Through the needle's eye
When the last king has been laid to rest and I go to play on that Big Chessboard in the Sky St. Peter will ask what I have done to merit entry and I'll say, “I once taught a wealthy man how to play chess.”
That's no easy task and even St. Peter's CEO remarked during his sojourn beside the Mediterranean that “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven."
In chess terms that means, “You won't win many games if you neglect your pawns.”
After several months of playing together my protégé asked, “Why can I never beat you?”
I explained it this way. “You're a businessman. You're used to giving orders and having them carried out. When we play chess you swoop all over the board with your executives trying for the big combination but you leave your workers to fend for themselves. I'm a working man. I protect my workers and help them do their jobs. Eventually one of them gets promoted and kicks your butt.”
In a nutshell, he never understood the value of the humble pawn.
Small in stature the pawn is a wonderful defender but it suffers from Napoleon Syndrome and enjoys itself most when bullying it's betters—especially when it forks two of them. That's the pawnish equivalent of a Bronx cheer.
Many workers find it necessary to moonlight at a second job and the pawn is no different. In this recent chess.com game he took pleasure in his off-duty status as hit-man, and plunged his dagger deep into the helpless king. Hannibal Lecter, eat your heart out!
The pawns were feeling particularly stroppy in the next game. The b-pawn saw no reasonable barrier en route to b1 while the e-pawn was a little more patient. After capturing the f3 bishop he kept the black knight safe—for if 44.Kxd1 then the pawn marches to f2 and raises a single mocking digit toward the white king who can no longer stop his progress.
All is not negative in the pawns demeanour. He may be a little bully, but he knows when it's time to lay down his life for the Union. Time and again we've seen this humble symbol of the working classes sacrifice himself for the common good.
RIP, noble Pawn. St. Peter will always find a place in Heaven for you.
