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Yes, coronavirus nerds are a thing now.
Who’s the loser now? With the coronavirus lockdown entering its third month, suddenly origami, jigsaw puzzles, model railroading, and dressmaking — salubrious, indoor activities — are back in fashion. Rescuing voluptuous damsels in distress? Not so much. You could catch your death of COVID.
That’s right, chess is a thing. I’ve plunged down the rabbit hole of playing strangers on chess.com, sometimes losing as many as five games to random schoolchildren across the globe in an afternoon. I’m not alone. “We are experiencing five years’ worth of growth over the course of just a few months,” said Nick Barton, director of business development at chess.com.
About 1.4 million new members joined the site in April, compared with 660,000 in January. “The circumstances driving some of this growth are troubling,” Barton added, “and we’re just hoping that our new members are able to discover a new passion that can help improve their well-being during these difficult times.”
I’ve always been pretty much of an indoors guy that enjoyed solitary activities, so doing crosswords, sudokus, online games and, on rare occasions, even jigsaw puzzles is nothing new to me; I have Scrabble and bridge games downloaded to my phone.
Then last summer, after I went to Netroots Nation in Philadelphia, I went to visit my cousin in Washington D.C. My cousin has participated in various bridge leagues for over 30 years. And she snickered...SNICKERED!...when she saw, yes, my bridge phone app but mostly at my bridge playing abilities.
Snickering graduated into damn near a ROFL literally when she heard me trying to use bridge terminology like “Cappelletti” (What the hell do you know about a Cappelletti?”)
But still...she invited me along to play bridge with her at her bridge club. With actual people (including the #1 national player in her bridge association!). First time that I had ever played bridge with other people.
More hilarity ensued. As I was her partner during all of the games that we played, she alternated between the meanest of faces, occasional facepalms, and heavy, heavy sighs! Her bridge companions were rather nice to me, though; that #1 player even took the time to do a little quick tutoring with me.
(Finally, after the 3rd trip to the clubhouse, we did not finish in last place; my cousin even complimented me a couple of times. Grudgingly, lol).
I also promised my cousin that I would look up and begin going to some of the bridge games here in the Chicago area as she told me that there are a lot of really good players here.
I also read a little bit about the American Bridge Association and got a look into some interesting history of racial segregation in this country.
Never followed up on it.
Now I’ve unearthed a couple of the bridge instruction books that I have: this one and this one.
I made a promise and I intend to keep it...someday.
Comments below the fold.
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From Gaelsdottir:
Hal Brown found an incredible meme on Twitter - Darwin facepalming over COVIDIOTS refusing to take precautions against the virus. Hal also authored the diary, so I guess he hits the "win & place" with this, too!
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