Page 23 of Puck Shots
“I try not to look at grades as a sign of intelligence, it’s more a sign someone is good at taking tests. There are lots of ways to be smart, and I’ll prove it to you.”
“Go on then,” I say, and he nods to the board.
“You’re sitting on the side of the white pieces, and mine are the black, right?”
“Yeah,” I reply, spotting the deep charred wood that makes up the bottoms of his pieces, it’s shiny like it’s covered in some kind of gloss, too, whereas my pieces are dull, like the wood came straight from a seaside shoreline.
“Well, white moves first, and in chess, that gains it a first-move advantage.”
“Okay, but like how does that relate to statistics?”
“Several studies have been done,” he says, lining up the last of his pieces. “White scores better than Black for the four main opening moves, 1d4, 1c4, 1e4 and—”
“1f4?”
“1Nf3 actually.”
My cheeks burn, but he continues like I didn’t just mess it up.
“White’s winning percentage is then calculated by taking the percentage of games won in addition to half the number of games drawn. So, if out of one thousand games, white won four hundred of them and draws three hundred and twenty and loses two hundred and eighty, white’s total winning percentage is four hundred, plus half the draws, so five hundred and sixty.”
I nod, surprised that my brain is keeping up with the math so far.
“Divide that by one hundred and you get the percentage, fifty-eight.”
“So I have a fifty-eight percent chance of beating you just by being given the white pieces?”
“Oh, no, your percentage is zero because you’re a beginner and I’m experienced, but you get the drift. Interestingly enough, the outcome was the same for games against computers, too, when those first moves were made.”
“Doesn’t really seem fair. Like maybe you should play an equal number of games as black and as white to get the best of them to decide the overall winner.”
“Some people do that; others love the finality of checkmate. It’s when your king has nowhere to go without being captured.”
“That’s when your piece takes another piece like the little guys do but only diagonally?” I ask, and he smiles so wide I blush.
“Yeah, that’s right. See, you’re getting it already.”
“I read up a few things on my phone this morning before class. Maybe I should have been reading up on statistics instead.”
“We’ll get you there on both.”
“You really think I can learn this?”
“I know you can, and you’ll smash that next quiz. Just like how you helped me with the pledge one, I’ve got your back.”
“KOKs forever,” I say, and he chuckles.
“Yeah, I’m not saying that.”
“You have to, it’s the code.”
“Is not.”
“It is, you can’t leave me hanging with my KOK just out there.”
He holds his waist and laughs harder.
“Stop, it’s too much,” he gasps.
