August 7, 2013--Knight's Moves

Chess is a game; a passion; can be a way of life, an obsession; and, for those of us like me, who do not play seriously or well, it is about metaphors. 

The most obvious are the military ones--about conflict, attack, retreat, capture, defeat, unconditional surrender--while for me the most interesting are those about the rest of life.

I know all the moves. Though by this I am not speaking braggadociosly or metaphorically--that I smugly claim I know all the moves--rather I mean I know how each piece moves and some rules such as those about passed pawns and castling (the only play in which two pieces are moved simultaneously--if one is extra patient and does not move the king or one of the rooks and the spaces between them have been vacated, one is rewarded for that patience by being allowed to castle, to make a strategic and advantageous move--a life lesson in metaphor about the opportunities that accrue from restraint). 

But I do not have the mind nor the patience to do enough studying or playing to rise above the level at which I used to play as a young boy with my father, who took pleasure in regularly "mating" me (speak about metaphors!) in Guinness-Book-of-Records' time.

I was inspired to think again about chess after moving on to the second volume of James MacGregor Burns' excellent biography of Franklin Roosevelt, The Solider of Freedom. 

Writing about FDR's strategic style, Burns compared Roosevelt's moves to those of chess's knights and not to the king's, which is surprising since so many of FDR's opponents and haters claimed that he aspired to be an American monarch. 

Middling knight's moves are dramatically different from those permitted the all-important king's--one measly space at a time in any direction, though not into check, into peril. Burns compared Roosevelt not to a ruler but to the unpredictably eccentric knight, the sole piece that moves in two directions at the same time and with the sanction--again the only piece permitted to do so--in its asymmetrical, staggered way, to leap over other pieces, in all directions, over friend and foe alike, and over white as well as black pieces. 

Here from Burns, comparing FDR with Hitler--

Grounded in the security of doting parents, fixed home, social class, family traditions, Roosevelt could not easily gauge this product [Hitler] of social void and revolutionary turmoil. Hitler had lacked a home, but had found a new home in the Nazi party, in its ideas, and comradeship. Though Hitler knew how to use the carrot as well as the stick, he had become a terrible simplifier. While Roosevelt proceeded with a series of knights' moves, bypassing, overleaping, encircling, Hitler went right for his prey--opposition parties, Nazi dissidents, Jews, small nations.

But as quirkily strategic as knights may be, researching a bit, I learned that they are especially vulnerable to lowly pawns. Here, from something I turned up--

Since knights can easily be chased away by pawn moves, it is often advantageous for knights to be placed in holes [a square that a player cannot hold with his or her own pawn] in the enemy position as outposts--squares where they cannot be attacked by pawns. Such a knight on the fifth rank [there are eight ranks in total] is a strong asset, and one on the sixth may exercise as much power [as the usually much more powerful] rook. A knight at the edge or corner of the board controls fewer squares than one on the board's interior, thus the saying, "A knight on the rim is dim!"

Thinking and acting as a knight served FDR well as he confronted enemies domestic and foreign. For the rest of us just attempting to make it through life while pursuing happiness, thinking and acting more like knights--with their capacity to bypass, leap, and circle--sounds about right.