Chess as a game would be really awesome if it had more dinosaurs in it. Checkers was a childhood favourite with my family, where my mother would never give us an edge and meted out defeat whenever possible. When I discovered chess, I learnt the meaning of "elitism". Discarding the simplicities of checkers for this abstract war game made me feel vastly more knowledgeable than my peers, until I actually tried to play it against someone who knew the game. Then things went back to having defeat meted out to me.