wearing-westwood:

“I am convinced, the way one plays chess always reflects the player’s personality…”

Jim doesn’t often play chess as himself.

He so rarely has a partner, you see, that he’s forced to adopt a thousand different styles just to get some variety into his solo games—switch between black and white, switch between two different people, sometimes himself and sometimes not.

He’s an actor.  It makes sense.  If need be, he can play as Sherlock, or how he imagines his detective would play—straightforward, always, but perhaps it doesn’t always appear to be.  Sherlock would see, Jim thinks, a thousand moves ahead, and would play for the very last, the one where the king t o p p l e s—a pattern of continued attacks that may appear nonsensical to an untrained observer.  A talented player, no doubt.

Mycroft, he thinks, would be more underhanded, if only slightly, and that is how Jim plays when he emulates the eldest Holmes: he’s smarter than Sherlock, or so the irishman has heard, though of course that’s always debatable.  But Mycroft is not a man to take the open attack, even when he predicts each move to befall the board.  Where Sherlock’s movements might seem evasive, Mycroft’s actually will be—and they will center, always, around the king.  The king is to be protected, and offence will take a hit for the good of the defence.  The government doesn’t play to win, he plays not to lose.  Often, he succeeds at both.

Miss Adler, if she played, which Jim is fairly certain she doesn’t, would have the most evasive style of all, much like Jim’s own, for the simple reason that The Woman can’t take a forward approach to anything.  He feels that her play would be offence-heavy, using the more movable pieces, the more powerful, before ever seriously touching the pawns.  The queen would be the most-used piece in the game, or hers, at least—he has a hunch she’d prefer to take black, make the move after the other person has somewhat shown their hand.

Molly, he doesn’t dwell much on.  Not a player.  Nor John.  But he suspects that they two would have very similar plays—a game between the two of them, if they were to play, would be vastly entertaining.  Neither side willing to take a piece?  Those two just aren’t game-minded enough to  be good opponents.  Mousie dearest would have the greatest trouble not apologising after a conquest—Johnny boy only able to play seriously if he has something to play for.  Both far too forward, far too unconcerned with strategic planning and thinking ahead.  Not good partners, not aggressive enough, too scared to lose a piece, but amusing on occasion.

Sebastian can occasionally be conned into an actual game, which is how Jim knows how to play him later—he moves his pieces like soldiers, predictably, attack from the front and let the higher-level pieces sit behind until they’re needed.  Let the pawns decimate themselves and move in with the others when necessary.  He always leaves room for a castling—always keeps an escape route.  It’s a tight strategy, cautious, but it continually falls to more inventive strategies, like Jim’s, which vacillates between the many ways that he knows how to play, but is always something entirely new every time.

Some games he doesn’t put himself into at all.  Sherlock plays Mycroft on occasion, though Jim’s hand moves the pieces.  Miss Adler plays Molly—Irene wins within six moves.  John plays Sherlock, once, and then never again, because he loses with such ease that Jim hardly sees the point in a rematch.

Then Jim plays, too—as himself and as someone else.  He plays with Sherlock and Mycroft and Molly and Sebastian and Irene—occasionally even John, though he has very little actual interest in that.

Every game is different.  Every game is played utterly alone, but in utterly disimilar style.  Every game has a separate outcome, untouched by Jim’s personal bias towards the players.  He is detached, the mover, the vessel, the director.

I don’t like getting my hands dirty.

“…If something defines his character, then it will also define his way of playing.”  
—Vladimir Kramnik