CheckersMate. A sign you're a bad chess player is that you play checkers.

One way you can recognize a bad chess player...

After being double checkmated, he'd say: "Duh".

How can you tell a good chess player from a bad one?

Well, the good chess player would never say: "Oh, I hate playing with black."

an opponent I played against in the last round of a tournament could win the tournament if he managed to draw against me. and I could win the tournament if I won. He wrote 0 in front of my name before the game as if it was the result.

He wasn't playing that good, he made a blunder and I thought if you are sure of winning you shouldn't do that....needless to say I won.

you're a bad chess player when 8 out of your 10 opening moves are pawn moves.

I played against an opponent once, he played 12 pawn moves before move 15...he lost in 17 moves

When your three year old daughter shows you how to play

It is noon, and your wife is in labor. You grow restless; at 1PM chess.com runs the scheduled "Pardon Our Blunders." Telling your wife you need to go to the restroom, you leave the hospital and return home just in time for the show. When the distressed mother-in-law calls you, you curtly say "I'm in the middle of something", hang up the phone, and watch Pruess explain the unsound sacrifice.

if the person analyzing your game makes the annotation after your first move    better is resigns!!

you are a bad player if you don't have a trophy room,...I don't´..

Uh oh... I thinkk that calls many chess players bad players, including the ones that started at 3 or four, because you said AT 5 years old.

We often talk about bad chess players. But what about good chess players?

Reflecting upon this, you decide to work at breaking 800. Then all those nattering nabobs of negativism...they'll come to see the stuff you are made of.

By golly, they will!

Well, this appears to be the end of a long, hard road.

I can't think of another thing to say...

OK...just one. You are such a bad chess player that you imbibe a pint of blackberry brandy, and you stumble your way down to the railroad crossing.

You've brought a length of rope to tie your wretched being to the tracks to meet your glory.

Duly noted, you did find your authentic Bobby Fischer memorabilia magnetic pocket chess set. You had left it at your Aunt Emily's...NOT at the bus terminal restroom.

All that effort in search of it...all for naught.

Anyway, back to the story at hand...you find solace in having been reconnected to your favorite pastime. You figure: "What the heck...one last game."

You sit next to the tracks, rope in lap, pull out your chess set and start to play. Thing is, you get a fool's mate on yourself. This riles you to no end.

Whereupon, you leave your set on the tracks and saunter on home to the Y, lost in thought, lost in resolve to forget about chess. It's like women, you figure...something/someone to make you happy...yet someone/something to make you unhappy.

You come to realize that chess, women and the world in general...are all bitter sweet.

Goodbye chess...goodbye...

Lost in translation!

I enjoyed your novella, e4nf3.  Your writing is very descriptive.  

Good. It's over now...

But, wait...a thought comes to mind...

Back at your digs at the Y, you don't exactly have a penthouse suite. Well, maybe on a small scale of 10 ft x 10 ft; but it is Home Sweet Home, nonetheless.

Taking off your worn and torn gabardine jacket, you notice the rope that you had stuffed into the breast pocket. You marvel at the fact that the rope actually fit into the pocket, but it is a big pocket and a small, nylon rope...not one of those heavy, braided Manila hemp ropes. Come to think of it, some people would actually call what you have "twine" instead of "rope". No matter.

After sobering up, you wonder exactly what was going through your blitz buzzed brain. Tie yourself up on a railroad track? How would you manage that...so that you couldn't also untie yourself? See...you just never think more than three moves ahead, just as when you play "daily chess" (what a dopey thing to call it!) on the internet.

A quirky thought goes through your mind. Since you happen to have the "rope" in hand, you eyeball the chandelier above your head. Well, OK, some people would not call a 60-watt naked light bulb a "chandelier" but that's their problem, not yours.

You've been dining with Haywood down at the Dunkin Doughnut Shop as of late. And, you've "put on a little weight", as you refer to your new, Ben Franklin look. You are wondering if the rope will hold your weight...

Buzz...buzzzz...buzzz...shoot here it is the twenty first century and they still have one of these 1940ies freakin door buzzers.

"OK, OK...I'm coming", you call out, even though the door knob is actually just arm's length away.

Ooh, I'm waiting on pins & noodles for the next episode!

With trepidation and anxiety, you turn the door knob to see who is standing on your door mat: 

... if you can afford a doormat, that is.

Not only do you have a door mat, but you have two. You got them down at the Salvation Army.