[HPforGrownups] Re: Ron's chess-playing skills (was Howgarts Clubs - Art, Music, and Chess).

[Angel Moules]

No: HPFGUIDX 85747

Olivier wrote:

> Ron can't be a better chess player or logician that Rowling is. Maybe 
> he can be now, but while Rowling was writing the first book she may 
> not have had the easy access to chess masters she presumably does now.


I know this has been discussed before, but I'll try to settle a question
about wizarding chess. I am a reasonably good chess player myself so I tried to figure out what the game between Ron and McGonagall's chess set looked like. After thinking about it for a while, I am 99,9% sure that :

_either Ron or the chess set is an extremely bad player,

_ or wizarding chess is completely different from ordinary chess,

_or JKR did not care too much and knows about chess but did not try
to make it a plausible game (I am 99% sure that the latter is true).

I would be happy to explain my evidence, but off-list as it has nothing
to do with HP anymore.

I don't think that the chess is so bad, so much as the fact that Ron had
to take into consideration that he had three humans on the board. That
gives the game a different flavour. It's like saying there are three
pieces you aren't allowed to lose.
I did it to a friend of mine, who also commented on the chess, and is a
good player, and he struggled, not because he's not good, but because it
shifted the parameters.
I keep meaning to post my theory of chess in relation to the game, but
haven't got it all written up yet.

Angel