>> I am so spatially impaired that I still can't tell my left from my right without holding up my hand to make the letter L. <<
For me it has to do with how I interface with the world, being fey. Space doesn't have a firm grip on me. I'm mostly ambidextrous. That makes it very hard for me to tell left from right. Yes, it messed up my chess attempts, although my limited strategic sense was more of a factor there.
>> So I sometimes have trouble with chess. I remember the moves in /relation to the edges/ of the board. Identifying King-side and Queen-side is harder, determined by which color leads in the march toward the edge of the board. It's a LOT of cobbled-together tips to keep me from constantly touching pieces, and one of the reason I'm still barely above a novice player. <<
Seems to me the logical fixes would be to make the edges of the board four different colors, say black for black's side, white for white's side, red for queen and blue for king. I've known touch-dominant players who couldn't play without handling the pieces (to say nothing of vision-impaired players). You just use the peg-type of travel chess set, and say "I am moving this piece now" to declare your move. Plus you can't confuse the sides as easily because one has the lid attached. http://www.houseofchessstore.com/pegged_chess_sets.html
>> Oddly enough, I can picture Lawrence having the /patience/ to work with even these limitations if I showed up at the Chess Club. <<
Yes, he would. He's got chess players with different strengths and weaknesses, and he's quite good at working around those.
>> He seems to draw patience from the thing he /loves/ to do and applies that patience to the parts he finds more difficult (like noisy people). <<
That's part of it, yes. Running the chess club has definitely improved Lawrence's patience.
Another part is that he wants a chess club. That means attracting and retaining members. Well, the best way to boost membership is to accommodate diversity. Lawrence didn't even connect that with Simon's talk, because it's not keyed to "diversity." It's keyed to "I can't play chess" or "Chess is hard" because X. Thus when Maurice mentioned having trouble with games, it brought up the kind of accommodation that Lawrence had already applied to similar challenges in the past.
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dancing_serpent
Re: Moving chess pieces
Date: 2014-12-12 08:49 am (UTC)For me it has to do with how I interface with the world, being fey. Space doesn't have a firm grip on me. I'm mostly ambidextrous. That makes it very hard for me to tell left from right. Yes, it messed up my chess attempts, although my limited strategic sense was more of a factor there.
>> So I sometimes have trouble with chess. I remember the moves in /relation to the edges/ of the board. Identifying King-side and Queen-side is harder, determined by which color leads in the march toward the edge of the board. It's a LOT of cobbled-together tips to keep me from constantly touching pieces, and one of the reason I'm still barely above a novice player. <<
Seems to me the logical fixes would be to make the edges of the board four different colors, say black for black's side, white for white's side, red for queen and blue for king. I've known touch-dominant players who couldn't play without handling the pieces (to say nothing of vision-impaired players). You just use the peg-type of travel chess set, and say "I am moving this piece now" to declare your move. Plus you can't confuse the sides as easily because one has the lid attached.
http://www.houseofchessstore.com/pegged_chess_sets.html
>> Oddly enough, I can picture Lawrence having the /patience/ to work with even these limitations if I showed up at the Chess Club. <<
Yes, he would. He's got chess players with different strengths and weaknesses, and he's quite good at working around those.
>> He seems to draw patience from the thing he /loves/ to do and applies that patience to the parts he finds more difficult (like noisy people). <<
That's part of it, yes. Running the chess club has definitely improved Lawrence's patience.
Another part is that he wants a chess club. That means attracting and retaining members. Well, the best way to boost membership is to accommodate diversity. Lawrence didn't even connect that with Simon's talk, because it's not keyed to "diversity." It's keyed to "I can't play chess" or "Chess is hard" because X. Thus when Maurice mentioned having trouble with games, it brought up the kind of accommodation that Lawrence had already applied to similar challenges in the past.