What is the most SURPRISING incident happen with you while playing OTB tourney?

This is going to be interesting.. Well the most surprising thing happen with me in otb is that, once my opponent offer me a draw after he blundered a queen ,i was drinking water and hearing it i couldnt stop myself laughing out loud that all the water came out from my mouth and nose.

At the recent Collegiate Pan-Am in Dallas, there was a streaker (well, he had underwear on) who entered the room and ran across while yelling "whoooo." It was about 2 hours into the round so there was just under half the room still playing, but everyone just kinda froze and watched as the guy slowly ran across the room yelling. As he was exiting through the door, one of the GMs on the top boards (I believe it was Timur Gareev who is #4 in the US, but not 100% certain there) got up, shoved him, and took one of his shoes (why? I have no clue). The streaker looked shocked but still got up and continued running. No one saw him afterwards and nothing much was done about it, except the guy lost a shoe.

I've already posted this elsewhere:

When I was playing in the Canadian Open in Montreal back in the Seventies... in a field that included Larsen and Ljubujevic... one of the players at a nearby board blundered his Queen in the opening. As soon as his opponent captured it, the player immediately stopped the clock, got up and headed for the door. The winning player signed the score-sheet, handed it in, spent a moment or two looking at the nearby games, and then started to walk out of the tournament hall. As he reached the door, his erstwhile opponent leapt out from behind a big potted plant, kicked him in the balls, and ran away.

The tournament director phoned the police, who arrived quite quickly, wrote down what details were available... and then decided to wait for the start of the next round. Sure enough, the assailant showed up for his next-round pairing, was promptly arrested, and hauled off to jail.

I also played in a tournament at the University of Fredericton, when one of the players had a heart attack right at the board. Comment from one of his fellow players: "He was losing anyway".

lolllzzzzz

I still like to see what happens when a player forgets to push his clock.. Brings out the smaller side of character it seems. My rule is that I tell them after 10 minutes.

It occured with my opponent 2-3 times that he forget to push his clock.. I enjoy the bonus and watching him trying to panic..

i played a tourney and went to make a move but realised that i couldn't move the piece due to a pin, so i started to think of another move when my opponent started to explain that i couldn't move my piece due to the pin. i think he really liked that move and just wanted me to know of it, so i  commented on a move that he couldn't do to give it back at him. The surprising thing is that i let his comment get to me so much i retaliated back like a kid...oh well, chess sometimes brings out the worst in people.

One very funny moment in an otb tournament was at a junior tourn, with ages ranging from 6-12. I remember the room was completely silent while people were playing, then suddenly someone shouted "HAHAHAHAHA CHECKMATE I WIN!!!!" breaking the dead silence, then the next thing, his opponent shouted back "WHAT NO IT ISN'T I AM WINNING!!!". Everybody in the room then burst out laughing, and when an arbiter went over to their board, they both started crying because everyone was looking towards them and laughing. It turned out that they were both 8-year-olds and that it was checkmate :) I don't think the room became silent again until after the round had finished!

Surprising?

I give a (non-monetary) prize for biggest upset at my tourneys.  At one of my tournaments, I had a 500 point upset.  That guy came in seventh in the biggest upset category.  The winner had a 1200 point upset.  In the final round of a 5 round Swiss tournament, there was one game with a 1300 point rating difference.

I suppose the biggest surpise I ever had didn't happen during the tournament.  It happened the day after.  After running my first tournament, I got a call the next day.  It was the police.  They wanted to know if I had names and/or addresses for all of my players.  We held the tournament in a campus building, and we were the only ones using the building that day.  Some time after the tournament, a custodian had gone into the bathroom and found a death threat written on the wall.  Something vaguely threatening some sort of mass murder, like "Everyone Dies. April 30"

They asked if anyone had missed any rounds of the tournament or was in any way acting suspiciously.

In a Christmas chess open where I was playing in my town, a strong syrian player was facing a woman. His position was winning.

But suddenly the woman said draw because the same position had occured three times.

The syrian player did'nt agree, so the  referee took his scoresheet, and used three chessboards on three different tables.

Then the referee began to read the scoresheet.

On the first table he placed the position when it had occured the first time.

On the second one he placed the position when it had occured the second time.

On the third one he place the position whent it had occured the third time.

The syrian player said then that the three positions did happen three times but not on the same chessboard!

Lolzz..

Oh...sorry.

Nothing happened next, that I know about.  I never heard anything more about it, and no crazed gunman committed a major massacre at Oakland University.

We also didn't know if it was one of the Chess players.  We were the only ones using the building, but the doors to the building were unlocked, and  a few dozen people would have traversed it some point during the day.  I don't know if there were surveillance cameras to see who went in and out of the bathrooms.

Ohhhh.. This kind of situations are really akward..

Cmon people revive this thread

Ahahaha well knw wat.. They dont have time to revive..

I lived in an area in Illinois where there were no really good players and even though I won several tournaments my USCF rating was only about 2000.

Then I got a chance to play in the 1973 U S Open in

Chicago  [yes a long time ago]  and did well losing to a senior master

but beating the current [at the time] Chicago champ and Sandrin drawing with the Illinois State Champion Karlins,  beating

a grandmaster,  Bisguier, and drawing with a former Illinois state

champ.  [that was a little surprise in itself]  I came out with a

USCF rating of 2188 and needed 12 more points to become a

USCF master and what happened soon after was a surprise [bad surprise].

I played in a USCF rated tournament in Kankakee which was 4 rounds and I won all 4 games. 

Then a month later, I played in another USCF rated tournament in Kankakee and again it was 4 rounds only and I won all 4 games.

Even just the first Kankakee tournament enough to get the 12 points to become 2200 plus USCF master and then I also had the other 4-0 result.

I kept looking for my copy of

Chess Life to come and for the first month and second month and 3rd month--my rating stayed the same at 2188.  I contacted the tournament

director after receiving my 3rd magazine without a rating change and he

said  [and here is the punch line] that he, himself had played in both tournaments and he had a bad result and did not send in the results

to USCF!!! 

after that I became engrossed in correspondence chess and did much better than in over the board and to this day some 39 years later my USCF rating still at 2188...

Back in the early 70s I played on a team in Detroit. We had to play 5 rounds in 5 consecutive weeks and I was playing the last board in our clubs lowest rated team.

I won all four of my previous games and when I showed up to play the 5th I was informed that our club president has brought in a ringer to play the first board, essentially moving everyone down one board bumping me off the team.

I walked out and never played another game of chess until just over a year ago.

The joke's on me... all those years wasted. I suck today because of my bruised ego 35+ years ago.

Ahahahaha...dats right.. Ego suckz..

Datz really funny.. A fight..lolzzz..

    We had a TD here in WV. that pulled a stunt like this he either didn't send in the rating report for some tourn. or never paid out the prize money. Luckily i never played in any of those tourn. but a close friend of mine did and he was pretty pissed about the whole thing along with several other players. That was about 15 years ago and this player is banned from any Tourn. here to this day.