What's a Gambit

See Also: Gambit Archives

According to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition:

gam‡bit
1. An opening in chess in which a minor piece, or pieces, usually a pawn, is offered in exchange for a favorable position.
2. A maneuver, stratagem, or ploy, especially one used at an initial stage.
3. A remark intended to open a conversation.

If you're like me (and let's face it, very few people are as insane as I clearly am), you'll use words without a completely clear idea of why you're using them. Wade suggested an idea for a 'daily rant' in a series of brainstorming emails. We all loved the idea, but felt that 'rant' was a highly overused word, especially in our circle of friends. We tossed around a few other ideas, none of them striking. I finally suggested 'gambit', and then realized that I should probably look up the definition. Heh.

Looking at the dictionary def, I realized that my brain had placed the word in a couple of completely different contexts. I realized that I'd read it in at least a couple places using definition three - phrases like "...but not one offered even the most elementary conversational gambit to his companions." Easy enough, makes sense.

Unfortunately (and this is what makes me insane), I realized that I'd also heard the word years and years ago, and why this memory decided to emerge from the murk is anyone's guess. I remembered reading an article about the 80s TV show "MacGyver", and how all the things they had Mac do could really be done (of course, they left out a key step or two so kids at home couldn't make a pellet gun out of a pen and some bleach). You all remember Mac. If not, here's a picture:

Love the 80s hair. Woo. Anyway, I recall the producers saying they always worked one of the tricks into what he called the "opening gambit". You know how the deal works - the episode opens with MacGyver in a prison in Venezuela, guarded by one officer napping on a folding chair. Mac fashions a rocket launcher by duct taping a cat to a fire extinguisher and breaks out, the main credits and theme song roll, and we start the actual episode after the commercial break. I guess that fits definition two...

In any case, we're gonna use this space to provide a little daily content - not necessarily anything earth-shattering, but hopefully something quick and clever, and most importantly new every weekday. So I whipped up a graphic with chess in it, and we've got this whole gambit thing covered. And if nothing else, you've all gotta agree that it's a better name than ESPN's "Daily Quickie".

So check back every weekday for a little daily SP fun. We hope you enjoy it.

What do you think? Drop us a line at webmaster@simpleprop.com and give us some feedback. Maybe we'll even run your letters in future Gambits. 'The Daily Gambit' is updated every weekday.