Nova Daily - 26 June 2025: The big shiny embarrassment

Hi!

In yesterday's post I found I had so much that I wanted to talk about that I had to pick my subject. If you don't want to bore your audience, you have to try to remain on-topic and don't take too many side-roads. It's tempting to do, because one idea leads to the next, and you want to follow them all and see where they take you. It's a great thing to gather inspiration, and if I'm out of ideas I sometimes spend a fair bit of time just doing nothing except for indiscriminately writing down anything that comes to mind. I can wholeheartedly recommend this: there's always something worthwhile in the wanderings of your own mind.

One topic that I mostly left out of that blog is a thing that I'd like to briefly discuss here.

The big shiny embarrassment

What do you do as a coach when you find out that two of your students have cheated?

This is the question that David MacEnulty had to ask himself after a youth tournament. Two of his pupils claimed to have won a game against the same opponent when they had in fact lost. The boy that they scammed had won all his games and was naturally expecting to take home the trophy. At the award ceremony, when the victim didn't receive first prize despite having won all of his games, "all hell broke loose."

In Sunrise in the Bronx, Chapter 12: "Cheating and Intimidation," MacEnulty chronicles what happened on the next day. 

In what may have been the best lesson that he taught his pupils, MacEnulty communicated to his players what had happened without singling them out, and how he saw the game of chess, both as a personal pursuit and a team spirit. Cheating does NOT belong in the team.

Below, I'm citing from him what I find to be some of the very best lines on dishonest performance that I've ever read.

You win on the board, or you don't win at all. A trophy that we win by cheating is worse than worthless. It's a big shiny embarrassment. Every time you look at the trophy, you will be reminded that you did something wrong.

It is far better to lose with dignity and keep your honor intact than to be a national champion by cheating. Your individual integrity is much more important than any reward you can ever receive.

(...)

I would rather lose honestly than win dishonestly. (...) No trophy, no award, no title, is worth your integrity.

- David MacEnulty, Sunrise in the Bronx, Chapter 12.

Small update on TBA June

I don't understand this fascination that people have for judging. It's like going to a restaurant and asking if you can cook next week.

- @PokeGirl93

For the June month we're currently at 21 submissions. Today I had a bit of a day off, and thus I took up the gauntlet to read and judge as many blog entries as I could. I've decided to write a bit of feedback for all the blogs I've read. I must say that at times I find it hard to stay concise. There are too many things that I want to comment on, and it takes a lot of time to do so.

The reason why I haven't commented extensively on too many submissions yet is that I don't want to give off any hints about how I'm going to judge. Although I can give away one thing that I will certainly not take into account: whether I like the participant or not. It's a writing competition, not a popularity contest. 

So far I've checked 11 of the submissions, in no particular order, and I have about 7 written pages of comments. I do my best to keep as positive an attitude as I can, and I'll probably rework everything before I submit my judging when the month is out.

For all those who participate: keep it fun, keep it honest, and keep in mind the most important line of David MacEnulty's quote as displayed above:

No trophy, no award, no title, is worth your integrity.

- David MacEnulty

Some chess today

In order to reward myself for having done so much work on the blogs, I decided to play two blitz games. I wanted to play some games, some quiet fun, and I didn't want to toss my 2600+ bullet before the vultures straight away, so I decided that blitz would be the right tempo for today.

I managed to beat the highest rated blitz player I've clapped thus far, and I achieved a new peak blitz rating at 2467. The game isn't much, but it was absolutely worth it.