Shom Biswas’s Reviews > City of Thieves > Status Update

When I was fourteen, I quit the club. I had learned that I was a good player but would never be a great one. Friends of mine at Spartak ... had left me far behind, advancing to a plane I could not access no matter how many games I played, how many books I read, how many endgame problems I worked on in bed at night. I was like a well-trained pianist who knows which notes to hit but can't make the music his own.

The colonel smiled. "I like you, boy. You won't live a long life, but I like you."