She is invited to be part of the game and is given the role of a humble white pawn. She is promised, however, that she will become a queen once the promotion takes place — for that to happen she must advance, step by step, to the eighth rank. Throughout her excursion, she lives situations that are as magical as unforgettable, interacting with other pieces/characters. The experiences, besides having an effect of hilarity or strangeness, invite us to reflection.
What Grandmasters Don't See Vol. 1: Protected Squares
Many times when a top player blunders, it is routinely described by the esoteric term „chess blindness.“ In the series What Grandmasters Don‘t See, chess trainer and world-class commentator Maurice Ashley strips away the myth, and for the first time explains why the root of these mistakes is more often based on the psychology of human learning.
In Volume 1 of the series, Ashley coins a new term Protected Squares, and shows how many errors occur on squares that seem invulnerable because they are clearly guarded by pawns.
More…
After fulfilling the expectation of becoming a queen, Alice wakes up, once again on the "right" side of the mirror. She now needs to find out — doubts abounding (these shared by the readers) — if the adventure really existed, or if the whole thing was only a dream.
The mirror is used as a very intelligent and proverbial device. The images projected on it, those of people and their respective environments, seem to acquire a life of their own shortly after being observed. They are a reflection of the real world. But, at the same time, it is completely plausible to imagine a parallel dimension hidden behind those elements, which inherently will always be mysterious.
As Borges put it in his poem "Mirrors":
The crystal spies on us. If within the four
Walls of a bedroom a mirror stares,
I’m no longer alone. There is someone there.
In the dawn reflections mutely stage a show.
The pieces that participate in the encounter — including the standout roles played by the White Queen, the Red Queen and the Red King (despite his impassivity) — have fantasy names, such as Tweedledee, Tweedledum, the Talking Sheep, the Elder, the White Knight, Humpty Dumpty, the Carpenter, the Walrus, the Raven, the Red Knight, and two that are very special: the Lion (representing England) and the Unicorn (Scotland), which are fighting for the supremacy of the kingdom.