Spawning.
Story elements chosen: (Custom)
Pawn to d4. The Queen’s Pawn opening – a classical way to open the game that has stood the test of time. As subtle as it was, it conveyed information. The King, her opponent, was a positional player. More than likely he was looking for a slow, grindy game. Typical of these old bastards she thought. Naturally, her remedy was to play tactically. A quote from a former hero of hers, Michael Tal, came to mind. You must take your opponent into a deep dark forest where two plus two equals five, and the path leading out is only wide enough for one.
The spectators, an amalgam of desperate locals and useless travellers, keenly awaited Lana’s response. She pleased them, though questionable to what degree, by elegantly raising her right hand and picking up the pawn on f7, then placing it one square forward to f6. Immediately she felt the hot gaze of her less-than-hot adversary. She dared raise her glance to meet his. The look of repugnance said exactly what he felt about her opening. He played pawn to e4, expanding in the centre, as he should in retaliation to such provocation. Black king to f7, signifying the Bongcloud opening. A troll opening widely regarded as extremely bad, being that it broke all opening principles for absolutely no reason. The only upside was that the position of whoever employs it will be so bad that for the next 5 to 10 moves they’ll know exactly what to do – that is, to fix their position.
Lana feel the intense gaze of her fellow villagers. She didn’t need to look at them to feel their disgust. And rightly so because it seemed that Lana was purposefully throwing the game away. A method to the madness existed though. Every year the King issued a challenge to the strongest chess player of Tuareg. The resources he provided were strictly contingent, she figured out, to the quality of the chess game as well as the result. The last ten year’s there have been an overwhelming failure. And therefore each year, the villagers nominated different candidates. This years was hers. Based on her research she had a strong suspicion that the past to the most success was by taking him through an emotional rollercoaster, before finally concluding the game into a draw. She assessed that objectively she was the stronger player, although he was no slouch himself, but in this predicament, it was more about how he felt throughout the game than the game in of itself. If she put her all into it and demonstrated a marauding expedition, his humiliation would surely see to it that they were cut off for another year. Similarly, if she lost without an ounce of struggle, his disappointment would add on to the last 10 years’ worth and the result would be the same. Therefore that left one thing, which is what she concluded earlier.
Lana looked at him with pity. Poor guy was just playing a game of chess, eyes darting across sixty-four squares as he calculated moves, whereas she was not just playing chess on a board, but also in real life.
After a flurry of moves transpired, one side playing to kill and the other playing increasingly provocative, their clocks read 5 minutes and 4 minutes, respectively. It was Del Rey’s turn to move, and the position was as such.
Notwithstanding her precariously placed king and ill-advised pawn structure, she had daringly stolen a pawn from him and now made serious threats of her own. If it had stemmed from a sound opening, perhaps the annoyance that overtook his countenance would be a lot more mild. Middle-aged chess players loved respectful chess. Meaning when both sides played a proper opening, sound middlegame plans, and a decent endgame. Her style was the diametric opposite. High risk high reward chess. Making moves that were either outright, but difficult to figure out blunders and pure genius. She was an artist, and her seniors hated her for it. She assumed their ego hurt less when they lost to a solid player as opposed an opponent that endlessly teases them with bad moves, and just when they feel like they’ve won the game, they’re out calculated, outfoxed, and essentially robbed blind of everything they’re worth.
Much to his chagrin, the King had to retreat his queen back to d2 - offering a queen trade and silently admitting error. Lana took some time to observe the nuances. A queen trade would snag her another pawn. Even though her position experienced a quick surge of energy, she understood that white had the better long-term prospects. Her bishop on c8 and both of her rooks were out of play. So a queen trade would diminish some energy from the board and allow her a modicum of time to unravel herself. So she took the queen, his king took back, and then her knight took on d4.
With lively exuberance uncharacteristic for people his age the King sat upright and banged a move onto the board in the blink of an eye. Shocked, Lana blinked a number of times to evaluate what she had done wrong. Then it hit her. The correct move order was to take his g pawn first with her f5 pawn, then take the d4 pawn with her knight. A nuance she glossed over. Her eyes darted to the clock. She almost kicked herself but remembered that this is exactly what she wanted - to give him the advantage so that he at least feels something went positively for him during the game. 2 minutes for her to play the remaining game whilst he had 4 minutes. Unquestionably, time pressure was a bitch; it was the destroyer of beautiful positions and reinforcer of bad habits. However, being able to play accurate, sexy chess in under time pressure made you appear all the more talented to your peers.
Twelve moves ensued then the clock struck one minute. Her position was dire and she was losing her confidence to be able to swindle the game into a draw.
If the guy was worth his salt he would have long exchanged his knight for her bishop, corralled the pawn and then entered a technically winning endgame with no chance for her. Instead, he aimed to slaughter her king instead. Lana respected that. She was the same way. It was both her strength and weakness. If an advantageous position arose and there were two ways to proceed, one to simply win material and enter a won endgame, or two, go for something extremely tactical in hopes of creating beautiful combinations, she almost always went for the latter. The downside of that, however, was that it could blow up in your face, which it did a number of times. Indeed chess is a game rich in counter-play and counter-attacking ideas.
Rook to g6. Pawn to f5. Every move came with a force. The King made sure to drop the pieces with a loud thud for emphasis. Rook h6. Pawn to f6. Pawn takes pawn. Knight takes pawn, check. Crushing. Lana’s king was nearing checkmate. And her opponent was being insanely precise. She stole a quick glance at the old fart before her only to see him doing the same. Disheartened, she exchanged her rook for the marauding knight, giving up a more valuable piece of a lesser one. But what else? Rook takes back. Pawn to b6. Desperation. Pawn to e7, threatening to promote it into a queen. Bishop to d7, temporarily stopping it. Here, King took a pause to calculate how he should proceed. To anyone else that was a good investment of his time, to figure out the knockout blow, but in this case against this particular player, it was a costly mistake. Lana had 15 seconds left, him 50 seconds. The more practical decision was to flag her on the clock. Thinking on his time meant that she too was also thinking during his time, allowing for instant responses when he moved.
Del Rey furiously scanned the board as she crunched several continuations. All of them were similar in helplessness but one eventually stood out. Closing her eyes and visualising the pieces in her mind, she moved them around expertly. It was then she found a trick so unbelievably cunning and sexy that it made her wet. It took her all not to give away any signs of renewed hope. All she could do was steer the game towards that direction and he hope falls into it. 15 long seconds lapsed when the King finally played rook from h1 to f1 with expressed intentions to checkmate her.
Heart pounding in her chest, she slide her bishop to e8 to provide some semblance of defence to her desolate king. The King took one glace at the clock, then at the position, then at the clock again. He too was starting to feel it. Come onnnnn, just take the easy way out. Simplify, you old ****. Almost as if he heard her thoughts, he forwent his plans of castigating her king and went for liquidation to an endgame that would 99 times out of 100 be completely winning. Except this time! He moved to rook f8, check. She blitzed out king to g7 as fast as humanely possible. Rook from f1 to f7, check. Delighted he was as he thought it was a cute little tactic that won him the final black rook on a8. Bishop took rook and then rook took rook on a8. And now came the big moment. She dejectedly pushed her d4 pawn to d3 with unrealistic hopes of promoting it to a queen.
The King looked at her and scoffed. Fat chance bitch. Furthering his plan to liquify everything, he promoted the pawn. Her heart skipped a beat. The final misstep she needed! She immediately sat up straight, correcting her posture, and snapped off his queen. He misunderstood her renewed sense of confidence. Thought it was even misplaced. Surely, she was busted. He scooped up her bishop. And now came the gorgeous move that robbed him blind and took everything he was worth. He had a knight and a rook, but it was her final minor piece that gave her the miracle save. She landed her bishop to d4 with a thunderous bang, offering to sacrifice her bishop!
Her clock read 7 seconds, his 15 seconds. It took him 5 seconds to calculate and realize her ingenuity. If he captured the bishop with his king, she would run her pawn down to d2 and then promote to a queen on the next move. And because the king captured the bishop, he would mathematically not be in time to move the king out of the way again and then place his rook on d8 to stop the pawn – that would require two moves, but she queened in one. And if he refused to take the bishop, it would be the same thing. The entire tactic revolved around blocking the pathway a future rook to d8 would have. Those in the audience who could see the board lost their minds. The King did not have time to be heartbroken. All this mental cognition brought him down to 7 mere seconds as well. In utter disbelief, he realize he was even lucky to have the correct configuration of pieces to give Lana a perpetual. Perpetual of course meaning the king is continuously harassed with inescapable checks, and as per rules, once the same exact positions are repeated 3 times, it is an automatic draw. So he went for it. Rook to e7 check. King to g8. Rook to e8 check. King to g7. This was repeated a number of times with earnest speed. And with 2 seconds remaining on the clock for each player, the game was established as a draw.
Lana slowly looked up from the board. The King sat back in clear distraught. Silence reverberated across the room. And then his loud laughter cut through it. Lana took that as a cue to smile back, and lent her thin hand to offer a handshake, as customary after a game. He met both her hand and her eye contact.
“That was quite the mess, huh?!” he bellowed. Indeed, it was a shitshow. Giving him the advantage was part of the plan, losing control was not. Her vicissitude of fortune changed for the better.
“That opening you played was fucking bollocks!”, his expression switched immediately.
“Forgive me, I just wanted to experiment”, she smiled.
The king called over his assistant, who promptly lent her ear to him. He whispered a few things, she nodded curtly and left. Then he turned back and proceeded to analyse the game with her. He wondered if the final position was really a perpetual. If the king actually had a chance to escape. So she indulged to point out a few variations. If the king tried to escape to e8, rook to f7 check and then rook to f1 would stop the pawn, winning for white. And alternatively if the king tried to escape via f6, she pointed out a beautiful line. The rook would check on e6, the king would move to f5, then the rook would try to sacrifice itself with a check on f6+. If the king moved to g4, refusing the sacrifice, then Rook to f1 was winning again. And if the king took on f6, then knight to d4 check would fork the king and the pawn, and once the king moved, then the knight would take the pawn, and thus the ensuing endgame is of course lost for black. So truly, a draw.
Long after the prodigious young girl left the venue, a crowd of her villagers warmly embraced her. Beyond ecstatic, they informed that the King had decided to be plentiful in the resources he’d provide for this year. To that, she was happy.
-
[Mission End]
Story elements chosen: (Custom)
- Once a year, the King challenges a constituent of Tuareg to a game of chess. He is as ruthless as he is extremely talented. The resources he provides for the village is solely contingent on how that game goes. The fact that some regions of Tuareg are close to famine speaks to how well the previous challengers performed. You were the (un)lucky recipient this year. Be warned, humiliating him with a crushing victory would be in similitude to losing without resistance. And do not entertain any ideas of a boring draw. Your objective is to find a fine line between these constraints in a way that brings the most success to the locals.
Pawn to d4. The Queen’s Pawn opening – a classical way to open the game that has stood the test of time. As subtle as it was, it conveyed information. The King, her opponent, was a positional player. More than likely he was looking for a slow, grindy game. Typical of these old bastards she thought. Naturally, her remedy was to play tactically. A quote from a former hero of hers, Michael Tal, came to mind. You must take your opponent into a deep dark forest where two plus two equals five, and the path leading out is only wide enough for one.
The spectators, an amalgam of desperate locals and useless travellers, keenly awaited Lana’s response. She pleased them, though questionable to what degree, by elegantly raising her right hand and picking up the pawn on f7, then placing it one square forward to f6. Immediately she felt the hot gaze of her less-than-hot adversary. She dared raise her glance to meet his. The look of repugnance said exactly what he felt about her opening. He played pawn to e4, expanding in the centre, as he should in retaliation to such provocation. Black king to f7, signifying the Bongcloud opening. A troll opening widely regarded as extremely bad, being that it broke all opening principles for absolutely no reason. The only upside was that the position of whoever employs it will be so bad that for the next 5 to 10 moves they’ll know exactly what to do – that is, to fix their position.
Lana feel the intense gaze of her fellow villagers. She didn’t need to look at them to feel their disgust. And rightly so because it seemed that Lana was purposefully throwing the game away. A method to the madness existed though. Every year the King issued a challenge to the strongest chess player of Tuareg. The resources he provided were strictly contingent, she figured out, to the quality of the chess game as well as the result. The last ten year’s there have been an overwhelming failure. And therefore each year, the villagers nominated different candidates. This years was hers. Based on her research she had a strong suspicion that the past to the most success was by taking him through an emotional rollercoaster, before finally concluding the game into a draw. She assessed that objectively she was the stronger player, although he was no slouch himself, but in this predicament, it was more about how he felt throughout the game than the game in of itself. If she put her all into it and demonstrated a marauding expedition, his humiliation would surely see to it that they were cut off for another year. Similarly, if she lost without an ounce of struggle, his disappointment would add on to the last 10 years’ worth and the result would be the same. Therefore that left one thing, which is what she concluded earlier.
Lana looked at him with pity. Poor guy was just playing a game of chess, eyes darting across sixty-four squares as he calculated moves, whereas she was not just playing chess on a board, but also in real life.
After a flurry of moves transpired, one side playing to kill and the other playing increasingly provocative, their clocks read 5 minutes and 4 minutes, respectively. It was Del Rey’s turn to move, and the position was as such.
You must be registered to see images
Notwithstanding her precariously placed king and ill-advised pawn structure, she had daringly stolen a pawn from him and now made serious threats of her own. If it had stemmed from a sound opening, perhaps the annoyance that overtook his countenance would be a lot more mild. Middle-aged chess players loved respectful chess. Meaning when both sides played a proper opening, sound middlegame plans, and a decent endgame. Her style was the diametric opposite. High risk high reward chess. Making moves that were either outright, but difficult to figure out blunders and pure genius. She was an artist, and her seniors hated her for it. She assumed their ego hurt less when they lost to a solid player as opposed an opponent that endlessly teases them with bad moves, and just when they feel like they’ve won the game, they’re out calculated, outfoxed, and essentially robbed blind of everything they’re worth.
Much to his chagrin, the King had to retreat his queen back to d2 - offering a queen trade and silently admitting error. Lana took some time to observe the nuances. A queen trade would snag her another pawn. Even though her position experienced a quick surge of energy, she understood that white had the better long-term prospects. Her bishop on c8 and both of her rooks were out of play. So a queen trade would diminish some energy from the board and allow her a modicum of time to unravel herself. So she took the queen, his king took back, and then her knight took on d4.
With lively exuberance uncharacteristic for people his age the King sat upright and banged a move onto the board in the blink of an eye. Shocked, Lana blinked a number of times to evaluate what she had done wrong. Then it hit her. The correct move order was to take his g pawn first with her f5 pawn, then take the d4 pawn with her knight. A nuance she glossed over. Her eyes darted to the clock. She almost kicked herself but remembered that this is exactly what she wanted - to give him the advantage so that he at least feels something went positively for him during the game. 2 minutes for her to play the remaining game whilst he had 4 minutes. Unquestionably, time pressure was a bitch; it was the destroyer of beautiful positions and reinforcer of bad habits. However, being able to play accurate, sexy chess in under time pressure made you appear all the more talented to your peers.
Twelve moves ensued then the clock struck one minute. Her position was dire and she was losing her confidence to be able to swindle the game into a draw.
You must be registered to see images
If the guy was worth his salt he would have long exchanged his knight for her bishop, corralled the pawn and then entered a technically winning endgame with no chance for her. Instead, he aimed to slaughter her king instead. Lana respected that. She was the same way. It was both her strength and weakness. If an advantageous position arose and there were two ways to proceed, one to simply win material and enter a won endgame, or two, go for something extremely tactical in hopes of creating beautiful combinations, she almost always went for the latter. The downside of that, however, was that it could blow up in your face, which it did a number of times. Indeed chess is a game rich in counter-play and counter-attacking ideas.
Rook to g6. Pawn to f5. Every move came with a force. The King made sure to drop the pieces with a loud thud for emphasis. Rook h6. Pawn to f6. Pawn takes pawn. Knight takes pawn, check. Crushing. Lana’s king was nearing checkmate. And her opponent was being insanely precise. She stole a quick glance at the old fart before her only to see him doing the same. Disheartened, she exchanged her rook for the marauding knight, giving up a more valuable piece of a lesser one. But what else? Rook takes back. Pawn to b6. Desperation. Pawn to e7, threatening to promote it into a queen. Bishop to d7, temporarily stopping it. Here, King took a pause to calculate how he should proceed. To anyone else that was a good investment of his time, to figure out the knockout blow, but in this case against this particular player, it was a costly mistake. Lana had 15 seconds left, him 50 seconds. The more practical decision was to flag her on the clock. Thinking on his time meant that she too was also thinking during his time, allowing for instant responses when he moved.
Del Rey furiously scanned the board as she crunched several continuations. All of them were similar in helplessness but one eventually stood out. Closing her eyes and visualising the pieces in her mind, she moved them around expertly. It was then she found a trick so unbelievably cunning and sexy that it made her wet. It took her all not to give away any signs of renewed hope. All she could do was steer the game towards that direction and he hope falls into it. 15 long seconds lapsed when the King finally played rook from h1 to f1 with expressed intentions to checkmate her.
You must be registered to see images
Heart pounding in her chest, she slide her bishop to e8 to provide some semblance of defence to her desolate king. The King took one glace at the clock, then at the position, then at the clock again. He too was starting to feel it. Come onnnnn, just take the easy way out. Simplify, you old ****. Almost as if he heard her thoughts, he forwent his plans of castigating her king and went for liquidation to an endgame that would 99 times out of 100 be completely winning. Except this time! He moved to rook f8, check. She blitzed out king to g7 as fast as humanely possible. Rook from f1 to f7, check. Delighted he was as he thought it was a cute little tactic that won him the final black rook on a8. Bishop took rook and then rook took rook on a8. And now came the big moment. She dejectedly pushed her d4 pawn to d3 with unrealistic hopes of promoting it to a queen.
You must be registered to see images
You must be registered to see images
Lana slowly looked up from the board. The King sat back in clear distraught. Silence reverberated across the room. And then his loud laughter cut through it. Lana took that as a cue to smile back, and lent her thin hand to offer a handshake, as customary after a game. He met both her hand and her eye contact.
“That was quite the mess, huh?!” he bellowed. Indeed, it was a shitshow. Giving him the advantage was part of the plan, losing control was not. Her vicissitude of fortune changed for the better.
“That opening you played was fucking bollocks!”, his expression switched immediately.
“Forgive me, I just wanted to experiment”, she smiled.
The king called over his assistant, who promptly lent her ear to him. He whispered a few things, she nodded curtly and left. Then he turned back and proceeded to analyse the game with her. He wondered if the final position was really a perpetual. If the king actually had a chance to escape. So she indulged to point out a few variations. If the king tried to escape to e8, rook to f7 check and then rook to f1 would stop the pawn, winning for white. And alternatively if the king tried to escape via f6, she pointed out a beautiful line. The rook would check on e6, the king would move to f5, then the rook would try to sacrifice itself with a check on f6+. If the king moved to g4, refusing the sacrifice, then Rook to f1 was winning again. And if the king took on f6, then knight to d4 check would fork the king and the pawn, and once the king moved, then the knight would take the pawn, and thus the ensuing endgame is of course lost for black. So truly, a draw.
Long after the prodigious young girl left the venue, a crowd of her villagers warmly embraced her. Beyond ecstatic, they informed that the King had decided to be plentiful in the resources he’d provide for this year. To that, she was happy.
-
[Mission End]
Last edited:
