Blogs

Kankakee Chess

ponz111
| 1

This happened about 20 years ago. I had moved from Decatur Illinois to Kankakee Illinois which is about 1 and 1/2 hours drive to Chicago. As it turned out, at the time, there were few really good players in Kankakee. 

There was a chess club at the YMCA. I went there one time and there were a few players none of who greeted me and none offered to play me.  Later I heard they had a championship--all play all and one young player about age 18 won all his games-something like 9 or 10 in a row.  I somehow came in contact with him [do not remember how] and found him just a little bit arrogant about his chess abilities.. I told him if he would come to my home about once a week we could play a 10 game match using time limits and I had a chess clock.  He agreed and came once a week.

 

I won the first 4 games and then the 5th, 6th, 7th, [should I let him draw a game?] and he kept coming but now he was just a little disturbed. I kept up the pressure and won the last 3 games for a score of 10 wins out of 10 games.

That was the last I heard of this youngster. I think he may have given up chess?