CHESSWORLD.NET

While I have been laid up with back pain and sciatica I have been keeping myself amused by playing Chess on the internet. If you fancy your chances against me [or any number of other players] you can subscribe to chessworld.net and look me up. But it will cost you £12.00, or $22.50 or €17.50 for a one year full membership subscription. Or you can just come along as a guest and play for free.

My cousin, Mike Carney, taught me how to play Chess over thirty-five years ago. Unfortunately the only set we had was missing several key pieces, so
I learnt to play with only one bishop and/or only one knight. In retrospect it was a surreal introduction to the game, and Mike was a formidable opponent.

Even as a young teen Mike had an impressive intellect and I stood in awe of him. While I read science fiction he would be reading Wittgenstein! [I kid you not!] Mike had much more capacity for hard work than me and this combined with his natural gifts quickly took him onto better schools and ultimately to university. I had that typical teen conceit that success would come to me naturally without any undue effort - in fact "effort " was just `not the done thing' - not least because it drew the attention of the school yard bully.

In retrospect it is a little puzzling how Mike and I struck up such a strong frienship. Perhaps it was that we came from an extended Roman Catholic family and had become ardent atheists while retaining the angst of the recusant outsider. In any event we were the same age and as we all understand, most thirteen year olds know what's wrong with the world
and it isn't them!

Mike and I lost touch - our academic trajectories took us in very different directions. And I became a Christian in 1975 when I was seventeen. I never could buy into the notion of moral relativity because, it seemed to me
self evident that, there is such a thing as "Natural Law", a la Aquinas but actually preceded by Paul in Romans 1 and 2. I simply could not see my way to the conclusion that "everything is relative!" This was a regression from Mike's perspective and I had yet to learn to disagree agreeably with people. His take on my conversion was that I had lurched into obscurantism
and, in fairness, I did little to demonstrate the grace of Jesus to him.

Ironically thanks to the churches I have belonged to over the years I have developed an interest in apologetics [countering objections to the Christian
Gospel ] and that has taken me into the philosophical areas Mike explored years ago. If I had my time over again we could probably have a "good argument" - in the sense of being both thoughtful and gracious! I guess I am a late developer.



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Post-Script, 12th June 06.
When you start playing with Chessworld.net you have a nominal score of 1400. You gain so many points for a win and so many for a draw and have points deducted if you lose. After a shaky start I've managed to get to 1511. If any of you out there rose to my challenge to play and I declined the game I am very sorry. I realise now that there are only so many games one can keep tabs on. Maybe try again later?

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Post-Post-Script, 18th June 06.
It's a calendar month since I joined chessworld.net and my rating has taken a beating in that time...down to 1326 currently. I came across a "centile" of my performance and it was 26%! If I understand this correctly that means I'm way below average. I have changed my "stated strength" from `intermediate' [which is what I initially, genuinely, thought was my standard] to `beginner'. Maybe I've always had much too high an opinion of myself and it is quite liberatingto discover a more realistic appraisal of oneself! Truth is always preferable to self delusion and true freedom can be found in humility - which, when all is said and done, is merely seeing things the way they really are. And this is not just about Chess; it's about "face"!