PAX: Goose, Pope, Duke, Bam Bam, America’s Best, Lil’ Cuz, Maneater, Jackknife, Safety Valve, Honeysuckle, Yelnats, Paradox, Yankee Joe, Lil’ Papi, Teravanilli, Popeye

AO: The Peltch

By: Goose

We’ve never done F3 Chess, and YHC has never heard it done in other regions, which means this is probably the first time in history anything like this has ever been attempted, and the results were insane. Death came from every direction in a dizzying flood of overlapping strategies, sneak attacks, defenses, and broken plans on top of broken plans. There was no getting traction, just raw, jungle warfare where anything can happen and sudden death is an unavoidable reality.

But, before the overwhelming carnage began, the PAX gathered light-heartedly for a warmup of the usuals before slow-moseying to the dome with a block on their shoulders and a friendly conversation on their lips. These conversations continued well into the first few minutes of YHC’s instructions, per usual, but thankfully, the rules were relatively simple this time. Four teams each had their own set of chess pieces set up on a four-way chess board—black, white, red, and blue—facing each other across a field of checkered squares. In order to move a piece, all players on the team would have to complete the assigned reps of the corresponding exercise:

Pawn: 15 merkins

Knight: 15 genuflections

Bishop: 25 overhead presses

Rook: block & bear lap

Queen: 30 Freddy Mercurys

King: 20 Big boy situps

Teams wouldn’t take turns, they’d just move pieces as they completed the assigned exercise. You could attack any of the other three teams, and you needed to defend yourself from all of them at once. If you put another team in check, they had to be notified and would need to interrupt their current exercise to then do the exercise needed to do a move to get out of check. (So, no one could just kill another team’s king.) If one team (check)mated another, the two would become one, and the new conglomerate team would be able to use both teams’ pieces (the mated king would be removed).

Teams were assigned randomly, except that Pope was assigned leadership of the 2.0’s, and Bam-Bam was moved over to the Blue Team to even things out. Both of these decisions would end up determining the outcome of the war, but first…

The music started, and the game began. At first, all four teams thought they could take their time and put together a nice, safe, long-term strategy to position themselves against a nearby king. But, it didn’t take long for the ruthless sniping to begin, and YHC could hear the tell-tale signs: “Where did that come from?!” “What happened to our queen?!” “How did you get all the way over here??” Blood began pouring out of wounds faster than they could be bandaged, and the carnage was just beginning.

A team would step away to do 15 merkins for only about ten seconds and then return to find that the board configuration had completely changed and their merkins were in vain. Or, the piece they were about to move was completely gone, and there was a foreign queen standing ominously behind their pawns.

“How in the world did this happen??” a red team member would cry, and Bam-Bam would calmly say “Checkmate,” as he carved another notch in his queen’s crown.

Teams were doing more Freddys and block ‘n bears than they’ve ever done in one workout, and yet they were distracted by the effort to stay alive and somehow take advantage of a temporary opening in enemy lines before it inevitably closed or their own piece got sniped. So, while one half of the PAX feverishly tried to strategize amidst the chaos and shouted out exercises and exhortations to hurry, the other half loitered around the edges, shell-shocked, just waiting for their orders.

The only exceptions were Pope and his pygmy army and Bam-Bam’s quiet, confident, soul-crushing sniping. It took almost a physical harness to keep Bam-Bam from operating as a one-man killing machine rather than wait for a steadily growing team of old men slowly finishing their reps.

Pope and his first Lieutenant, Jackknife, had full vision of the board and could see an attack plan unfolding before the attackers could finish their reps. They had complete control over their army of tiny terrors. They were motivated, bloodthirsty, and operated as if they were each small parts of one young, never tiring body. They moved as a unit, scurrying to the block and bear field to launch their bricks, or collectively flopping down to do three sit-ups to every full-grown man’s one. Cornered toward the end by all three other teams ganging up on them, they only became a tighter ball of unending energy and optimism, and they easily survived the chaotic onslaught until 7:30 to force a stalemate.

The PAX moseyed a little more quietly back to the flag for COT, and YHC noticed that there was a kind of confused look of defeat in everyone’s face. They were tired and quiet, and it seemed they wanted to complain about something but weren’t sure where to start. YHC might’ve misread what was actually a disappointed indifference at a mediocre beatdown with way too much competition, but where’s the drama in that? We’ll say it was a deep questioning of reality and a new realization of our mortality.

Announcements, prayer, and YJ prayed us out before a solid number of the PAX (I think) met for coffeeteria.

Huge thanks to Dox, AB, and Honeysuckle for arranging the food for the Bunkhouse this evening, and to Teravanilli for coming in clutch and getting it over there.

SYITG,

Goose