The Open File - Up the Wall
Submitted by
NM Zug on Tue, 03/24/2009 at 8:10pm.
The Open File
by Life Master Mike Petersen (Zug)
Up the Wall
Chess can drive you crazy. There are so many things that go on in chess that are such absolute nonsense, it's a wonder all chess players aren't totally bonkers. I know it drives me right up the wall ... really. Here are some examples:
- No matter how much you study Basic Chess Endings, none of your endgame positions EVER match what's in the book.
- In a five-round tournament, if you get black in the first round, that means you're probably gonna get black in the LAST round, too.
- Two weeks after you buy any book on the opening, the great line you just memorized has been absolutely refuted in the latest Chessbase article.
- Booking yourself up for a tournament game against a certain player and then having him play something completely different.
- Playing on a six-foot table at a chess tournament with big tablecloths on them, and then having the klutz at the next board get up and catch the thing with his leg ... bang!
- Winning a trophy at a tournament where the little plate hasn't been engraved ... with anything at all!
- Having your opponent drag out a chess set that looks like it spent the last six years submerged in hydrochloric acid, and of course he has black and the choice of equipment.
- Tying for a prize with six other guys and winning less than your entry fee back.
- Having to listen to excrutiatingly long opening remarks at the beginning of a tournament ... that already is starting 45 minutes late.
- The realization that, after seeing you should move one of your rooks to the open file, you have absolutely no idea which one is the "right" rook.
- Just getting into a juicy annotation during a game in a magazine when you suddenly come upon the dreaded "and the rest is a matter of technique."
- Staring and staring at a mate in three problem in a magazine, not being able to solve it, and then finding out next issue that there was an error in the position.
- Finally getting one of your best games published in your local magazine, and you see that they have reversed the colors, and now YOU lose!
These are just some of the nutty things that happen all the time. This kind of stuff has happened to me so often, I have finally given up and painted a chess board on the wall in my den. So, when I'm driven up the wall again, I'll have something to do.
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Click here for Mike's other work on Chess.com
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