I was playing chess with my buddy Mike one day and from the look of things doing pretty well. I seemed to have a decent position and was fairly certain that I was finally going to beat him. I looked at my pieces thoughtfully as if contemplating where to move next, although I knew exactly where I was going. After just enough time to build reasonable suspense, I moved my piece, taking one of Mike's. I could barely wait for the next move when I was pretty sure I would mate him. Unfortunately things didn't turn out that way. Mike blocked my move and mated me on the following turn.
I was beat again and this helped solidify my belief that Mike was simply better then me in chess and that it was unlikely that I'd beat him any time soon. We played a couple more games with similar results and then something interesting happened. Mike's sister joined in for a game and played me next. I was just getting concerned that chess talent might run in the family, but after a fairly straightforward game, I beat her. This was encouraging and started raising my spirits. Next Mike and his sister played. In no time at all, she whooped him. I couldn't believe it. I had yet to get a single game off of him.
Next we repeated the exercise with the same results. Almost without fail, I'd beat his sister, she'd beat him and he'd beat me. In that moment I realized that I was both a better and worse player than my buddy Mike and his Sister.
