Yesterday I got to share some GC joy by playing a longtime chessplayer 4 games of Gothic Chess, OTB.

He is a sharp thinker by nature, and has been playing chess for 15 years. He played in high school and college, in the military and his police force also has a "team" whereby they play each other and across precincts. No novice to the standard game, we played a couple of tough games which I had the good fortune of winning. I showed him a couple games of FischerRandom to level the field a bit--I won one with Black, and so did he--and then I offered to show him something new.

We played 4 games of Gothic Chess, and the first 3 he traded off the Gothic pieces, to his disfavor. The 4th he kept them on the board, and we had such a powerful game (for our abilities, of course). The end came to pass with me holding my Chancellor and Queen against his Rook and Archbishop. Had he chosen not to attack, I would have had a time prying him out of his "pawn cloud" he spread quite creatively on his queenside. His king ran inside of it as one would a forest. :)

I pried him out of his safe zone after he tried to attack me. After this last game, he talked and talked about how powerful my Chancellor showed himself to be after some enjoyable attacks on my part, and corralled him out of his safe area.

He wants to play again next Friday.