I owe the charlotte chess center 91 cents
I played in a blitz tournament over Thanksgiving at the US Masters.
Since I have not finished annotating those games I will only include two games and some "short" stories.
They may not be short.
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James Canty
I played FM James Canty in blitz. He was holding a small tripod, where his phone was streaming. I noticed his "calculation over everything" emblem on his shirt. I was very excited. I would be playing a popular streamer! And I was being filmed. I wasn't very comfortable with it, but I thought it was cool. I tried my best to look calm and collected and confident in front of the camera, and brought forth my best against him.
I checked him and offered a draw. Then he made a move, and I checked him again. He was down to nine seconds, and now he reached out his hand, which I took. "Good game." It was a draw. Or was it? Suddenly I wasn't sure. Was it a resignation or a draw? Because he did not say anything when he reached out his hand. He moved, which meant he declined my draw offer.
I wanted to ask him, but Canty was currently talking to Aman Hambleton with his phone pointed at him, and it made me feel uncomfortable to talk to him in front of all his viewers. I patiently stood to the side and waited for him to finish, but as soon as he did, he said to his phone, "Alright let's get the heII outta here," and I could not really bring myself to interrupt him. I consoled myself that the position was probably a draw anyways, and that would be the end of my experience with James Canty, if I did not happen to stumble on him by chance ten minutes later.
I saw him playing another guy in the skittles room. The kid, I think was an FM, but after seeing all sorts of insane people at the Masters it no longer made me feel as bad. I wanted to take the opportunity to ask him if it was a draw, so I stood to the side, on the opposite end of his phone, waiting for the game to be over. I don't remember the result of that game. I think the kid won, it seemed crushing. When it ended, I asked him if our game was a draw.
Canty was surprised. "Oh, we played? I didn't even know we played," he said seemingly surprised.
This took me aback, since... we literally played in the last round?? In the last round of the blitz. I didn't think I was that unmemorable... so I tried to tell him. You see, we played in the last round, and I think we drew, but...
But he was already grabbing his phone. Chat, he says, chat I didn't even know I played him. It seemed he saw the situation as quite hilarious. And it probably was - to everyone except me. He pulled the tripod over to put me on camera to show who he was talking about. I didn't like this, so I quickly excused myself (I don't remember what I said) and left as fast as I could.
It was not a good experience. But it is what it is.
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Donald Johnson, funny man
Donald Johnson is a pretty tall (if he isn't tall he certainly looks tall) person who I saw at the K-12 Nationals all the way back in april. He was wearing a green vest, or whatever, and if you heard someone yell "hey, pretty boy!" on the street it would be him to turn around.
I remember him because I thought I would play him in the 6th round at the K-12, but I got paired with Nicolas Alejandro De La Colina, which is very fun name to say. Both were NMs at the time, but Donald is now an FM. Insane people. If you try comparing yourself to these types of people, you will go insane, so it's best not to even think about doing that.
I did not know this before the round, but we had already friended each other on chess.com for a year or so beforehand. I know soon after we friended each other, his account went from untitled to NM. And last night, I noticed that the account had the FM title. "Wow," I thought. "This guy is improving fast!"
In our blitz game, Donald got a better position out of the opening in a botvinnik structure. I started thinking and trying to get some sort of counterplay. The position looked roughly like this (I cannot reconstruct this game from memory. My memory is not that good):
And at this point Donald decided he was going to be a funny man. He took his pieces and squeezed it between two fingers as he slowly, oh so slowly, slid his pieces on every move, before gently tapping the clock with overexaggerated care.
A super effective psychological blow! I personally could not take that level of disrespect. I started doing the same, and before long our moves were made in a contest to see who could play their moves slower.
Until I realized I had about one minute while he had two-twenty. So I abandoned all pretenses and started slamming my pieces and clock as fast as I could, and ended up drawing.
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James Nguyen is hot, apparently
A long time ago, in @Lightning's discord server, someone asked me if I had James Nguyen's contacts. I think this was over the summer. I said no, but I had his discord. They said that if I had a way to contact him I should tell them that this person thought James was very hot.
I have no idea why this person wanted me of all people to tell him that. I barely know James. I saw him twice in my life at that point (about four times now). So I think(?) I searched up his discord in my friends list and sent him a message, but since I never got anything back, I forgot about it until a few days ago 💀
And that's why this story is present.
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2180 self-destructs in blitz
a 2100 self-destructed in the first round. I include this game because it's the only other game I could reconstruct from memory.
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FM behavior
In the middle of one of my middle rounds, I heard someone speak to the side:
"Hey."
I looked over. The person wasn't talking to me. So I paid him no heed and instead focused on my game.
"Oh, you want to do that now?"
It wasn't whispering. It was a normal indoor voice, but in a quiet room, it is very clear.
"You did that? Come on. I'm not that bad. Heh."
The man reclined back in his seat. It was quiet for about half a minute.
"You want me to move? I'm not going to move. I'm going to give you some time advantage."
At this point one of the TDs came over to talk to him. The TD was whispering, but the man was not. They talked for a bit, with mainly the TD telling him to shut the hell up and play the game, and the guy saying that he's just playing his game.
"Well what do you want me to do?" The man finally said.
"Shut up and play your game!" The TD hissed. The man nodded, almost as if agreeing.
"I can do that, I'm doing that," he said. The TD nodded and hurried off.
A few minutes later: "Oh? You're going to..."
In the end, the man apparently got flagged. He stopped the clock and raised his hand. The same TD came over.
"My opponent ran me out of time," he said incredulously, almost as if in disbelief. "That means I lost," he continued.
"Maybe you shouldn't have been talking but just been playing," said the TD, who was probably gloating.
"Eh," replied the man. He got up, stretched, and left.
The next round: "What kind of move is this? ..."
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Thoughts and ends
I played almost exclusively masters. With the exception of maybe the first round opponent (who was likely also a NM, I haven't checked), everyone else was at least a National Master.
I think I did quite well. Two wins and two draws and two losses. Not bad!
The next morning I saw the standings. Me, and ten other people would be getting exactly nine dollars and nine cents. I asked Grant, one of the organizers, for my money before I left. He looked around, sighed, and pulled a ten dollar bill out of nowhere and told me to keep it.
So now I owe the Charlotte Chess Center ninety-one cents.
