Do You Play Chess?

    I wonder if there is a chess club in The Village, I expect so. After all chess is extremely popular, from human games of chess in which the players, not the pieces, derive some form of power from the manipulation of others, the human chess pieces. And there are chess problems printed in The Tally Ho broadsheet. Both the ex-Admiral and the General like to play chess; Number 6 himself is a keen student of the game, even though he found it difficult to distinguish between the blacks and the whites. Well you do when both sides look alike! Number 6 knows both 11 and 7 checkmate move wins, but ‘Checkmate’ itself, as an episode proved to be a fool’s mate for the Rook. That’s because he decided to play Number 6 at his own game, and that’s never a wise thing to do. Because you should never play a game you cannot win, although that’s not very English. To be English it’s not the winning or losing that counts, but how you play the game. And as Number 14 once said of Number 6, “You play a fine game,” but that’s nothing to do with the game of chess!

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