I played a stranger today at a chess board in a hotel lobby

It was a lot of fun! I was white and able to open with e4 and d4. Later I moved my Queen to a7 and took his rook and knight, and was feeling pretty good about myself. And that’s where the good play ended. He slowly started to gain material back starting with my rooks. After one last attempt to force a smothered mate, he took my Queen with his remaining rook and I resigned with 4 pawns to his knight took and Queen. It was an unconventional game because he opened with a and h 6, didn’t care about castling, and just did some weird stuff I don’t see often in online play. In one instance I passed on taking a free knight so that I could castle. It ended up biting me in the butt positionally just a few moves later. So after all that I decided playing with strangers is fun (and time consuming lol). It was a great game and I need to make sure I don’t get stuck playing crappy and over focusing on principles when opponents play unconventionally.

Unconventional play makes it difficult to follow opening lines, but the principles will always be there.

I played with an older gentleman in Romania in a park. He crushed me but it was a cool experience

Chess is a great uniter. It enables us to easily make friends across political, racial and gender lines.