Chess Rituals
The other day I was in Venice Beach when I saw a stand with a sign that read, "Free Checkmates." I chuckled to myself at the genius of this and thought I'd throw in a couple bucks into the "donate to support chess" fund as I said to the park player, "Nothing's free." I let him have the white pieces and did battle all the way down to a rook vs. knight and 2 pawn endgame that ended up a draw.
We drew quite a small crowd, even the bikers slowed down to look over and admire the battle taking place: him moving his king fast, and myself, delivering a series of rook checks before realizing that the game was going to drawn by three-fold repetition.
Before I left, I made sure to shake his hand, and as he leaned forward a chess medallion appeared hanging from his neck. I inquired, and he indulged: the chess medallion is awarded on a weekly basis, to the winner of the local Venice Beach chess club tournament. He said he had it now for a couple months in a row, maybe 6 weeks, the details are foggy. The winner of the tournament pridefully gets to show off their bling for a whole week, and also to take care and see that it not be lost or stolen in any way. This ritual is just one exciting part that accompanies the age old tradition of chess. Tournament bling, trophies, or prize money all carry some weight of pride with them, but it's the collectible stuff, the things we can't keep forever that remain awesome and are engraved forever on our chess brains. Like this cake for my 30th birthday, I didn't want to eat it because I wanted to keep it forever.
One might recall the chess piece, I believe it was a bishop, from the movie Inception, they called it a totem, or something to remember that you are in a dream. For Leo, it was a top that he would spin, and of course the killer ending that we don't know if the top spins forever or topples over, was he in a dream or...fade to black. What we forget is that his totem, his ritual, was something unique and special that he carried around with him to remind him of something, just like the Venice Beach park player's medallion. For me, I have a few special totem's I'd like to share with you as well, kind of like having a chip stacker in poker. For my OTB games or sometimes when I just am going out in public or to a party, I'll have my chess ring and gauges (earrings) with me.
Lastly, if you don't have a totem yet for chess, now's a good time to start a chess ritual, if not for anything else but to remind oneself to have the imagination of a child and to see that which cannot be seen by the adult mind. Chess is a beautiful game full of art, sometimes if we slow down long enough to calculate all the possibilities and lines, we can renew those dreams once again.
