The Chess Champion

When Mateo was nine, he could beat everyone in his neighborhood at chess. He could beat his father, his teacher and the man who ran the corner store. But he couldn't tie his shoes, and he couldn't ride a bike.

"You should enter the tournament in Miami," his father said one day. "You could win." Mateo wasn't sure. He could play chess at the kitchen table, but could he play in a big room full of strangers?

The tournament was in a hotel with a hundred tables. Mateo won his first three games easily. In the fourth game, he sat down opposite an old man with white hair and a very old watch. His name was Mr. Katz.

Mr. Katz played slowly. Very slowly. Mateo was nervous and moved fast, too fast, and after twenty minutes he lost his queen. He wanted to cry. Then Mr. Katz did something strange: he stopped the clock.

"When I was your age," he said quietly, "I could play fast too. But I couldn't wait. Waiting is the hardest thing in chess, and in life." He looked down. "Also, your shoe is untied. Shall I show you a trick?"

There, in the middle of the tournament, Mr. Katz taught Mateo to tie his shoes with two rabbit ears. Then they finished the game. Mateo lost, but he lost slowly, and he wasn't sad.

Mateo didn't win the tournament that year. He won it two years later, at eleven. Now he is a chess teacher in Florida, and on the first day he always teaches two things: how to wait, and how to tie your shoes.