What does "cast gloom" mean? [closed]

Solution 1:

I'm a passable chess player, but I'm not quite sure why an isolated pawn would "cast gloom" on the game. Whatever - here's my guess.

I'm assuming that the fact of the gloom being explicitly cast over the board, rather than one or other of the players means that there's no automatic link between which player has an isolated pawn and which player will win the game.

I think the "chessboard with isolated pawn" is similar to the situation on a snooker table where the balls are in such a position that no "positive" shot can be made by either player, so they just take turns moving the cue-ball as little as possible, to avoid giving the other player a chance to go for a pot.

When that happens in snooker, the players often agree to a "re-rack" (start the game again), but from what I know of chess you can't do that there (both players would have to agree to call it a draw, which is a recorded "game outcome").

So really, the "gloom" in OP's context is as much for the spectators as the players. In some way that I don't know enough to explain, the fact of that isolated pawn means the game is likely to be boring (or otherwise of poor quality).