Saturday 30 June 2007

Teaching my wife to play chess


I have been happily married to my wonderful wife Catherine (pictured) for 7 years and although she loves me, she doesn't share my passion for chess. As a result, she has tolerated my addiction with (mostly!) good humour but has never expressed any desire to share in my hobby - until now.

A few days ago, and quite out of the blue, Catherine decided that she needed a hobby and since I play chess, she thought playing chess would be a good idea since I could help teach her and we would share an interest.

I wasn't sure if she was really serious or not, but the next day she asked me when she could have her first lesson. I was happy to oblige and have now given her two lessons and she seems to be enjoying it. She's also reading The Immortal Game (which I recommended) to learn a bit about chess culture.

I'm not sure how to react to this turn of events. I feel like I might be about to become a living example of this humorous story! Has anyone else ever taught their partner to play chess? If so are you still together after the experience?!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

How nice of her :-)

Maybe now she'll learn to understand what drives us chess playing geeks ;-)

Blue Devil Knight said...

My wife agreed to play me blindfold. I don't think she enjoys it, but does it to humor me. You are lucky!

Anonymous said...

I used to play chess with my wife but as I progressed she lost interest quickly. So we tried "learning" games where I would question her poor moves. You can imagine how that worked out.

Now we never play.

Ryan said...

Very funny, Anonymous! I've no intention of playing my wife - she's much more competitive than I am! It wouldn't be a good idea...

Anyway, she's moved on to learning the piano now, so chess has been left behind! ;-)