitting on the board with a king and a rook while your opponent still has their queen. Unfortunately, there is little to do except just stalemate or checkmate yourself. Another thing, stalemating is awful. Say you are the one winning. You’re beating this guy’s booty in a game of chess, but he gets you into a position where all you can do is stalemate yourself. All this effort and skill just for that! The only reliable way to prevent that brings us to the next topic.

Why do I have to memorize every move ever made just to win? What are these goopy ahh names like “Fried Liver” or “Queen’s Gambit”. My opponent is always some soulless vessel who has dedicated their life to this awful game. I move my pawn forward and he says “Ah, the Belgians Fumble Gambit. In exactly 28 moves, you will fall to me!”. STOP. I don’t want to memorize moves. Just let me play! I want to memorize strategy, not moves. In Smash, a combo must be memorized, but it can be used in many situations. This is what chess should be. People say chess will make you smarter, but I can feel my brain compressing into pea size while the added knowledge wrinkles from before evaporates and leaves out my ears. “Chess makes you better at math”. Meanwhile, the only thing people learn from chess is “Black plays e6 to prepare to advance d7-d5, in order to immediately challenge White's pawn on e4…” WHY WHYW HWY?????

Abolish chess. Reform chess. It gets my #1 worst board game reward right next to the Odd1sOut board game. I can see, feel, hear, and taste chess reeking. Chess is more than just a game, it is an addiction. The very premise of somebody memorizing moves and strategies is insane. Anyway, I’m off to review video games.