Xiangqi
Whether you are seriously hooked on chess or casually
intrigued by it, you probably think of the tables in Cambridge's Holyoke Center
as the Boston area's one big outdoor chess venue. That's, after all, where the
Chess Master sets out his board a few tables down from his counterpart, the
redoubtable Chess Mister. That's where you can play both regular chess and
blitz, the high-speed version, most any day, for $2.00 a pop, against skilled
competition. (If you win -- it does occasionally happen -- you get your $2.00
back.) And that's where, if you're learning, you can find a teacher. Of course,
if you'd been bitten by the chess bug, you didn't need me to tell you about the
scene at Holyoke Center. You knew.
But if you knew, you probably thought that's all there is to
outdoor chess in Boston. If so, you were mistaken. There is another venue where
the game is played with at least as much passion and relish -- the game, that
is, if you're capable of wrapping your mind around the fact that chess speaks
more than one language.
