the martin family mystery

last month for valentines day, martin asked out my mom.

later he asked if she would marry him. i gave them my blessing.

from there, he welcomed me into his family, as one of his twelve children. ive always wanted a big family; it seemed like a dream come true.

now, just one month later, i find out martin already has a family.

the members of his family are the bots of the month, complete with a custom theme. one of the family members included is martina, his wife. she seems lovely. but does she know about his second family, about his proposal to my mom?

...should i tell her? does she not know?

...do i need to disown my new dad?

perhaps it is too soon to feel betrayed. perhaps ive got it all wrong. so i am here to learn what is really going on with martin.

 setting the visual scene

first, let us see what clues we can glean from the special visual design created for this month’s bots. there is a unique board color as well as background image.

are there any clues in this green and white board theme? perhaps the colors are in reference to the bulgarian flag, honoring martins nationality, and inciting the player's curiosity for how martin ended up as part of an american family?

the rgb values are slightly different between the flag icon and board color, but according to wikipedia it turns out the green stripe in the bulgarian flag can have a range of hues depending on how much it is supposed to represent a real life cloth textile versus digital screen green. the textile version is quite teal, especially in comparison to other green in flags such as brazil, italy, ireland, india, hungary, etc.

the bulgarian flag is quite unique in its greenery.

the green of the special theme chessboard is within the range between textile and digital bulgarian green, and so it may be a clue that martins bulgarian heritage is important to the story of his family.

the brown of the pieces might be to mirror the brown of martins shirts. in fact, the lighter brown of his old and new shirts match almost exactly, in a color that i believe is officially called “betrayal brown.”

in the background we can see a view of martins living room, where a large portrait of his featured family hangs above the couch. the dog naps peacefully, unaware of the sins of his master.

where are the rest of his children? how do they feel about being left out of this portrait that looms over the living room? surely not as bad as it feels to be left out of their fathers second secret family.

but there is only so much we can learn from eyeing the scene. we must interview the man himself, and see if we cannot come to some understanding.

1. martin m. martin

if this is a case of mistaken identity or there is some other explanation, i should give martin the opportunity to clear things up before i risk breaking apart a loving family. and so i played a long careful game.

martin has gotten older and has gone a bit grey since he started playing on chess.com, as u can see by the difference between his original profile photo and the one for this month:

it is a reminder that time passes, and things change.

we started our game as if nothing was wrong. martin talked a lot as usual.

he offered to adopt me again. did he not remember that i had already become one of his children? or was he doubling down, showing no shame for the second family his wife doesnt know about?

martins social moves are as mysterious as his chess moves, and in this game i decided to try also changing things up from normal. yes, i could call him out directly. yes, i could sacrifice my bishop on move 26 and have a path to mate. but... perhaps something more slow and subtle is needed here, to draw out more information.

martin played better than i expected for a 260, with 76% accuracy. perhaps he has grown as a player in the years since he began at chess.com. or, perhaps he is hiding some chess skill as well.

in these games i have included the bots original dialog, and no other annotations:

martin is so charming, and appears so earnest. and yet... i have met many men who appear the same, while hiding their true selves.

i was left unsure what to think.

perhaps i will learn something from his son, martin jr?

2. martin jr.

this kid is not only my brother but my new best friend and kindred spirit. his personality won me over instantly.

i hope martin-dad is serious about having me as part of his family, and that martins wife isnt mad about his indiscretions, because i want martin jr to be my bro forever.

he also takes after his dad when it comes to ability to blunder queens.

but i dont mind playing a friendly game with my bro, even if its not a beautiful high level masterpiece. and look, his accuracy was higher than mine!

i was in no rush to finish our game cuz i wanted to enjoy hearing all of his thoughts.

3. marty the dog

ohhhh nooooo, the dog has melted my heart in the first millisecond, which is interfering with my plan to heartlessly interrogate this dog about his master.

when a family pretends to be loving on the outside but is a horror behind closed doors, the behavior of their dog reveals all. and yet this dog behaves exactly like you would expect a dog to behave in a family that is secure, loving, and wonderful.

and i want to be part of this dogs family too.

ever since i learned it is possible to long-castle into checkmate, that has been my ambition. so i wasted a bit of time in this game on chasing that possibility, but i dont think marty dog understood thats what i wanted cuz he didnt go for it, so i just had to settle for my 2nd fav move, a long castle into check.

i also spent some time trying to see if i could checkmate with 2 knights, and i eventually calculated that it wasnt possible if he didnt play into it (which turns out to be correct. fun to prove tho.)

interrogation complete! and all i learned is that marty is a good boi.

next, if there is anything lower than interrogating a dog, it is interrogating a literal baby.

and yet, in my pursuit of the truth, what else am i to do?

4.1 losing to a baby

i lost my first game against this baby.

martin the xiii played the english opening, which apparently i have played 0 times as black. but i did what made sense to me and it was fine at first, even if i felt pretty cramped.

but eventually i miscalculated this exchange and thought my bishop would be safe where it wasnt. i think i was still remembering "bishop safe here" from an earlier board state when it was protected, and i didn't recalculate to consider what had changed.

the baby played too good and distracted me from my interrogation.

im determined to beat this little snot-nosed... uh, i mean, perfect and beautiful tiny baby full of infinite potential... new little sister of mine.

4.2 a horrifying twist

journaling my chess progress is a process of trial and error. i take a lot of screenshots, and i like to show the bot themes. but when i go to game review, the special themes revert back to the website theme, which is why sometimes i splice screenshots together to show game review stats together with the bot chessboard theme.

well, this month, the special bot theme is available as a website theme! unlike last month, u can go to settings and make the bot theme the theme for all games, and including game review.

i only noticed that just before this rematch with a tiny baby. but i thought: this will not change much. all it does is make it so that when i go to game review, it will maintain the martin family theme, so i dont need to splice images together.

and visually, yeah. thats all.

but...

when i started up this rematch with tiny baby martin xiii, the website greeted me with an unexpected sound.

the sound of... a car rumbling, starting up? what could this mean?

confused, i began my game with baby martin xiii.

we played our game. this time, i did not blunder any bishops.

all was well, right?

except... when i finally got that checkmate...

there was a jarring sound effect.

it sounded like... a loud breaking, crunching, a... a car crash?

why does the custom martin theme start with a car starting up, and end with a car crash?

what does this mean for the mystery of martin and his family?

5. martina

martina is so lovely and nice. i dont want to break her heart. but i also dont want to be presumptuous. whatever is going on with martin, surely she is savvy enough to understand more about it than i do.

so rather than presuming to tell her about her husbands faults---as if i know better---we will hash it out over the board. i was ready for a real game of chess, with no blunders. and i was ready for some real information on martin, from an adult who is not a dog.

i have been starting to learn the sicilian defense, and luckily i had just learned the rauzer earlier this day. unluckily, the rauzer line i learned was not the main line that she chose, and so my first non-book move was on move 9 when i apparently made a significant mistake, not knowing that she was still on book.

and from there she was just... better. both as a chess player and as a human being.

martina. martina, you are so brilliant and capable. and so loving and accommodating of ur husband.

if u were a lesser woman, it would break ur heart when martin forgets u. when he thinks he is not yet married. when he tries to build new families.

and yet, u have clearly found ur peace. and ur family has found its ways to be a family, even ur children understanding when dad is being dad. its something he doesnt have control over.

it isnt my business what martins exact medical issues are. did the car crash leave him with amnesia? or with a traumatic brain injury of some other sort? or is it something else?

i may not know the details, but i can trust martina and take her lead. martin did not betray me. he did not betray her.

martin is the kind of dad that might not always know he is our father. but he does always show up to play a game with us. any time, any place.

he might not remember he is our father, but he always, always wants to be. he would choose it again and again and again.

i love u martin-dad. sorry for doubting u.