Battle on the Board
By Elaine Elizabeth Jinto, age 14, Karnataka, India.
Why did the ancient kings of India even bother to invent a game like chess? I mean, take Babur*, Akbar, or any other king for that matter; they seem to have spent their whole life in mortal combat, so why also have a war on the board? If I were one of those ancient rulers, I would have banned chess in my kingdom. As chess was a game from ancient Indian history, everyone here in India seems to play the game. Everyone just wants to be the next world champion, unlike me, who is forced to play the game so I can follow my real dreams.
But then, why was I sitting at a chessboard waiting for the Karnataka Chess Championship to start? And, why was Karnataka State Champion Sindhuri Patil sitting exactly opposite to me?
Yes, my dear reader, I, Elaine Elizabeth Jinto (with No FIDE** Rating), was about to play with one of the greatest chess players of India. Now you will be like, “Whoa, hang on, wasn’t she saying that chess was a useless game ten seconds ago?” Yes, I was saying that, but I need a FIDE rating to get into ISRO’s space camp. I was on the Top Board, the spot coveted by all chess players. But I didn’t want to be there. It was just because of FIDE’s weird pairing mechanisms. The game was available live on Lichess.org, and as I looked around, I saw the spectators sitting outside the tournament hall, everyone looking at their cellphones. I felt even more nervous, so I took a deep breath and imagined myself at the Space Camp. That did not help me, though. It made me more desperate to play well!
I wondered what the spectators were thinking. Were they hoping for an interesting match worth watching? Or were they judging the little girl sitting opposite the champion, nervously twiddling the pieces around? Or were they sympathizing with the girl who had to play a very tough match for no particular reason?
As we waited for the match to start, I took a good look at my opponent. With the T-shirt she wore when she last represented India, hair in a thick, tight braid, glasses, a nose ring, and a very, very serious, slightly mocking expression on her face, she was the scariest opponent I had ever played. Or maybe it was the difference between our FIDE ratings that scared me. Or both. I don’t know.
So, there I was, sitting in the tournament hall, about to play for the first time with a digital board and clock. An A/C and a reclining chair were provided for my comfort. But far from being comfortable, I was shaking nervously and was already thinking of ways to resign without appearing too cowardly. I kept pressing the buttons on the timer absentmindedly until Sindhuri told me to stop changing the time controls!
The bell sounded, and the match started. Sindhuri made the first move, and I could taste the aggression in the air. Playing safe, I opted for a defensive move. I mean, a move that wouldn’t lead to an immediate loss. She glared at me, and her pieces charged towards mine. Within seconds, the enemy had broken through the castle walls and annexed the treasury. With two men dead on the field, I was forced to retreat. Sindhuri ordered more pieces out, and in that calm bit (the only calm bit in the whole war—too bad it was short-lived), I attempted to reconstruct the castle walls. This resulted in the sad death of my beloved elephant and knight; may God bless their souls.
I felt dozens of eyes on me as piece after piece was either captured or trapped where I couldn’t use it. I took a deep breath and tried to tell myself that the gleaming gold cup, displayed on the stage, wasn’t my ultimate goal. It didn’t work, though. As I chewed my lip, trying to think of at least one move that would prevent the impending destruction, I realized that even though I found chess boring, I wanted to win. Losing was bad. And even though I pretended not to care, I did. My thoughts raced: Should I just save the knight? Should I castle to stop getting checkmated? Or could I just resign? Losing track of everything, I tried to save my last man on the field, and the king was trapped. “Checkmate,” Sindhuri yelled triumphantly.
The bell sounded, and the match ended. So, there you are, my dear reader, a brief description of the destruction of my poor kingdom and the victory of a WFM against an ordinary fourteen-year-old. I left the tournament hall clutching my score sheet with tears in my eyes, feeling that chess was more useless than ever. Anyway, before I leave to sob in peace, I must answer my question in the beginning. The answer came to me as I took one last look at my destroyed kingdom. The ancient kings likely wanted to practice their battle strategy.
By Elaine Elizabeth Jinto, age 14, Karnataka, India. She has been published in Skipping Stones multiple times.
Editor’s Note:
* Babur is known as the founder of the Mughal Empire in India. Akbar was the third in line of Mughal emperors (who died in Oct. 1605 CE) and his son, Jahangir, followed as the next emperor.
** FIDE stands for Fédération Internationale des Échecs (in the French language) meaning the International Chess Federation.
NPR (National Public Radio, USA) reported on June 08, 2025 that the game of chess is very popular in India; and that there are even online chess schools to train serious chess players in the country. Currently, there are 85 Chess Grandmasters in India. In 2024, at the World Chess Championship in Singapore, 18-year-old Gukesh Dommaraju, from Tamil Nadu, India became the youngest-ever world champion.