Taking a Shot at Chess

His Queen comes belting it down the side line – g6 to h2. I defend my King by Castling d1 to b1, b1 to c1. His shining steed hops over my peasants and lands poised for attacked, b5 to a3. This is not going well. I look across at Brendan and all the hope I had in the ability of alcohol – was false. For he was already one Knight, 3 Pawns a Castle and both Rooks down and still going strong. His genius intellect constantly working to suppress the suppressing agent. Oh well – Tequila, Vodka and a second Tequila…Ergh, not good – deep breath – 7 Sambuca’s, 3 shots of Brandy, 2 shots of Vodka, one Absinth and I lined up to surrendered my King…the hardest of them all.

It’s a day much like another during my first year at Tuks. I planned on going to class but instead ending up chilling at the Piazza, greeting Oom Gerts on the way out and docking into AandKlaas. I never did all that well at Electrical Engineering to tell you the truth, not sure why? I gave Brendan a call to join me up after his WTW 241 class (that the one where Isaac Newton got hit on the head) and so he did. “Drinking Chess” I said, “So a chess game that I actually may have a shot at winning”. Shot – no pun intended. The idea is that each piece on the chess board represents a shot of alcohol. Idealistically the pawns would be beer, the Castle would be something like Sours and the King would be a gentle tongue-caressing Lupinini.

Not us. We are far too clever for that. The pawns are Sambuca. The Castles are Tequila, the Rooks are vodka, the Knight’s are brandy, the Queen is Absinth and the King – oh dear… a bottle of Satin’s tears from the day he was cast from heaven, 80 years of Holocaust anguish and rectal exams. The ectoplasmic brown liquid that is brewed with anger and bottled with vengeance…Stroh Run.

I was doing ok with my tactic – attack as many of his pieces off the board as I can just to get him drunk. Once the booze takes kicks in it will numb his intellect and I (my liver) will be the victor. It never happened – he just kept gaining on me and gaining on me – taking only the few stragglers I left out in the cold. I am going to lose this game and if I lose I have to down all my drinks and feel stupid at the same time – so here’s the new game.

I square Brendan up, give him a wink and smash down each and every shot, bang bang bang one after the other traveling from left to right on the board. Bang bang bang there goes my shots, I travel anticlockwise like a good sailor should, bang bang bang I start climbing into his shots, bang bang and frikken bang! I stand up – pop my collar and walk off with a swagger. Victorious.

Pity there was no prise money in that competition. I woke up the next morning (in pain I can only compare to trying to jerk off a jet turbine engine) after jumping off a two story building which fetched me a neat broken ankle and a snapped achilles tendon. 

Things losing a game of chess make you do...honestly.