In response to a question about whether my dad actually made this table I thought I'd give a little more information. It's his second go at a chess table. This one is sort of a 1960's era design on the bottom offering a large tray the width of the table near the bottom of the tapered legs (they're rectangular all the way down but the rectangular cross-section grows shorter) to hold the pieces not in use (i.e. checkers). The sides of the surface are cedar and provide ample storage for defeated pieces, while the extreme edges are of poplar. His first try was a much smaller board which is more of a proof of concept and unfortunately doesn't offer much space on the surface for defeated pieces. His third, however, goes with the pedestal design and is made from poplar and walnut. The surface is entirely walnut except for the poplar squares and offers a large side area for defeated pieces as well as even larger squares than you see here. The pedestal is entirely poplar except for false bracing on the pedestal sides also made of walnut. It's the masterpiece of the bunch so far. If I'm not mistaken he intends to offer it for sale if anyone is interested. If he tells me that's the case I'll try to get some pictures up.

I've always heard about all these particular openings that are used in chess, and I finally looked a few up to learn what I was missing out on. As it turns out they're more or less just common sense. Generally white opens with king's pawn moving two spaces. Black can respond in three or four different ways, and from there it's mostly common sense depending on the mood of the players. I was disappointed there's no super-secret better way to begin. As it turns out I usually open with the "Quiet Game" if white and the "French Defense" if black. We've played out the Counter Game, where black responds by trading pawns by moving out his queen's pawn, a time or two. Ethan likes to get his queen involved in a hurry, and that's led to some interesting games with his queen in the middle of the board. It tends to put me in an offensive position with my bishops and knights while dodging and trying to trap his queen.

By the way, he almost beat me again, having me at serious disadvantage. He had a huge advantage in material because I'd made a couple of careless moves early in the game. I was down to several pawns and a rook while he had a rook, a knight, a bishop and a couple pawns. I was attempting to move a pawn down and get a queen and he had my "a" pawn blocked with his king. I put him in check with my rook just trying to keep him pressured so that I could move another pawn down but instead of taking the pawn he moved beside it, gaining me a queen and placing him in check. Unfortunately at the level we're at it usually comes down to who is most careless, and mostly it's been him. It does make for some long and tricky games when you find yourself having accidentally traded your queen for a knight.