chesspolitik | The game - our one true guiding light

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The game - our one true guiding light

Strange island happenings might come and go, but nothing could keep Anatoly away from his routine. Tea in the morning and chess in the afternoon until he was gently reminded by someone to put the board away and get something to eat. It wasn't exciting, perhaps, but it was something all his own and he was finally free to keep it.

This afternoon, he was contemplating Kasparov once more, determined to wrest every bit of knowledge he could from the grandmaster. The chess board had been set up to reflect the particular game he was studying, and he had a listing of the play-by-play next to him. The man was brilliant, and it was a deep shame that he would most likely never meet him.

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Bart had been watching Anatoly play for a few minutes, drinking a glass of juice. He knew the game, but he also knew that Gary Kasparov was also a man who was a poor sport about being beaten by a machine. As if he hadn't gotten paid enough for that farce.

When he saw an opening, he went over to the board and casually shifted one piece before sitting down to see how the chess master would respond to the entire build-up falling apart.

Anatoly frowned at the piece being moved out of place and looked up in confusion. "That is not what the next move was," he said. "Everything changes if you put that piece there."

"Isn't that the point? Replaying old games doesn't change what happens. Although that's the next game in the series," Bart said, chuckling just a little.

"It helps me understand the man, what kind of player he is," Anatoly explained. He glanced down at the board again thoughtfully. "Both by what he did and what he didn't do. He wasn't prepared for this eventuality at all, which is interesting."

"I don't get it. Chess may tell you what a person sees, and how they react and plan for it, but it doesn't really translate to real life," Bart said, resting his elbows on the table as he surveyed the field of battle. "There was that one guy in the clinic who was complaining about the lack of players, so I beat him. Only game I've ever played."

Anatoly stared. Everything Bart had said earlier was lost in the stunning revelation that he met Freddie while he was still in the clinic and beaten him. Beaten him in the first game of chess he'd ever played, for that matter.

"You beat Trumper? I - you beat Trumper? On your first game?" Briefly, he wondered how Lex would feel about the prospect of him quasi-adopting another person then (very) reluctantly shelved the subject.

"I am impressed. Very impressed."

"It wasn't that hard. Photographic memory," Bart said with a laugh. "I read more than one book on the topic. So why should it be hard? I'm used to analysis and manipulation of systems. It's a lot harder when the system actually adapts."

"You know he is a grandmaster, yes? Many have tried and failed to win a game against him." Anatoly shook his head, amused by the whole thing. He could only imagine Freddie's rage upon his defeat... it brought a smile to his face.

"Perhaps it was easy to you but I am still very impressed."

"I showed him how," Bart said, shrugging. "It didn't seem fair not to. Since he spent half the game bragging about how good he was. Gave me plenty of time to set up a long game."

He gestured towards the board, asking without words if he should do the same again.

With a smile, Anatoly began to reset the board. Once everything was back in its proper spot, he gestured to Bart. "Black or white?"

He could already tell this game would be one of the more interesting ones. He'd do his best to win, of course, there was no holding back against anyone who could soundly defeat Freddie. But he liked to think that even should he lose, he would definitely learn something new.

"You pick," Bart said, already mentally going through the positions and permutations of the first few moves. "We both know that the advantages are negligible over the length of a game. And I challenged you, didn't I?"

"True enough," Anatoly conceded as he spun the board around so the white side was in front of Bart. "But I like to ask. It is always interesting to see what people choose."

"I never was much for patience," Bart admitted, starting with the eternal classic of D2-D4. And internally, he mourned the prevalence of the algebraic notation method in chess. "Which is probably why I'm not much for chess."

"You can play chess and be impatient," Anatoly remarked as he made his answering move. "You just won't play it well, that is all. For myself, I have found that I have patience for this, for chess. Other things, not so much sometimes."

"I just find the structure overly simplified and not at all constructive towards anything resembling battlefield conditions. For example, it's in a commander's best interest to cripple his enemy rather than kill him outright," Bart said, smiling slightly. He could maintain the two threads of thought easily. He wondered if Anatoly would.

"But chess is not war," Anatoly said mildly. He paused for a moment then shook his head ruefully. "It is not meant to be, at least. It is only supposed to be a competition. In its purest form, with no politics involved, it is."

"Originally, it was," he said, shrugging a little, making his next move quickly and decisively. "And people will bring politics into anything, it's practically human nature. Sullying an ideal."

Anatoly would know, since he was Russian. They were pretty much a textbook example of people ruining a planned society.

Anatoly was quiet as he contemplating the board for a moment, mindful not to make the mistake that Freddie had done and underestimate Bart. For the time being, he was going to play defensively.

"I wish I could say I didn't have first-hand experience," Anatoly remarked, a little bitterly. "But I suppose that is life."

"When I'm from, originally, the idea of actual first-hand experience of anything is frighteningly retro. The Legion shocked the world by taking kids off the underage monitoring system and gathering together in a park to hang out. And that was just on Earth," Bart said, a little fondly. "So some things...well, the universe is a crazy place. Even in the far future."

For the most part, Bart ignored Toly's defensive moves, never committing to a move that couldn't branch in unexpected directions. He didn't just pin a piece, he used the pin to lever a fork and open squares to his control. His game wasn't traditional, and appeared to be just as scatter-brained as the player, darting from move to move with no apparent reason.

"Far future? How far do you mean?" Anatoly tilted his head curiously. The underaged monitoring system Bart had mentioned sounded very much like something the Soviets would have fully supported, yet he knew they had fallen. Surely, they could not have risen again?

"About a thousand years," Bart said, thoughtfully. "It's the same, and not. But there's only one government on Earth."

"One government?" Anatoly moved his knight out of danger with a frown. "How did that come about or is that something I should not ask?"

"United Planets kinda made decisiveness among humanity a moot point when there were plenty of other aliens out there to be wary of, I guess," Bart said. "I don't know, Maybe my mother's side of the family managed something the way Lex Luthor managed to become president. I only spent a few weeks there when I wasn't in the VR chamber."

Pushing a pawn to pin the knight, he opened a fresh line of attack for his white-square bishop, his king right in the path. "Check."

The history was interesting if a bit frightening but Anatoly's attention was consumed by the more important revelation that he was in check. He had been so careful but not enough, it seemed. He would find a way out, of that much he was certain but he knew he couldn't afford any more mistakes.

He considered the board thoughtfully, playing out the various possibilities before moving.

One of the more important things about wargames, even abstracted ones like chess, was leaving your opponent uncertain of where your true objective lay. In this case, it was a feint, forcing Anatoly to the defense to see which of the choices he'd picked. Bart knew he couldn't have forced the end of the game with that particular check, and was more than willing to relent for the time being.

"I don't think about it much. Kon wasn't a part of that time, or the rest of my friends. So I came back. I'm sure the Science Police didn't mind," he commented idly.

"The Science Police?" Anatoly looked up at that, his hand still on his rook. "I hope you will forgive me for saying that the future world does not sound very...welcoming."

He glanced back down at the board and moved, leaning back in his chair after he had done so. it was time to take the fight to Bart. He thought he saw a way to victory and he needed to set up the pieces first, before the way could get closed off.

"That's what the Legion was created for," Bart said, with a laugh. "To keep the dreams of our time alive in that future. Reminding people there's more to life."

"I see," Anatoly murmured, though he wasn't sure he did. He cast his mind back to something Bart had said earlier. "You and Kon are friends, then?"

"For almost his whole life," Bart said, smiling a little. "We hated each other the first time we met, but that was pretty much a given. It was the three of us, really. Impulse, Superboy, and Robin. Rob and I have kinda changed handles, but there really isn't that much room for movement in the S family. And there's pretty much always been more than one Flash."

He moved, trying to work out just what was going on in the grandmaster's head as the game continued.

Cassie and Kon had both attempted to explain the superhero business to Anatoly but without much success. He understood the need for a code name and all the rest of it, but what was beyond him was why they would ever want to do such a thing. Still, he respected it was something they cared very much about and was equal to the passion he felt for chess.

He glanced down at the board, weighing his options. He had to tread carefully here, lining up his pieces for victory yet doing it in such a way to prevent from realizing the pattern he was setting until it was too late for him to do anything about it.

"But the three of you were friends, yes?"

"Yeah, it just worked out that way, I guess. Remember, Robin is the normal one of the bunch, as far as that goes. Cissie might qualify, but she had a stage mom for a parent, which makes that hard," Bart said, thinking about it. Some things didn't change. "But it's hard to think of her in that light, since she got out so cleanly. I hadn't talked to her in ages before she showed up here, my timeline."

He still felt a little bad about that. He'd left her alone because that was what she'd wanted, but that had left their friendship behind, too. It distracted him a bit from the game. "I always envied her strength, too."

"Cissie seems a very nice girl," Anatoly remarked absently as he debated his next line of attack. "And Cassie is very happy to have her, she tells me. She seems happy to have all of you here."

Cassie and Kon were dear to him as his own children, which meant in his brand of logic that Cissie and Bart would have to be looked after as well.

"We're family, or close enough. Nothing can just change that," he said, loyally.

He considered his next move, realizing belatedly that he was staring at a configuration looking rather like an intersection of one way and do not enter. Tapping his fingers lightly on the edge of the table, he wondered where he'd made a mistake.

"Family is very important," Anatoly agreed a bit wistfully. "Especially here where your own may not be here. I am glad for you all that you've found each other here. It surely makes it all easier."

Glancing at the board, he was fairly confident that he had Bart on the run, but he was far too seasoned a player to show it in his bearing. It wasn't over yet.

"I'd rather have the family I chose. My grandfather doesn't even want to me to call him that. He says it makes him feel old. And my twin, well, the less said about him, the better," he said.

Bart thought he might have one last trick up his sleeve, but it would have to wait until the right moment. Sometimes the overlooked pieces could regain power.

Anatoly was quiet for a few moments. He didn't know the situation between Bart's grandfather or his twin, but he couldn't help but wonder if what Bart felt was perhaps what his own own children felt about him. It was likely that while he was here, he would never know.

At least he was on surer ground with the chess. "Check."

"Hrmph," Bart said, taking the offending piece. It had been a fork, so he took the branch that seemed more advantageous in the end. He was going to make a good show of it, at least.

While Bart was making a truly valiant effort, he was heading down the direction that Anatoly had slowly and painstakingly set before him. The trap was all but set and it would all be over in a few moves.

His army decimated, and not in the original sense of the word, Bart finally relented with the available moves had narrowed to the point of no return. With a single flick of his fingers, he knocked down his king, then held out his hand to Anatoly.

"Clearly, this isn't my game. You should see me at Tetris. It's even a Russian game, at least originally."

Anatoly shook Bart's hand firmly. "It was a well-fought game. You should not feel any shame in that. You managed to defeat Freddie, which is no small thing at all."

"Tetris? What is this?"

"A video game. You have to line up falling pieces to make rows before the stacks reach the top. It's addictive, but pretty simple to learn. The real trick is learning to play well," he tried to explain.

There weren't many games that could pull Anatoly away from his beloved chess, but Tetris sounded intriguing and had the benefit of being Russian to its advantage. "You will have to show me sometimes," he said. "It sounds interesting."

"I'll have to see if anyone has it," Bart said, smiling slightly. He wouldn't even try too hard to beat him. Not at first.

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The game - our one true guiding light

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