Nerds in Training?

For Christmas, Elsa wanted a chess set.  I don't know how or why she got interested in it.  [UPDATE: I asked Elsa.  She said that Brandon had talked about chess.  I said, "I've never heard of Brandon.  Is he in your class?"  She responded in a very Elsa-like fashion: "Yes.  And he has trouble listening."]

I rarely played chess when I was little, because I'm a jock.  I knew how the chess pieces moved (except for things like "castling" and other variants), but I never cared about the game at all.  Chess was always played by a bunch of Poindexters.  There was even a phase -- in the early 2000s -- when I aggressively hated nerds.  With their pocket protectors, and glasses with tape.  Boy, I hated them.  I still get steamed thinking about them.  NERDS!!!!!!  (I was always in agreement with Ogre; he seemed to have his head on straight.)

Nowadays, most of my venom is directed towards hipsters.  It's already bad enough that Lee has them listening to hipster hillbillies Mumford & Sons.  I will get really annoyed if Elsa and Claire start wearing fedoras and growing handlebar mustaches. 

In any event, I reluctantly bought "No Stress Chess" for X-Mas.  This game is supposed to be an easy way for someone to learn chess because it uses cards that instruct you how to move the pieces.  I played the game with Elsa once, maybe twice, when she said she was done with the cards.  And then, my goodness, she knew how to play.

A week or so ago, Elsa started teaching Claire how to play.  I don't know if they started with the cards or not, but Elsa has really taught Claire exactly how to play.  Claire now knows how the pieces should move.

They play chess together in the morning.  Like here:

They both ask non-stop to play chess with me, too -- especially Claire.  (Perhaps they know it will be a game where they will be able to, on the merits, beat me.)  I swear that in playing with Claire she thinks three moves ahead.  She has said, "If I move here, then you'll move here and then next your Knight will get my Queen."  After thinking it through for 15 seconds -- and deciphering that what I call a "Horsey" she correctly calls a "Knight" -- she was right about the potential maneuver.

In addition, I downloaded a free chess game for my phone, which they like to play. Last night, I mentioned to Elsa that she could use the app and play against the computer.  She said, "Nooooooooo" as if I were kidding and that playing against the computer was the craziest thing in the world.  Turns out that she thought "playing against the computer" meant that we would have to place my phone next to my laptop so that the laptop would control the phone.

Long story short: I am very proud of both girls for being so interested in -- and good at -- stuff like chess at such a young age.  I just hope they will not turn into Booger.