Satoshi no no, p.12
Satoshi No No, page 12
Now he needed to upgrade his mode of transportation to something better than a bike. He felt like he was playing a really boring version of Grand Theft Auto. He had looked into renting a car, but it seemed that doing so without a credit card was next to impossible. You could make arrangements with the rental agency in person rather than online, but you’d have to leave a large enough deposit to cover almost any kind of damage to the vehicle. And at that point, you might as well just buy the vehicle outright.
So that’s what he did.
Chip had set up a meeting with a Craigslist seller of a 2007 Dodge Caravan. He started biking over to the guy’s house, but some hunger pangs convinced him to stop at a McDonald’s drive- through . He ordered a Big Mac meal with orange soda, but was dismayed when the cashier informed him that she couldn’t serve cyclists in the drive-thru.
Smarting from this discrimination, Chip locked up his bike and walked into the restaurant. He stopped in his tracks as he saw four cops at a table. A couple of them looked at him briefly, but went on with their conversation. Chip composed himself and continued.
I am not cut out for this.
He grabbed his food and left. When he got to his bike, he saw a couple of guys looking it over.
“That’s a pretty nice bike for hauling a bunch of crap,” one of them said.
Chip grabbed the bike and turned his back on them, pedaling away quickly. He continued on to the house of the van seller, pulling up in the early afternoon. Chip stepped off his bike and rang the doorbell of the modest rancher-style home. An older man greeted him and opened the garage door to show him the van.
“So, you said it’s running OK?” Chip asked.
“Yup,” the man said. “She’s got 150,000 miles on her, but everything’s fine. Brakes and oil change were done last winter. I don’t drive her much these days. These Caravans were supposed to have transmission problems, but maybe they sorted that out by this model year, because I never had any issues with the tranny. Replaced the alternator and power steering pump some years back. Nothing special.”
They went for a quick drive around the block. The van seemed fine, and perfect for Chip’s needs.
“I’ll take it,” he said.
“You don’t want to drive it a bit more, maybe on the highway?” the man asked, surprised.
“Should I?” Chip asked.
“Nah,” the man chuckled. “For this price, you can’t go wrong.”
The I-95 curved along Yankee Division, a shallow tree line hugging the road. It had been a long time since Chip had driven, let alone on the highway. He took the slow lane, enjoying the summer evening through the rolled-down windows. He hung his left hand outside, hopping and sailing on the wind as it reflected back into his face.
A radio commercial warbled pleasantly at low volume and then dropped off. Chip’s ears perked up to hear the opening chords of “What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?” He cranked the volume, singing along with abandon. The words spewed out, his hands slapping the wheel and the dash in time with the drums.
A smile like the cartoon, tooth for a tooth
You said that irony was the shackles of youth
Chip’s mind went back to his own youth. It was easy to see your life as a linear progression, as if everything was predestined. But there were countless divergences along the way, countless junctions and roads-less-travelled. The closer you looked, the less certain the path.
It took effort to place himself there, to open the right door in his memory. Not just a nostalgic glance at a photograph; a painting, a piece of a life, with all its imperfections.
08:
Redux
Mr. Sheaney’s room at Guildbrook Park Secondary School smelled of earthy dust and chemical residue. His physics and chemistry students had done a passable job of tidying up. Microscopes, flasks, and scales were stacked neatly in the cabinets along the walls. Windows were propped open, as always, in defiance of the school’s HVAC policy. Spring rain splashed down outside, kicking up fragrant notes and providing a calming background of white noise.
Rod Sheaney’s desk stood untouched and in relative disarray. Lesson plans were scattered around, hanging over the edges precariously. His keys and wallet were left unguarded for any student brave or foolish enough to snatch them. Only his empty cans of Diet Coke — dozens of them — stood neatly arrayed, a monument to his fervent devotion to the safety and efficacy of aspartame, the low-calorie sugar substitute whose chemical formula he taught to his senior students.
Mr. Sheaney paced the room with his hands behind his back, glasses low on his nose, occasionally fiddling with the little notebook in the pocket of his checkered shirt. He looked over each of the 10 tables, where 20 students sat facing each other over chessboards.
Mr. Sheaney barked out orders as he marched: “White squares on your bottom right, people! Queen on her own color. No embarrassing photos in the district newsletter. Pencils and score sheets ready — Travis, that means you, too. This ain’t no blitz tourney! Time control is 60 minutes per player plus 30 seconds per move, so set your clocks now. Plenty of time to write down every move. Even when we’re losing, we're learning. Remember: study, play, analyze, study, repeat. No shortcuts! We analyze every game, win or lose. Just ‘cause you win doesn’t mean you played well. Some of your worst moves might come in a victory. There’s always room for improvement.”
Parents milled about the makeshift gallery in the front of the classroom. Some leafed through paperback novels or newspapers, placid expressions on their faces. The more interested ones clutched stacks of chess literature, undoubtedly fresh from cramming a few more openings and endgames with their kids before the big day; these parents watched the boards with eagle-eyed intensity, reacting to tactics or blunders the way spectators at a baseball game might react to big plays. For them, the Under-14 School District Championship of 2001 was more than another extracurricular activity; it was a key cog in the machine that would manufacture their child's future achievement, not just in chess, but in life.
Chip looked up from his board and caught sight of his dad reading the Globe. He spotted Chip and gave him a wink and a thumbs-up. He had never really pushed his son. Chip found this strange. It seemed natural for a father to want his son to be better than him. Of course, Michael Sparks had always supported his son’s interests. He drove him to every hockey practice and chess tournament. But he had always tried to dull Chip’s competitive drive. Sure, he encouraged him to try his best. But he always told him to make sure that he enjoyed the competition.
“If your stress over winning is more than your fun in playing, it’s time to stop,” he would say.
Chip saw the wisdom in those words, but struggled to apply them. He looked over at his opponent, who was straightening his pieces. Travis Bell was a smart kid with a chip on his shoulder. Being black and a chess geek had made him a target, and he wore that badge with pride. He excelled in blitz chess, where each player had only five minutes on their clock. He would whip out flashy but dubious moves, forcing the game into complicated positions where his opponent had to defend precisely; more often than not, they ran out of time, or rushed into a blunder. He knew several opening traps and gambits, which played well to his strengths. His weakness was endgame theory, where he relied on intuition rather than memorizing the important techniques.
Chip tried to visualize himself defeating Travis. He tried to calm himself with images of playing a solid game and fending off his attacks. He tried to remind himself to have fun, to learn, and to enjoy the experience. But the tension, the drive, was still there.
“You may begin,” Mr. Sheaney announced. As the tournament arbiter and organizer, he walked between the desks and started the clocks for each game. A flurry of thumps and scrapes could be heard as the kids started to move their pieces.
Chip had White, and opened with his customary king’s pawn, jumping forward two spaces — “best by test,” as Bobby Fischer had written. He tapped his clock and wrote “1. e4” on his scoresheet. Travis replied instantly by pushing his own king’s pawn forward, but only by one square.
“Where’s your Sicilian, Trav?” Chip remarked, as he wrote “.. e6” on his scoresheet.
“I got a little somethin ’ special for you,” Travis said.
Chip claimed the rest of the center with his queen’s pawn. He tapped his clock and wrote “2. d4” on his scoresheet. Travis smoothly countered with his own queen’s pawn to d5 to meet him. This was the French Defense, an unbalanced opening that could lead to sharp positions. Chip had faced it before, but not from Travis. He knew a couple of the main lines, but he was sure Travis had some crazy gambit prepared. So he decided to go into the Exchange Variation, immediately diffusing the tension by exchanging pawns on d5. This gave up much of White’s space advantage in favour of a more balanced, if boring, middlegame.
“Pussy,” Travis laughed.
“Hey, I’m not gonna walk into your prep,” Chip said. “If you wanna beat me, you gotta do it over the board.”
“Nah, man,” Travis said. “You just don’t wanna screw up. That’s not real chess.”
In fact, at their rating level, under 1800, most chess games were decided by glaring mistakes, if not dramatic blunders. Playing boring chess was harder than it looked. You had to constantly be on the lookout for undefended pieces, constantly evaluate every check and capture, to avoid unpleasant surprises. It was logical to try to play this kind of solid chess if your goal was to improve and eventually push for a Master title. But it was not the romantic, swashbuckling style of dynamic sacrifices and speculative attacks that made for fun games.
Chip and Travis played through a relatively tame middlegame, with Chip castling and then pressuring Travis’s queenside, eventually grabbing an important b-pawn. This could be enough to win an endgame, if Chip could use his majority on that side to force through a passed pawn and promote it to a new queen.
Travis shifted in his chair uncomfortably as the game ground on. His clock was down to around 15 minutes, and Chip’s to 10. He looked up at the ceiling and took a few minutes to debate his next move. Finally, he unleashed a bishop sacrifice on f2, ripping apart Chip’s king position and exposing him to attack.
Chip was startled, but controlled his reaction.
No way this is working for him, he thought.
He calculated a few lines, but couldn’t see any reason not to recapture the bishop and brave the attack. He did so, and Travis followed up immediately with a knight check, as expected. Chip retreated his king back to g1. A few moves later, he found a nice defensive resource: he gave up his own knight for one of Travis’s pawns, returning the material he had gained from Travis’s sacrifice, but stopping the attack cold and retaining his extra passed pawn.
Travis leaned back and threw his hands up in disgust. He looked to the side with a sullen expression. Chip took a deep breath, relieved. All he had to do now was protect that passed pawn as he pushed it to the last rank and promoted it to a queen.
Travis’s dad walked over and took a long look at the board. He patted his son on the head and walked back to the gallery. Mr. Sheaney watched carefully; players were to receive no assistance during games.
The game continued on as Chip pressed forward and pieces were gradually exchanged. Eventually, it came down to Chip’s passed pawn, guarded by his king and one rook, against Travis’s king and rook. Chip knew that here he should be aiming for the Lucena position, a well-known endgame that was a theoretical win for White, as it forced a pawn promotion. But he wasn’t quite there yet. He needed to maneuver his king in front of his pawn.
At first, Travis wasn’t doing much to prevent this. He put up only haphazard defense; clearly, he hadn’t worked on his endgame. But then he glanced back to his father for a long moment before returning his attention to the board. He quickly swung his rook to the side file, paradoxically allowing Chip’s advance.
Chip continued carefully. His clock was getting low, and he had expected Travis to resign sooner. But Travis was giving side-checks, driving Chip’s king onto awkward squares. Travis kept looking back to his father, who had inched within view of the board. Chip’s anxiety increased. He knew there was a way around this harassment, but with only 30 seconds per move, he felt the answer slipping from his grasp.
Travis would look back at his father, look back, and then make a move. Each of his moves would hit the board in under 10 seconds, and thus the 30 second increment actually allowed him to increase his clock advantage over Chip.
Chip’s clock dwindled down to 12 seconds, and then he blundered: his rook was attacked by Travis’s king, and he defended it with his own king, which was also defending his pawn. Right away, Travis snatched Chip’s pawn with his rook, looking up and smirking. Chip was left with nothing better than to recapture the rook, leaving his own rook open for capture by the enemy king.
A draw.
He’d let his most important game of the tournament slip through his fingers. He looked up at Travis, red faced. Then he looked over at Travis’s father.
Travis extended his hand to shake. Chip refused.
“Maybe I should shake your dad’s hand, instead,” he said.
“The hell did you just say?” Travis demanded. “You callin ’ me a cheater?”
“I guess your dad really helped you brush up on your endgames. You’re a natural!” Chip locked eyes with Travis’s father, who met his gaze but said nothing.
Mr. Sheaney was over to the table quickly. He glanced at the board and checked their scoresheets. “Is there a problem? I see a king versus king draw. Chip, are you appealing the result?”
Chip’s dad stepped in from behind him. “Not at all, Mr. Sheaney. Just a hard-fought tie on the top board.” He smiled at Travis and clamped a hand down firmly on Chip’s shoulder. “Good game, boys.”
The players and parents parted quietly. Michael walked with his son down to the cafeteria and out through the courtyard. The cool rain misted down on them.
“Why didn’t you let me appeal?” Chip demanded.
“Are you absolutely sure they cheated?” Michael asked.
“Yes! Well…” Chip paused.
“It’s no small thing to accuse a player of cheating. And in this case, you’d be accusing his dad, too. ‘A good name is better than fine perfume.’ I know Harold from way back. He’s a great father. He just wants the best for his son.”
“Dad, they were looking at each other between every move! It only started when Travis was completely losing. He never holds those endgames.” Chip kicked a pebble across the walkway. “His dad always brings all those books. Maybe he’s got a Pocket PC…”
In the last 10 years, computer chess engines had surpassed all but the top Grandmasters. And since Gary Kasparov lost his rematch against IBM’s Deep Blue, the engines had advanced even faster. Now, almost any player in the world could be defeated by a chess engine running on a PalmPilot.
“So what?” Michael said. “How much does that game really matter, in the grand scheme?”
“I could have won the tournament!”
“So? Was there a big prize on the line? Someone’s life at stake?”
“Come on,” Chip said.
“So you want to stir up a huge controversy over that? Embarrass Travis and his dad; embarrass yourself, with no proof?” Michael looked into his son’s eyes as they welled up with tears.
“It’s not right!” he shouted. “It’s about being fair.”
“You can’t win every game in life,” Michael said. “And you probably shouldn’t even try.”
“I have to try,” Chip said, his mouth set in a determined line. “I’ll never not try.”
“I know,” Michael said, taking his son into his arms. “You’re so different from me,” he said, looking away.
Chip followed his gaze to the trees in the courtyard. Glistening raindrops fell into little puddles on the ground. The wind rustled the branches as crows cawed, impatient for the worms that would surface when the weather cleared. Chipped looked at his father and noticed that he, too, was crying. He took several deep breaths and then turned back to Chip.
“Son, do you know why we named you Chip?” he asked.
“Because you wanted me to get rich in computers and buy you and Mom a house?” They laughed through their sobs.
“I’ve wanted to tell you this for so long. Mom and I decided to wait till after the tournament.”
Chip took a step back and wiped his face. Some part of him knew what his father was about to say. He held his breath.
“Your birth name,” Michael began, “was Christopher James Hess.”
Michael Sparks slowly looked away again. He put his hands in his pockets and spoke softly.
“You were so beautiful, so alert. Mom and I wanted you to have some link to your biological parents. We thought naming you Christopher ‘Chip’ Sparks would be a good way to build character, in a ‘Boy Named Sue’ kind of way.” He chuckled at that. “But it was obvious how special you were. And how different from me. You’re tall and slim, I’m short and stocky. You demand everything in life to be fair. You’ve got this drive, Chip. It’s impressive, but it’s dangerous. You always have to be the best. That’s not from me, and it’s not from Mom.”
