MY GAME AGAINST CHESSBRAH ERIC HANSEN
In many ways, I feel like I am part of a trend when it comes to chess. The popularity of online chess has been increasing lately due to the increasingly stronger presences of social media icons and personalities. I am fully supportive of this phenomenon, and definitely am familiar with the more common faces in this community.
GM Eric Hansen, founder of Chessbrah, is perhaps one of the bigger, if not the biggest, characters in this small but growing community. He also happens to be my favorite player in the community, so I was especially excited when he visited San Francisco for the Pro Chess League Finals last May and gave a simultaneous exhibition at the Mechanics' Institute, my home club at the time (more to come on this).
I couldn't pass up on this opportunity to play one of my chess heroes so I slotted myself in as one of the 15 players to face off against Hansen. Rules were as follows:
- Game does not have time control, but challenger must promptly make the move when it is "their turn", as in when Hansen approaches the challenger's board, such that Hansen can clearly see the move being played.
- If challenger cannot make move promptly, they must use a "pass". Each challenger has two "passes" for the entirety of the game.
After 69 moves were played, I resigned. I was absolutely crushed. It was one of those games where I slipped up in the opening and I gambled riskily to see if playing ultra-aggressively with the piece sacrifice would get me any kind of initiative/compensation. Unfortunately for me, Hansen calmly improved his position and shut me down.
At the end of the game, I was able to chat with him and get to know him more. He was as chill and fun as I'd expected him to be! I am glad that he is one of the bigger ambassadors for chess, especially the Twitch and Youtube-verse. Good game, Eric, and I hope to see you do greater things in the future with Chessbrah and with your pro career!
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Last week, I moved to Boston from SF. My last few games at Mechanics' were perhaps the biggest choke jobs that left me feeling very, very bad about my chess progress to this point. I'll be sharing these games soon. However, I am motivated to keep playing chess in this new city and hopefully join a local club here to resume my progress!
Follow my chess journey and life!
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