Signs you're a bad chess player

Anyway, you turn the door knob with a dreadful chill oscillating up and down your spine.

Would a bill collector be calling at this late hour?

That awful, creepy guy from down at the bar who has two blackened eyes and wears a headband...wants a piece of me, does he?

The bolt unlatches and there stands...unbelievable...

"Son-of-a-gun! Haywood, what are you doing here at this late hour?," you say to the fat man on your door mat.

"Hi, B" (short for "bad"), sez he. "Wanna jelly doughnut? I brung a dozen...two for you and ten for me."

"Come on in...make yourself at home," sez you, as you unfold an aluminum-tube, braided lawn chair (that Salvation Army store has all sorts of goodies).

"So, what brung you here?", you inquire as you wave him to the chair.

"Ah, no thanks...I've broken my share of those. Maybe I can just sit on your toilet seat?"

"No sweat", you reply from your reclined position on your foldable Army cot.

"Guess what? Miss Universe stopped by while I happened to be at the Dunkin Doughnut shop. Said she was walking along the railroad track and stumbled upon something. Almost sprained her ankle. Turned out to be an authentic, Bobby Fischer memorabilia, magnetic, pocket chess set."

"Really?"

"Yeah...she said she recognized it as yours, since she had played bullet 960 on it with you."

"No. Not mine. I don't play chess no more...against my religion."

"Hmmm..."

Well, there wasn't much of a discussion after that.

The rotund man wolfed down ten jelly doughnuts...ate them dry; no coffee...although, he might have preferred tea but there was none of that, either.

He reached for the eleventh doughnut but, being a bullet and blitz player, you were quicker than a champion fly swatter at a hootenanny and you slapped his hairy, pudgy, sweaty hand away.

"What'd you go and do that for?", he whined, dourly.

"Two for me?"

"I changed my mind."

"Take them then. But go eat them elsewhere."

"Alright already", he retorted.

He reached again for the two doughnuts. This time you let him have them.

"Now, get out". Then..."Please." You remembered your manners.

His roly poly face is coated with fine baker's sugar from having snarfed up the ten doughnuts. "Here...have your crummy chess set back", he said as he arose from the toilet seat and laid it on the tank top.

Silently, for you are a taciturn fellow, your eyeballs follow his battleship-sized body as he waddles to the door.

"I'm outta here!", he exclaims in a huff as he opens the door.

"Don't let it slam you in the aft deck."

Bam! He slams the door behind him and what do you know? He didn't take your advice.

Now that he's gone, you hurriedly...greedily...giddily...rush over to the toilet tank and grab your genuine Bobby Fischer memorabilia magnetic chess set.

You cradle it in your hands. You kiss it. You look up toward your chandelier and you cry out: "Thank you, God!"

Someone told me the queen moves in L-shapes.

You drew to play White but refuse to make rhe first move

you think the parham attack is the greatest thing since sliced bread

You holler across the board at your opponent, with a menacing encounter (please...no one talks like that anymore): "You want a piece of me?!"

"Yeah!", he says, as he pushes his pawn into place and adds: "Checkmate...sucker!" (and the S.O.B. adds insult to injury by sticking his tongue out at you and, simultaneously, giving you "the raspberry").

You look at the board and say:

"Which one's the king?"

Signs you're a bad player:

- You twiddle the pieces for 5 minutes before each game like Garry Kasparov then open with a4

- You rage quit when Chess Titans beats you in 6 moves on level 1

- You continually murmur "eeny meeny miney mo" before you make your next move.

- you use your index finger to tap sequences of squares all over the board to plot your next move (in an over the board game)...but always have to go back to the start of the sequence after 3 square taps because you lost track of where you were...

You start every game by informing your opponent:

"I'm gonna kick your butt...big time!"

But, due to bad joss, it never happens.

Someone call the cops!!!

Another sign:You sac all of your piecs thinking it was suicide chess when it isnt, and you play normal chess during a suicide match.

You figure: "We've sent men to the moon! So, why can't I break 800?!"

You go to your window, crowbar it open and you stick your head out from the eighth floor of the Y and you scream, the veins on your neck purple and corded: "I am a bad chess player, and I can't take it anymore!"

No. You don't jump. You pull your head in, close the window and you vow to youself: "Today is the first day of the rest of my life. Today, I start anew. Today I will do the chess puzzle in the newspaper."

You have a plan. That's a start. A smirky smile encompasses your face. All is well with the world.

another sign grandmasters make video with your play on how NOT to play.

Suppose a player have the habit of marking his tournament crosstable like this:

!! for very strong opponents, might be impossible to get even a draw

! for strong opposition that you are statisfied for draw

!? for slightly stronger guys, or person that plays intersting opening

?! for slightly weaker and uses dubious opening

? for blatantly weaker guys that even a draw cannot be tolerated

A bad chess player would receive constantly ?? or even ???, ????, ????...

in the namelist in each tournament or even each round next to his name

that habit might go wrong if you are in a tournament where you mark all as !!

you manage to promote a pawn but instead of getting a queen, you say, "king me!"

or you promote a pawn but trade it in for another pawn...

you sac 2 pieces of higher value for one piece of lower value, then when your attack doesn't get through...you turn to your ooponent and say "I swear I've seen tal do the same!"