Ron's chess-playing skills (was Howgarts Clubs - Art, Music, and Chess).

[a_reader2003]

No: HPFGUIDX 85710

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Steve" <bboy_mn at y...> wrote:
 
> Personally, I've always been a little put off by the fact the Ron
> wasn't part of the Chess Club. If there is a Gobstones club then
> certainly there must be a wizard's chess club. Certainly, a good
> rousing inter-house chess tournement would be fun. It might even
> provide some groundwork for life after Hogwarts for Ron.

Nora replied(85174):
	
I have a great soft spot for ChessPlaying!Ron, and agree on that
point. It'd be nice to see. 

Carolyn:

Now I've just re-read PS, and found myself puzzled by Ron's supposed 
chess-playing skills. In my opinion, they were emphasised heavily in 
the first book purely to lead up to Ron's big moment in rescuing the 
stone and don't really add up to much. I am not a chess player 
myself, but to my mind, someone who is good at chess is supposed to 
be good at strategy, and thinking ahead of the game. Frankly, I don't 
see Ron behaving like this in later books; its more of a Hermione 
thing, although, ironically we are given the impression that she is 
not good at chess.

I did some research into previous posts on this and found at least 
two from people who play chess who seriously questioned the 
intelligence of the moves Ron played (Katrin-43590 and Alexander-
40237). There was also a clever one proposing that Ron was NOT good 
at chess, it was only Harry who thought so, not being a very 
experienced player himself (44744). 

Then there was a major theory set piece from Grey Wolf (38278), who 
asserted that the major point in chess is knowing when to sacrifice a 
piece, and that this is heart & gut decision not a logic one. As Ron 
has this kind of ability in buckets, Grey Wolf asserted that he would 
eventually make this kind of decision in a battle-situation and lose 
his life (probably to save Harry or A N Other), and in doing this he 
would ultimately up-stage all the achievements of his brothers.

On top of all this, there appears to be some interesting extra 
complexities to consider in that the pieces in a wizarding chess 
appear to be able to argue with the player !

Any new thoughts on the chess theme and Ron's role, now that the real 
battle has commenced ?