Rules of the Game

Rules of the Game Summary | Detailed Summary

Waverly Jong narrates her own story, beginning the tale when she is six years old and living in San Francisco's Chinatown with her parents and two brothers, Vincent and Winston. The family lives on Waverly Place, the street after which Waverly Jong is named, in a small apartment above a Chinese bakery. Though they are poor, the children do not realize it because they eat regularly and have plenty of fun playing in and out of the alleys and shops in the neighborhood.

Through the years, Waverly's mother consistently gives her and her brothers nuggets of wisdom so that they can improve themselves and their situation, instead of allowing them to simply accept the poor confines of Chinatown. Among these nuggets of wisdom, Mrs. Jong teaches her daughter the "secret of invisible strength" (1) that Waverly later uses to win arguments, respect and, later, chess games. This secret is to not go against the wind but, rather, bring strength from the same direction as the prevailing wind so that nobody notices the strength being applied.

As the Jong children grow a little older, they spend their days playing games and often making harmless trouble like normal children. However, when Vincent receives a chess set at the First Chinese Baptist Church's Christmas party, Vincent and Winston immediately sit down and study the intricacies of the game and they play each other often. At first, the two boys will not allow Waverly to play, but when she offers to let them use Life Savers -- her present at the Christmas party -- as substitutes for the two chess men missing from the set, the brothers agree to let their kid sister join in.

Though Waverly starts slow and loses badly to her brothers, who had been playing each other frequently, Waverly's fascination with the game quickly takes over. By studying chess books at the library, learning about how to control the center of the board, and even studying the pieces themselves, as though they will actually tell her their mysteries, Waverly quickly surpasses her brothers and, as a result, the boys stop playing chess.

With no one to play at home, Waverly finds some old men who play chess against each other down at the park and, one day, she hauls Vincent's chess set over there and asks for a game. An older man, who Waverly calls Lau Po, takes up the challenge from this little girl and he beats her handily. However, Waverly is persistent and, as the weeks pass, she keeps coming to the park and, with each new defeat, she learns new secrets of the game. In fact, Lau Po proves to be an excellent teacher and he instructs her in both chess strategies and proper etiquette, allowing her to become a much more proficient and enjoyable opponent. Then, as Waverly's skills continue to improve, crowds gather to watch this small Chinese girl besting all her opponents in the park. In fact, word spreads enough that even Mrs. Jong joins the spectators around Waverly's games.

One day, a man in the crowd comments to Mrs. Jong that Waverly should enter local chess competitions, but Mrs. Jong only offers a smile as a meaningless answer. However, Waverly desperately wants to enter these competitions and play against better players, so she convinces her mother to allow her to play in competitions by pretending that she does not want to play in them. She does this by phrasing her statement so that it sounds like she is afraid of bringing shame on her family by losing to Americans. Hearing her daughter's reasoning, Mrs. Jong is immediately convinced that Waverly should enter a tournament. After all, Mrs. Jong does not want her daughter to quit before she even tries, since that is losing without ever trying to win.

Waverly is nervous before her first tournament game but, as soon as she sits down in front of the board, the world disappears and the only thing that exists is one chessboard and the 16 pieces on each side. However, there is a voice in her mind reminding Waverly to blow with the wind so her opponent will not notice where she is coming from. Waverly heeds this little voice and she takes the game handily.

As Waverly continues to enter chess tournaments and she takes home more and more first place trophies, Mrs. Jong feels a keen pride in her young daughter. In fact, the entire neighborhood is very proud of her and local businesses offer to sponsor Waverly so that she can travel to the various competitions. As well, the bakery downstairs displays Waverly's trophies for all to see and, when Waverly wins a regional championship, the bakery lays out a large cake in the window congratulating Waverly on her accomplishment. Thus, chess has given Waverly a very lofty place in this rather poor neighborhood.

By the time Waverly is nine years old, she is 429 points away from grand master status and a national champion, which is, in most people's minds, incredible considering that she is a girl. In fact, her accomplishment is so impressive that Newsweek puts a picture of Waverly on their cover next to Bobby Fisher's quote, "There will never be a woman grand master." (11). This is a result of the fact that, the day the picture is taken, Waverly beats a very confident, older man who suddenly finds himself at the will of a small girl in a frilly pink dress who effectively pretends to be very unsure of herself. Thus, Waverly proves herself on the national stage against the best competition that America has to offer and she is named the Great American Hope.

As Waverly's chess career continues on, she finds herself unable to concentrate on chess at home through all the distractions. With her mother hovering over her while she practices, her brothers making too much noise at night, and her dinner robbing her of the ability to focus, she withdraws from her normal home life and becomes a sort of chess machine. She practices regularly, thinks about chess constantly, and she is actually happy with the fact that chess has taken over her life.

Unfortunately, when Waverly does not have a tournament, she cannot get out of going to the market on Saturdays with her mother. The market is itself is not bad but, while they are there, Mrs. Jong shows off Waverly to everyone there and Waverly does not enjoy the attention. Finally, Waverly tells her mother that she is fed up with these constant introductions to absolute strangers. However, Mrs. Jong is angry at Waverly for her impudence and, in response, she tells Waverly that she should not be embarrassed by her own mother.

Waverly, frustrated and angry, runs off and hides in a blind alley. However, when she returns home, Mrs. Jong refuses to punish her daughter. Instead, she simply says that Waverly is not concerned about the family, so the family is not concerned about her.

Hearing this, Waverly goes off to her room without eating dinner and, once again, thinks about chess. However, the image of her mother's angry eyes comes back to haunt her and, as she thinks about her mother and chess, she imagines her mother's angry eyes behind a row of 16 black chess pieces storming toward her. As her white pieces shriek and flee from the attack, Waverly imagines herself flying up into the clouds as she ponders about her next move.