 Why does Adam refuse to play checkers?
EVERYTHING IT HAD WAS IN THE GARDEN BY R. A. LAFFERTY Naturally they did not get results at once, nor did they expect to; it required a fine adjustment. But they were disappointed that they found nothing for several hours as they hovered high over the rotation. As though there were but one city, if that is its form. But this might be so varied or so unfamiliar that often both the machine and the designer of it were puzzled as to how to read the results. But when the Locator had refused to read Positive when turned on the inventor himself, bad blood developed between machine and man. There is a difference , the machine insisted. It was for this reason that Glaser used that model no more, but built others more amenable. On Earth it had read Positive on a number of crack-pots, including Waxey Sax, a jazz tootler who could not even read music. Yet on Suzuki-Mi it had read Positive on a two-inch-long worm, only one of them out of billions. He then narrowed to a smaller area (apparently one individual, though this could not be certain) and got very definite action. Finally it signaled the result, the most exasperating result it ever produces: the single orange light. So among the intelligences there was at least one that might be extraordinary, though possibly in a crackpot way. "Not a building, not two sticks or stones placed together. And those two ... why, they could well be Earth-people.
 He is scared of losing and giving away his true identity.
 He does not want to humiliate the priest by beating him.  The priest is too eager to go up against him, and he doesn't want to disappoint.  He has no reason to play. He is omniscient and would win without contest.  He is scared of losing and giving away his true identity.