We took a much-needed trip to Sam's today, to stock up on items. I dutifully made a list of everything we needed, but then I forgot to bring the list. Bummer! We managed to remember almost everything, but we forgot the pine nuts. Oh well.
While we were there, we bought a giant book of word search puzzles, on impulse:
As you can see, it has over 375 puzzles, so it should last a while. This afternoon I flipped it open and solved a random puzzle. Its theme was "Chess Terms" and there were 29 different chess-related words or phrases. I was surprised how many terms I'd never heard before. Some didn't even sound like words! So I did a bit of research to see what they meant. Here's a partial list:
Closed File: A column on a chessboard containing black and white pawns. It is, therefore, not good for rooks or queens.
En Prise: French for "in take", referring to a piece that can be captured by the opponent.
Fianchetto: A bishop positioned on a long diagonal of the board, such as directly above the knight (after moving the knight's pawn out of the way).
Fide: An acronym for the World Chess Federation: Fédération internationale des échecs.
Fool's Mate: The fastest possible checkmate, aka "two-move checkmate".
Ja'Doube: French for "I adjust". Saying this phrase indicates you're going to adjust a piece (by centering it in the square), not move it.
Skewer: A tactic where a valuable piece is attacked and forced to move away, allowing the piece behind it to be captured. Apparently it's also called the X-ray attack.
Swindle: When a player in a losing position manages to trick his opponent and pull out a win or draw.
Woodpusher: A weak player who moves pieces without any plan.
Zugzwang: German for "compulsion to move". When a player is forced to make a move that worsens his position.
There was also a 30th "mystery word", which had 8 characters but it was up to you to find. I looked for a while, but I kept thinking what if it's another outlandish word like zugzwang? So I gave up and looked in the back of the book. Turns out it was "castling", which seemed so obvious in hindsight. Once I knew what it was, I found it right away.
Apparently my knowledge of chess is not as strong as I thought.