My first victory against my father (of sorts)

Tonight was a pretty momentous occaison for me. I played a couple games against my father. The first game was over pretty quicky; he had me checkmated by his Queen in less than 30 moves. After showing me where I went wrong and how I could have saved myself, he agreed to another game. This game lasted at least a couple hours. This time, no pieces were taken for quite a bit, and I was able to knock out one of his Rooks with my Bishop after taking one or two of his Pawns. Eventually, it was down to just my Rook and King on the board, whereas he had only his King and a few Pawns. It ended up in a stalemate, as he couldn't promote one of his Pawns and my Rook was unable to checkmate him. However, seeing as my father has been playing chess his whole childhood (and on-and-off in adulthood), this was a victory for me. Since we're all into chess now, he's playing seriously again. As he gets better it will definitely become a challenge just to get a stalemate. Still, he said I'm improving so I'm quite pleased with myself.

Also, the chess books I downloaded were somewhat of a bust. The author writes in a very convoluted style, and the chessbaord diagrams don't show up properly. I don't have the patiences to read just the text, so it looks like I'm going to have to get my hands on a real chess book or two. Anyone have any good recommendations?