Knights on the Square

Since I occasionally sleep in Washington Square Park, it has become somewhat of a home base, and I often find myself wandering over to the chess tables where an interesting slice of New York life takes place. This is the area made famous in the movie "Searching for Bobby Fischer" where chess "hustlers" set up shop, playing for money or other contraband.

There are about twenty tables in a rough circle, each with a permanent inlaid chess board. Various characters have staked out their tables where they can be found day in and day out, calling out to passers-by for a game or trash-talking one another. A sign above the square warns that playing chess for money is illegal, but this is happily ignored by one and all. Whether one just wants to learn or gamble, the game will usually cost about five bucks.

Most of the guys have chess clocks and often the games are blitz matches of five minutes per player to finish all moves. This leads to very quick, intense games and the atmosphere can be quite combative with opponents smacking down their pieces loudly when they move and verbally berating one another. It makes for great drama.

Some of the guys are homeless, some are drug addicts and/or dealers, and some are just chess afficionados. I have seen drug deals, drug use, fights break out, and even a police raid where the police drove their car into the park and into the chess circle area to arrest one of the guys. That makes for great drama too.

Sometimes on the weekends, parents will bring their young sons to play the hustlers, re-enacting scenes from "Searching for Bobby Fischer". Simon is a homeless guy that I've gotten to know and he reminds me a lot of Laurence Fishburne's character "Vinnie" in the movie. He even looks like Fishburne with dreadlocks. Simon is an interesting source of information on many topics, including the plight of the homeless, the changes he's seen over the twenty years he's lived in the park, and, of course, chess. He's currently trying to find the secret of the Universe through mathematics, though to be honest, I find some of his physics to be a bit questionable.

And then there's crazy Enrique from Brazil, probably the most brilliant chess player of them all. To play him is to endure a constant barrage of high-pitched shrieks, maniacal laughter, and shouts of "Never! Never! Never!" (As in "You should never make that move!" or "You will never beat me!" or perhaps, "Your life will never amount to anything!")

I love playing the game myself, though I am nowhere near as good as these hustlers. Since I don't have any money, they usually ignore me, but every now and then I can finagle a game out of one of them. This always becomes a great lesson in humility as they invariably hand me my head on a platter in very short order.

But, of course, these are great opportunities for practice, both game-wise and psychologically. The more I embrace both winning and losing, the more I enjoy the game. And chess is a great metaphor for life since they both involve inevitable gains and losses in position, tempo, and material. The more I can remain centered amidst the victories and defeats, then the more I am able to free myself from the suffocating grip of dualistic judgments such as winning and losing. Then perhaps life can become less about concepts such as success and failure, and more about enjoying the game itself.

Or perhaps this is all just a big rationalization for being a lazy bum.

Take the bait? Knight sacrifice. Checkmate!

"If I enjoy both winning and losing, then I never lose."
---nine-year-old Peter, son of a friend of mine