Friday, April 13, 2007

Chess and Setting?

There is more to setting than meets the eye. To be a setter, you not only must be athletic, but you must also be smart. You must know when to set which hitters, when to call a play, when to dump. You must know not only your rotation but the other team's rotation, taking into account weaknesses (i.e. a short blocker) and capitalize on them. Set your tallest hitter up with that short blocker and your team has a better chance of being successful that play.

But what does chess have to do with this? Chess is a mind game, a bloody battle with twists and turns that you must foresee and then either defend the move or counter it. A bishop can move diagonally as many squares as it wishes. A pawn can only move forward one square at a time (two only on its first move) and only capture enemy pieces diagonally. A knight moves in an L-shaped pattern, forward or backward. I could go on and on, but I'm sure you know have a taste of how complicated chess may become. You must know every piece and how it moves, on your side and the opponent's side... just like setting.

In chess, one may set up an intricate trap where you sacrifice your bishop (3 pts.) for a rook (5 pts.). A good trade, with a gain of 2 points. However, the ultimate trade would be the Queen (9 pts.) for the checkmate, or the win. In relation to volleyball, you may set up the middle once on a quick and let her get blocked. The middle on the other side is now ready for the quick again, confident that she can block it. But she knows that a smart setter won't set the middle right away... or will she? Perhaps the setter will run the middle around on a slide... yeah! That's what she'd do! In this scenario, assuming I am a front-row setter, I would tell the middle to run a slide around the back and then set the four. The opponent would be so caught up thinking about whether or not I'm going to set the middle again she would completely forget about the outside attacker.

No, it's not exactly chess, but if you want to be a good setter, you better know how to play your pieces.

Tuesday, April 3, 2007

Still a little sore...

I'm still a little sore from the JO qualifier tournament. However, such is the nature of the game.