beware the clex!
Jul. 24th, 2002 02:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hackthis_archivekassie - avert your eyes lest you run screaming into the street or something. everybody else, c'mon down and tell me your thoughts
~ * ~
~ * ~
Chess is a game of mind-fucks and evasionary tactics; it’s also a game of intelligence and patience. Mastering the chessboard lies in learning from mistakes and going left when your opponent swears you’re going to go right. Or sometimes going right when you’re opponent thinks you’re going to go right anyway.
Lex has always liked playing chicken; and he’s always liked playing chess, probably a bit more than is healthy, but that’s the way life is with all good obsessions.
As far as Lex is concerned there is a difference between a good obsession and a bad obsession. Example: Lex likes Clark Kent, he’s a bit obsessed with him, but Lex thinks that sort of obsession is healthy. Lex also has an obsession with pushing his father down a very long flight of stairs; his therapist once said that was a bad idea. A bad obsession. But Lex has never been one to rationalize his obsessions; they’re just there, happening for as long as he cares to remember.
Sometimes Lex can’t remember life before Clark; sometimes he can’t remember his life before he played chess. Lex has learned a lot about life from playing chess, by using the foresight and hindsight that it requires. He’s learned more about protecting his back and his flank from eighteen little marble figures than he has in most of the books he’s read.
Lex knows he has his mother to thank for shielding him against the dragon with it’s fangs and claws. She bought Lex his first chess set when he was seven, but instead of teaching him to play, she showed him how to play checkers. She said it was less taxing. His mother said chess would come to him naturally enough that she didn’t need to exacerbate the matter.
She was right. Lionel first taught Lex how to play chess in a hospital room when he was nine. It was probably the only effort Lionel has ever made to do something ‘normal’ with Lex, although Lex isn’t sure if being forced to read book after book about Gary Kasparov can be considered quality family time.
All the same, chess has brought Lex a lot of satisfaction over the years, and he can still remember the first worthy adversary he beat: Anton, an exchange student from Minsk. Lex was a third-year boarder while Anton was a fifth-year scholar at St. Stephan’s, and as Lex had suspected, Anton didn’t take losing well. However, even being hung out the window by his ankles didn’t deter the thrill of Lex’s win, and when Anton was deported rather suddenly, Lex made sure to keep his chessboard as a souvenir.
His first real victory.
Lex has had a lot more victories since then, some big, some small. And yet, even when he’s lost he’s been able to come back to the chessboard and see where he made his mistakes. Where he should’ve sacrificed a bishop in exchange for the long-term win.
Lex thinks that chess is a lot like life, a lot like history. In his mind chess pretty much *is* a lesson in history.
The key to history being that it repeats itself, and the key to chess being that it teaches its players how to learn from their mistakes. Supreme knowledge lies in learning from repetition.
From learning from ones’ mistakes
Chess is a game of forethought and strategy, and conquering the chessboard lies in remembering how it repeats. The game itself teaches the importance of repetition as much as it does the art of planning ahead. Of thinking things through. Only sometimes Lex doesn’t think things through as much as he should. That’s why it took him so long to beat his father at chess, but when he finally did, he went out and celebrated for three days – in Hong Kong. Of course when Lex came home the locks had been changed, but even that couldn’t deter his sense of fulfillment.
Chess has taught Lex a lot about life. About how to approach problems. He just doesn’t always listen. Although in his defense, it’s a bit hard to listen to rational thought when Clark Kent is towering over his board and blocking out the light. It doesn’t necessarily explain his other losses, but Lex isn’t really thinking about those. He *is* thinking, however, about how nice it is to get all his obsessive tendencies in one place.
“I know you’re there, Clark, I’m just thinking about something. Feel free to have a seat.”
“Have you been playing with yourself again?”
Well, in a certain manner of speaking, Lex never actually stopped. He doesn’t think that that’s what Clark is referring to.
“I’ve been doing some practicing if that’s what you mean.”
“But doesn’t that kind of defeat the purpose?”
“The only way to get better is to practice.”
“You sound like my father.”
“Well, your father is a smart man.” When he wants to be, and when he’s not trying to cut Lex off from Clark. Not that Lex can actually blame Jonathan Kent for that. It’s called foresight; maybe Mr. Kent plays chess. Or maybe he knows that Lex has taken a lot of time out to show Clark how to play chess, how the basics work, how the concept of chess itself is really larger than a simple chessboard.
Everything is a game in and of itself, and Lex really wants to play with Clark.
“That looks really complex.”
“That’s because it is.”
“What did you just do?”
“It’s called castling, do you remember that?”
“It’s when you swap your king and your rook, right?”
“Exactly. The thing about playing against yourself, Clark, is that it generally forces you to be honest. You have to do your best all around to psyche yourself out.”
“Oh, I could do that.”
“You could play with yourself?” Oh, god this is priceless. “I really think that’s your business, Clark.”
“Very funny, Lex. Notice the not laughing?” Not really. “I meant I could play against you, you know in a real match.”
“Do you really think you can take me?”
“I can try.”
Well, if Clark can try, so can Lex. Lex can even try not to decimate Clark in under five minutes. He just has to focus. It’s never as easy as it looks, but Lex has seen it done. Lex has read about it time and again, being in the zone, going into *that* place.
Theoretically, a grandmaster of chess could play in the freezing cold for a goose-down anorak as well as in the blazing sun for an umbrella and never think twice about anything else but the game. The end result.
A true grandmaster in chess sees the board and nothing else. The world could collapse, the sky could fall and someone who’s in the chess zone won’t notice.
Lex has had that experience once or twice.
Lex has seen chess players with the Zen mastery of Buddhist monks. He’s seen ten year-old savants beat 60 year-old wizards, and Lex will be the first to admit that the tactics for playing speed chess in Washington Square are very different from playing against the head of your resident house when the loser will have to drink a quart of sour milk and then spend 24 hours locked in the broom closet without a toilet.
“Are you sure you want to do this, Clark? I’m not going to go easy on you.”
“I wasn’t expecting you to.”
“You remember what I said about preparing for a match, right?”
“Chess is a matter of brains over brawn. It comes down to knowing your opponent and how they think. Winning at chess depends on whom you’re playing, when you’re playing and what exactly is at stake.”
“Right. So what exactly is at stake here? What’s the point in us playing besides me beating you?”
“You’re really sure you’re going to beat me, aren’t you?”
“I’d bet on it.”
“Really?”
“Why, are you interested in making a wager?”
“Yeah, I mean yes. I want to play for something.”
“Name your price: a cheerleader, a journalist, a truck. What will it be?”
“The truth.”
Pardon?
“You want to play for the truth?”
“Yeah, like Truth and Dare only it’s Truth and Chess.”
“Okay, you want to play for the truth. Like you get a piece and I tell you something you want to know?”
“Yeah.”
No fucking way.
“Okay, you know this is going to work both ways right?”
If that’s really what Clark’s saying, Lex is going in with guns blazing. This may be his only shot at anything resembling honesty for a very long time to come.
Every opening gambit says something about the tactic that Lex plans to take with his opponent, but none of those tactics are going to apply where Clark is concerned. Playing chess with Clark is not the same as playing with his father, at least not normally. That may change for this one match.
TBC...
~ * ~
~ * ~
Chess is a game of mind-fucks and evasionary tactics; it’s also a game of intelligence and patience. Mastering the chessboard lies in learning from mistakes and going left when your opponent swears you’re going to go right. Or sometimes going right when you’re opponent thinks you’re going to go right anyway.
Lex has always liked playing chicken; and he’s always liked playing chess, probably a bit more than is healthy, but that’s the way life is with all good obsessions.
As far as Lex is concerned there is a difference between a good obsession and a bad obsession. Example: Lex likes Clark Kent, he’s a bit obsessed with him, but Lex thinks that sort of obsession is healthy. Lex also has an obsession with pushing his father down a very long flight of stairs; his therapist once said that was a bad idea. A bad obsession. But Lex has never been one to rationalize his obsessions; they’re just there, happening for as long as he cares to remember.
Sometimes Lex can’t remember life before Clark; sometimes he can’t remember his life before he played chess. Lex has learned a lot about life from playing chess, by using the foresight and hindsight that it requires. He’s learned more about protecting his back and his flank from eighteen little marble figures than he has in most of the books he’s read.
Lex knows he has his mother to thank for shielding him against the dragon with it’s fangs and claws. She bought Lex his first chess set when he was seven, but instead of teaching him to play, she showed him how to play checkers. She said it was less taxing. His mother said chess would come to him naturally enough that she didn’t need to exacerbate the matter.
She was right. Lionel first taught Lex how to play chess in a hospital room when he was nine. It was probably the only effort Lionel has ever made to do something ‘normal’ with Lex, although Lex isn’t sure if being forced to read book after book about Gary Kasparov can be considered quality family time.
All the same, chess has brought Lex a lot of satisfaction over the years, and he can still remember the first worthy adversary he beat: Anton, an exchange student from Minsk. Lex was a third-year boarder while Anton was a fifth-year scholar at St. Stephan’s, and as Lex had suspected, Anton didn’t take losing well. However, even being hung out the window by his ankles didn’t deter the thrill of Lex’s win, and when Anton was deported rather suddenly, Lex made sure to keep his chessboard as a souvenir.
His first real victory.
Lex has had a lot more victories since then, some big, some small. And yet, even when he’s lost he’s been able to come back to the chessboard and see where he made his mistakes. Where he should’ve sacrificed a bishop in exchange for the long-term win.
Lex thinks that chess is a lot like life, a lot like history. In his mind chess pretty much *is* a lesson in history.
The key to history being that it repeats itself, and the key to chess being that it teaches its players how to learn from their mistakes. Supreme knowledge lies in learning from repetition.
From learning from ones’ mistakes
Chess is a game of forethought and strategy, and conquering the chessboard lies in remembering how it repeats. The game itself teaches the importance of repetition as much as it does the art of planning ahead. Of thinking things through. Only sometimes Lex doesn’t think things through as much as he should. That’s why it took him so long to beat his father at chess, but when he finally did, he went out and celebrated for three days – in Hong Kong. Of course when Lex came home the locks had been changed, but even that couldn’t deter his sense of fulfillment.
Chess has taught Lex a lot about life. About how to approach problems. He just doesn’t always listen. Although in his defense, it’s a bit hard to listen to rational thought when Clark Kent is towering over his board and blocking out the light. It doesn’t necessarily explain his other losses, but Lex isn’t really thinking about those. He *is* thinking, however, about how nice it is to get all his obsessive tendencies in one place.
“I know you’re there, Clark, I’m just thinking about something. Feel free to have a seat.”
“Have you been playing with yourself again?”
Well, in a certain manner of speaking, Lex never actually stopped. He doesn’t think that that’s what Clark is referring to.
“I’ve been doing some practicing if that’s what you mean.”
“But doesn’t that kind of defeat the purpose?”
“The only way to get better is to practice.”
“You sound like my father.”
“Well, your father is a smart man.” When he wants to be, and when he’s not trying to cut Lex off from Clark. Not that Lex can actually blame Jonathan Kent for that. It’s called foresight; maybe Mr. Kent plays chess. Or maybe he knows that Lex has taken a lot of time out to show Clark how to play chess, how the basics work, how the concept of chess itself is really larger than a simple chessboard.
Everything is a game in and of itself, and Lex really wants to play with Clark.
“That looks really complex.”
“That’s because it is.”
“What did you just do?”
“It’s called castling, do you remember that?”
“It’s when you swap your king and your rook, right?”
“Exactly. The thing about playing against yourself, Clark, is that it generally forces you to be honest. You have to do your best all around to psyche yourself out.”
“Oh, I could do that.”
“You could play with yourself?” Oh, god this is priceless. “I really think that’s your business, Clark.”
“Very funny, Lex. Notice the not laughing?” Not really. “I meant I could play against you, you know in a real match.”
“Do you really think you can take me?”
“I can try.”
Well, if Clark can try, so can Lex. Lex can even try not to decimate Clark in under five minutes. He just has to focus. It’s never as easy as it looks, but Lex has seen it done. Lex has read about it time and again, being in the zone, going into *that* place.
Theoretically, a grandmaster of chess could play in the freezing cold for a goose-down anorak as well as in the blazing sun for an umbrella and never think twice about anything else but the game. The end result.
A true grandmaster in chess sees the board and nothing else. The world could collapse, the sky could fall and someone who’s in the chess zone won’t notice.
Lex has had that experience once or twice.
Lex has seen chess players with the Zen mastery of Buddhist monks. He’s seen ten year-old savants beat 60 year-old wizards, and Lex will be the first to admit that the tactics for playing speed chess in Washington Square are very different from playing against the head of your resident house when the loser will have to drink a quart of sour milk and then spend 24 hours locked in the broom closet without a toilet.
“Are you sure you want to do this, Clark? I’m not going to go easy on you.”
“I wasn’t expecting you to.”
“You remember what I said about preparing for a match, right?”
“Chess is a matter of brains over brawn. It comes down to knowing your opponent and how they think. Winning at chess depends on whom you’re playing, when you’re playing and what exactly is at stake.”
“Right. So what exactly is at stake here? What’s the point in us playing besides me beating you?”
“You’re really sure you’re going to beat me, aren’t you?”
“I’d bet on it.”
“Really?”
“Why, are you interested in making a wager?”
“Yeah, I mean yes. I want to play for something.”
“Name your price: a cheerleader, a journalist, a truck. What will it be?”
“The truth.”
Pardon?
“You want to play for the truth?”
“Yeah, like Truth and Dare only it’s Truth and Chess.”
“Okay, you want to play for the truth. Like you get a piece and I tell you something you want to know?”
“Yeah.”
No fucking way.
“Okay, you know this is going to work both ways right?”
If that’s really what Clark’s saying, Lex is going in with guns blazing. This may be his only shot at anything resembling honesty for a very long time to come.
Every opening gambit says something about the tactic that Lex plans to take with his opponent, but none of those tactics are going to apply where Clark is concerned. Playing chess with Clark is not the same as playing with his father, at least not normally. That may change for this one match.
TBC...
