Going Postal - Rd. 1 @ the CMCC13

"Going postal" means to become crazed and violent, especially as the result of chess.  Did I say chess?  I meant stress.

There's no better substitute for stress than classical chess.  The real kind of stress, not the fake kind you get with blitz.  Sure, you're running out of time.  But are you really looking for the best move?

The whole point of over the board classical chess is to play the best move - all the time.  Or at least stretch out playing a string of good moves over 40 or 50 turns; until inevitably, as one must, someone makes a mistake.  It's possible to play mundane enough that the position does not have enough hair on it to make a mistake - staying in cleanly shaven drawn territory.  But this is not a blog post by "Drawovitz."  It is one Harry Golombek would be proud of.

You'd be forgiven for scratching your head when I tell you my opponent recognized me from the world of online chess.  Truth be told I had a 0.5-1.5 record against @clericy1955 in online postal chess ("Daily" if you will).  But lick a stamp all you want, we were going to play OTB today and the library fines were about to come due.

Here I am in Round 1 action.  Let's dive into the game, as you can see I had the White pieces.

This nice tactic wins the exchange.  Black resigned.  If he had the chance to mail it in I might have been in trouble, but OTB you only get one chance to make a move.