Chess Nuts

I learned the game of chess
As a child from my father,
And it has been a passion
Pretty much ever since.
In high school I convinced myself
That I was pretty good
For I probably played 1000 games
Without losing a single match.
It was a different story in college,
However, where I finally played
Against somebody who
Had mastered the game.
I got soundly beaten
And discovered that there was
A whole lot more to chess
Than I previously thought.
I picked up a few chess books
In an effort to bolster my tactics
But never really became
A serious student of the game.
I just loved to play
Every chance I got.
I relished the challenge
Of a hard fought battle
And the competition to win.
There was plenty of competition
There in college
Especially from the foreign students.
Chess apparently was
Much more popular overseas
Then it was there in the US.
I visited the university chess club
But the people there seemed
An odd mix of characters
Not given to social graces
And seldom if ever seeing
The light of the sun,
And I could not see myself
As a member of
Their peculiar fraternity.
Once while driving around Los Angeles
With my new fiancée,
We happened on MacAurthur Park
Where the street people
Congregate to play chess
And I played a few games
But it wasn’t a place
Where I wanted to hang around.
There was a stabbing
While we were there.
In the San Francisco area
I got into postal chess,
Playing protracted games
That often went on for months.
That was when I seriously
Start building a chess library.
Anyone not completely into the game
Could not imagine how many books
Could possibly be written
On such a subject.
I have since come across people
Who have actually learned
German and Russian
Just so they could
Keep up with the chess journals
Written in those languages.
Chess was a common lunchtime activity
Among the engineers
There in San Francisco.
We got so that we could play
Five or six games in an hour.
Through the years
My brother, Lee, and I
Would play against each other
Every time we got together
And we were always dead even
No matter how much
Either of us studied.
Playing chess got to be a problem
Because I would play
To the exclusion of everything else,
Including eating and sleeping.
I quickly discovered
Chess was my one real addiction,
That it would get in the way
Of all the other areas of my life
If I let it.
After I moved to Ventura in 1983,
I largely restrained myself
And didn’t play that much anymore,
That is until I found out that Sal
My oldest daughter’s fiancée,
Was also a chess nut.
He wasn’t very good initially,
At chess I mean,
But he spent the next year
There in New Orleans
Polishing up on his game
And when he got back
We were just about even.
Now neither of us like to lose,
And certainly not to each other
So you can bet,
That somewhere behind the scene,
Each of us is secretly
Preparing for the next encounter.