Chess is Now My Favorite Video Game

And I am enjoying the ancient game more than I ever have

I am about to turn seventy years old. I started playing video games in the mid-1970s on a coin-op Pong game in Circus Circus Casino in Las Vegas where I was working a summer job while going to college. I liked Pong and went on to play every major video game produced in the last four and a half decades. I have owned a lot of video game systems and played a lot of great games, but today, as I approach Christmas of 2020, my current favorite video game is chess.

I’m a Boomer Gamer, and a Child of Gamers.

I have relatives who wonder how a retired lawyer, a writer, and a person known for intellectual pretentiousness can spend his time playing video games. The answer is heritage. My father played cards — pinochle, whist, and bridge. My mother was a demon at Scrabble, Anagrams, and the New York Times Crossword Puzzle. Everybody in my family played games, so when video games came along, I was predestined to be a fan.

I went to college at a time when the electric typewriter was the height of technology available to college students and ten-key calculators (the size of a hardcover novel) could be accessed only in a special room at the university. At college I played all the games my parents played, and I took up chess.