These Games Have Merit
These Games Have Merit
"Chess opens and enriches your mind (Robovic)"
It was a Monday, and the rain was loud again.
Through the dim windows of Merit Café, the water painted streaks across the glass like fingers smearing a canvas. Inside, the place smelled of cardamom, worn wood, and espresso. A battered upright piano stood silent near the corner, a shelf of tattered books sagged under its own weight, and three mismatched chessboards were set up at the back table, as always.
The café was named after Mr. Merit, though no one knew if that was his real name. Everyone just called him that—Mr. Merit, with his white beard, moth-eaten scarf, and perpetual smell of pipe smoke. He moved like someone who had once been fast and hadn’t quite made peace with slowing down. But when he played chess, time bowed to him.
That Monday, the bell above the door rang, and in walked Leo, a teenager with a hood up and his hands in his pockets. He was new to town. His mother had dragged him here for a “fresh start,” which usually meant he’d be leaving again in six months. But this town had something different—a café with old clocks, slower conversations, and a table of silent wars.
Leo noticed the boards immediately.
“You play?” Mr. Merit asked from behind the counter, not looking up.
Leo hesitated. “Some. I was on the team. Back in… wherever.”
Mr. Merit nodded like he understood something deeper than Leo had said. “Then sit. The pieces are cold without company.”
Leo shrugged, sat down, and set up the board nearest the window. Mr. Merit brought over two cups—one with tea, one with coffee—and placed them between them. No one said whose was whose.
“You always do this?” Leo asked.
“Only on days ending in Y,” Mr. Merit replied with a wink.
They played in silence. Leo lost the first game in 21 moves. Then again in 18. And again in 34. Mr. Merit never gloated, never grinned. Just reset the pieces like a priest resetting an altar.
On the fourth game, Leo paused before his bishop move.
“You ever get tired of winning?” he asked.
Mr. Merit looked over his glasses. “Do you get tired of breathing?”
Leo laughed once, more air than sound.
By the end of the second week, Leo was holding his own. Not winning, but making Mr. Merit lean back and hum to himself during endgames.
Then, on the third Friday, it happened. Checkmate in 52. Leo blinked at the board like he’d just solved a riddle no one had told him.
“You let me win,” he said.
Mr. Merit sipped his tea. “I tried not to.”
Leo left that night smiling for the first time in months.
By October, the regulars had started taking notice. Some cheered Leo on. Some bet chocolate chip cookies on the outcome. Others tried playing him when Mr. Merit was busy.
Chess became ritual. Not just game, but language.
It wasn’t about winning. It was about how Leo started paying attention—to angles, to patterns, to consequences. Even to people.
He started sketching positions on napkins. Started replaying grandmaster games on a beat-up app. Started asking questions that weren’t about how to win, but how to lose well.
“I don’t get it,” he said once, after a particularly drawn-out draw. “I used to play to crush people. Make them quit.”
“And now?” Mr. Merit asked, setting up again.
“I don’t know. It’s like… I’m not trying to win. I’m trying to deserve the win.”
Mr. Merit just smiled. “These games have merit.”
In November, something shifted.
A stranger came into the café. Young—early twenties. Sharp coat, sharp voice. He asked for Mr. Merit, then glanced at Leo’s board.
“You the apprentice?” he said with a smirk. “I’m Nolan. Used to sit in that same chair. Thought I’d stop by.”
Mr. Merit walked over slowly. His face didn’t smile this time.
“You came back.”
“Had to. Heard you were losing games to a kid.”
Leo flushed. “I’ve won, like, three total.”
Nolan raised an eyebrow. “Play me?”
They sat. Leo said yes before he could stop himself.
The opening was fast. Aggressive. Leo felt like he was in a wind tunnel. Every time he touched a piece, Nolan already seemed to know where it was going.
By move 29, Leo knew it was over. Still, he played it out.
“Mate in six,” Nolan announced, leaning back.
Leo stared at the board. The move was there. Obvious, even. He nodded and tipped his king.
Nolan looked around, as if expecting applause. “Well, guess the kid’s still learning.”
Leo didn’t say anything. Just reset the board.
“Another?”
But Mr. Merit placed a hand on Leo’s shoulder. “That’s enough for today.”
Nolan left soon after, leaving a few drops of arrogance on the floor like spilled coffee.
Leo didn’t sleep that night. He played the game over and over in his mind, wondering where he’d gone wrong, how he’d gotten swept up.
“Was he always like that?” Leo asked the next day.
Mr. Merit folded a napkin in half. “He was a mirror. Fast, sharp. Never liked playing the same person twice. Said he already knew how it’d end.”
Leo looked at the board. “Is that bad?”
“Depends on whether you’re playing chess or trying to understand something.”
Winter came.
Snow stuck to the café windows. The clocks kept ticking, the boards kept moving. And Leo kept showing up.
He started tutoring a younger kid on Saturdays. Took second at the regional school tournament. Brought home a dusty old clock to practice with. Somewhere in the chaos, he realized he hadn’t thought about moving in months.
In February, Mr. Merit fell ill. The café stayed open, but quieter.
One evening, Leo found a small package under the counter. A wooden box. Inside: a leather scorebook, two vintage knights, and a note:
For the games that matter. Carry them forward.
Leo brought it to the board. Set up the knights in place of his own. They didn’t make him better. But they made him feel part of something.
The café still stands.
The regulars still come. The games go on. And now, behind the counter, sometimes wearing a moth-eaten scarf, is a young man named Leo.
When people ask if he plays, he smiles and says, “Only on days ending in Y.”
He doesn’t care if he wins. Not really.
Because these games have merit.
And some victories don’t live on the board.
These Games Endure
"“You need not play well - just help your opponent to play badly” (Chepukaitis)"
Leo always cleaned the boards first thing in the morning.
He liked the quiet—the way the light moved across the pieces, the way the dust lifted from the old squares like ghosts being gently released. The café wasn’t quite his, not legally, but the keys sat in his pocket now, and he opened it each day the same way Mr. Merit had. Lights. Coffee. Boards.
Three months had passed since the old man had left. No funeral. No fanfare. Just a note from a lawyer, a hand-signed will, and that same peculiar line:
“These games have merit. Make sure they endure.”
Leo didn’t fully know what that meant yet. But he was trying.
The regulars still came. Old Mr. Park with his tattered briefcase. Salma and her daughter, who only played with the white pieces. And occasionally, a newcomer, drawn in by the smell of cardamom or the warmth of lamplight on a rainy day.
One Tuesday, just before closing, a woman entered wearing a navy trench coat and a look that said she hadn’t been here in years. Her hair was pinned back, neat but tired, and she carried a flat leather case under one arm.
Leo looked up from the counter. “Coffee or chess?”
She smiled faintly. “I heard this place had a ghost.”
Leo paused. “If you mean Mr. Merit, he passed. I’m keeping the seat warm.”
“I’m Ada. I used to play him. A long time ago.”
She sat at the second board—the one no one else ever used. Leo wasn’t sure if that was chance or instinct.
Ada opened the leather case. Inside was a roll-up vinyl board, fraying at the edges, and a set of pieces that looked worn but loved. She took out a single knight—a black one—and set it on the table like an offering.
“I owed him this. He gave it to me after our last game. Said I’d know when to bring it back.”
Leo nodded. “He did that. Gave you something, made it feel like more.”
“He ever beat you with the Fried Liver?”
Leo laughed. “Twice. First time was fast. Second time, he made it slow. Like poetry. You?”
“Every year on my birthday. Said it was a gift.”
They played. Ada was sharp. She hadn’t lost her rhythm. The game lasted nearly an hour, ending in a draw that felt more like a conversation than a competition.
Afterward, she didn’t leave right away.
“Do you know who he was? Before all this?”
Leo blinked. “Mr. Merit?”
She nodded.
“No,” Leo said. “I asked once. He said people who play too fast only know what’s on the surface. That if I slowed down, the answers were all there.”
Ada traced her finger along the edge of the knight. “He was a coach. A real one. National level. Had students win trophies, titles. Then, one day, he just… stopped. Walked away. Bought this café.”
Leo leaned in. “Why?”
“No one knows for sure. Some say a student cheated. Others say he saw something ugly in the system. He never told me. But he told stories—about the beauty of a good loss, about a draw that taught more than ten wins. I think he wanted to rebuild the game. From the inside out.”
Leo looked at the chessboards—three of them, each a little different in size, worn in different corners, each holding stories.
“He did.”
The next morning, Leo found something curious.
He was flipping through the old scorebook Mr. Merit had left behind. Most of it was neatly written—games, variations, small comments in looping cursive.
But near the back, a folded piece of paper was tucked between two pages.
It was a letter. Addressed simply: "To Whoever Comes After."
To Whoever Comes After,
If you're reading this, you're the one. You’ve taken my chair, and perhaps, my burden.
Let me tell you something most players forget: the game isn’t about kings or queens. It’s about the space between moves. The silence. The hesitation. The growth.
I stopped teaching professionally when I realized I was producing winners, not thinkers. Champions who crushed, but never understood the value of a graceful retreat.
Here, in this café, I tried again. Slowly. Quietly. With coffee and clocks.
You don’t need to be a master. You need to be a steward. Teach the bold ones patience. Teach the cautious ones courage. Make the game human again.
And if you ever lose sight of why—play a game with a stranger. Listen more than you speak. These games, they endure. Not because they’re ancient, but because they make us remember who we are when we’re trying to think three moves ahead.
Take care of the knights. They’ve seen things.
—Mr. M
Leo folded the letter slowly. He felt like someone had handed him a map with a single glowing landmark and no instructions on how to get there.
But he understood.
Sort of.
Spring arrived. The café opened its windows for the first time in months. The smell of flowers mixed with old books and cinnamon. On weekends, the tables filled with younger players—students Leo had started coaching unofficially. They paid in smiles and good questions.
One day, Salma’s daughter asked, “Why are there three boards?”
Leo smiled. “Because the game’s too big for one.”
“What do you mean?”
“One is for beginners,” he said, pointing. “One is for people who think they know what they’re doing. And the third—” he pointed to the old board in the corner “—is for the games that matter.”
“Can I play there?”
“Someday,” Leo said. “When you’re ready to listen more than talk.”
She nodded like that made sense.
That night, after locking up, Leo sat at the third board.
He set up a position from memory. A game he’d lost two years ago. One Nolan had played—aggressive, cold, flawless.
He tried playing the position differently. Slowly. Like Mr. Merit might have.
Halfway through, he saw it. A line he hadn’t noticed before. Not a win—but a way to survive.
He leaned back, smiling.
Mr. Merit had been right.
Some victories don’t live on the board.
But the game goes on.
These games endure.
*** I used to be a tournament director for a USCF club. One of my predecessors liked to create stories based on the players and the results of the event. Thank you for reading!!
