Renata Shayk

Playing Chess

My dad had high expectations of me – he expected me to be a boy.

I wasn’t. Nevertheless, Dad was determined to raise a son. I could tell by his presents. Before I was 7, I received: darts, drum, checkers, chess, and a metal constructor kit for building excavators.

I did not want to build excavators, I wanted to play HOUSE which meant I had to get creative with what I had.

Screw a nut halfway onto a bolt – and boom – you’ve got a bolt wearing a tutu. The bot with tutu is a mama. The bolt without a tutu is a papa.

And together – they are a happy metal family! The Bolts!

The bolts were okay. I preferred chess and checkers. My favorite piece was the pointy one! Not for its strategic importance but for the pointiness.

See, I’d use checkers as skirts or hats. On a pointy end, the checker’s ‘hat’ would sit with a tilt. Which gave the bishop EMOTIONAL RANGE.

Tilted this way, the hat would give the bishop this flirty expression, ‘Hey, how ya doing?‘ Tilted another way, the bishop would get an attitude. ‘I’m so fancy, you already know’. Way too cocky for a piece that moves kitty corner.

I played with the chess set a lot. I bet my dad thought, ‘I’m raising a chess prodigy!’ Nope. Not memorizing moves,  pondering what my bishop would wear to the Kentucky Derby.