Last year, my son joined the middle school chess club and began using me, a total novice, as his sparring partner. In chess, a player can choose from one of 20 opening moves, including moving a knight in the back row to one of four possible spots or any of the pawns in the front row one or two spaces forward. That opening matters a lot, determining how the game unspools and, ultimately, a player’s odds of winning. I experimented wildly, including with oddball moves, such as moving the pawn on the far right a single space forward. Given how badly that game went, I never used that opener