My father taught me the rules of chess and played my first games with me.
He was serious about his game playing no matter what kind they were. He concentrated on crossword puzzles with an eye to learning and practicing the english language, Monopoly with the family, bowling with co-workers, billiards with drinking buddies, and gambling with televised sports. Along the way, there was Yahtzee, Mastermind (among others), and chess. His games were completely stowed away when they were finished and carefully put away on the back porch to perserve them.
He was the kind of parent who did not let his kid win a game against him just because he was learning to play it. So, I lost a lot of chess games to him. No one challenged his playing strength.
During summer vacation, at the Gintaras Resort on Lake Michigan, near Union Pier, Michigan, he played took on the challenge of matching skills in drinking and chess playing with the Lithuanian master, from the old country, Povilas Tautvaisas. He wasn't good enough to best him.
Meanwhile, I found other people to play, maybe that summer. Clearer in my memory were the contest among the McKay Elementary School students in my class. I seem to remember three players being the best. Short, red-haired Tommy Horton, my fellow Lithuanian immigrant's son, Tommy Vieraitis and me. We may have even gotten some time during regular class time to play, which was a treat.
Opening play, those days, tended to be rigidly formaltic: some classmates liked pushing their rook pawns forward and unleashing the rooks to their work. Others like the one square advance of the bishop pawns, along with the knight manuever to rook three, then bishop two. Horton's automatic sequence was to bring bishops to knight five and trade any opposing knights at bishop six without prompting.
The one class championship tournament came down to a question of pairing assignments in my mind. Our top three players had an equilibrium in this pattern: I could beat one of them. He could beat the other, but the other one could beat me. So, if the guy who beat me, met the guy I could beat first, then I would be safe. That is exactly what happened.
Surely practice helped improve my skill, but somehow getting a hold of Fred Reinfeld's "The Complete Chessplayer," and taking it seriously, opened my eyes, in a way nothing else had ever done. It solidly showed me the knight forks and bishop pins that I could know play with a recognition of them as a repeatable tool motion and an appreciation of their strength.
Good news and bad news: When I returned to play my dad, I beat him. The good news was what I achieved. The bad news was my dad didn't want to play me again. He wouldn't face me again for a decade. By then, I was an experienced tournament chessplayer and it wasn't so important to faceoff with him.
