Chess with Ersen

During one of my first classes I asked students to tell me something interesting about themselves. A lot of students didn't really know what to say and I just got a bunch of the same stuff about where they were from but one student Ersen in my beginner Uyghur class mentioned that he played chess. I though at first he meant the Chinese version of chess which I see so many older people sitting around playing but he said that no he played western chess. After I got my schedule more figured out I arranged to meet him to play a little chess. I've never been very good at chess but I've been learning some based on a computer chess program which has a really nice learning program. I don't have a chess set here but Ersen had one and we met at my apartment to play.

Ersen is a nice guy and he tries in class but just trying to have a conversation with him showed just how little English he has. We could talk a little about chess pieces and the words for them in English. I learned that he had learned chess from his family and that a lot of people where he was from played chess. People often ask me a lot of questions about the Uyghur students but with many of my Uyghur students have so little English it can be hard just to talk to them. I won the first game against Ersen with pretty much one good attack when I was in a tough position he won the next two games without too much trouble though so I think he's definitely a better player than me but at least we're close enough to make it interesting.