The Princess Gambit

Lessons on life and chess from a 4-year-old

photo by David Marlow

My granddaughter C and I started playing chess when she was 3, that's her making a dramatic game-changing move in the picture above.

She wanted to play because her older brother and I play chess. I could have told her she is too young or a whole host of reasons why she wasn't ready.

Instead, I said yes.

This particular chess set is a teaching version with cards and labels. I told her it’s a game, not a toy so we need to play by the rules, she seemed to like that.

I let her draw a card and taught her which piece was represented in the card and then she moved it...wherever she wanted. Then it was my turn and so on until the cards were all drawn and she 'won' the game.

Within a game or so she had learned all the pieces by name and their relative value.

“The horsies are knights. The little people, the pawns, those are kids. They have lots of kids.”

She had fun, my full attention, and she did something 'big' like her brother. I'm laying a foundation for her in our relationship and in how she sees herself and mastering a new thing.

She’s now 4 and we’ve played regularly since. This past week she added a new variable…a Pterodactyl.

You might be wondering what a dinosaur, like a Pterodactyl, has to do with uncovering your Ikigai. Or even chess, for that matter.

Because of course, the pterodactyl wants to play chess too. “He’s a nice pterodactyl,” she assured me.

It's all part of building up that Ikigai muscle early in life.

Plus she thinks grandpa is awesome so there's that.

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