Chess - it is just a game

When you play competitive chess especially in tournaments it is very easy to forget that at the end of the day it is just a game.  One gets caught up in the pressure, the tension, the stress, the position and most of all the aching, breath-taking, crushing, overpowering imperative to win.

Last week I was playing my arch-nemesis, Dai Young in the final of the Knights in Prestatyn Monsters of Chess.  I was going for a hat-trick of titles which meant I would get to keep the Golden Fleece forever.

It was 5-5 and we started the decisive final game.  My Welsh Gambit declined had gone off the rails and Dai had the upper hand.  It was his move and I was twitching, touretting, pacing and  j’adoubey dooing like a dervish to put him out of his accomplished stride.

It was beginning to work - the vein in his temple was throbbing purple.  Suddenly his eyes rolled and his head slumped forward onto his chest (an aortic aneurysm – we found out later).  

It was then that my epiphany occurred.  Like a flash of light the thought popped into my head “It really is just a game”.  In that moment I realised that compared to the truly important things in life chess pales into paltry insignificance.

So I waited until his clock ran down (that was a very long 35 minutes I can tell you) and then immediately called an ambulance.

By the time they arrived it was too late Dai had just died.  And anyway by then I was at home admiring the Golden Fleece on my mantelpiece.

Have you ever had any revelatory epiphanies whilst playing the great game?

So, you waited 35 minutes to call an ambulence!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!??!?

ouch.

That was what was left on his clock.  I now believe Einstein's special theory of relativity.  Time really does go at different rates.

LOL

That game must have been really important to waste 35 precious minutes that could have saved his life. (No judgement, just saying!)

this guy..

The WCF website shows the list of winners of the Knights in Prestatyn from its inauguration in 1884.  There has only ever been one triple winner.  They will never be able to take that fleece away from me.

yeah i once saw a good move

also when i was playing wealybinn, it suddenly came over me. He IS rubbish

I wonder how old Young was...

Young was very young

 What evidence do you have to support that?  There is just as much reason to believe that he was quite elderly...

It is my understanding that Dai Young has an evil twin brother Dye Young, did you play both brothers or only the good Dai Young?

his name and in the topic: http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/the-element-of-surprise-in-chess it also mentions him dying. He has died twice belive it or not.

I was thinking of entering the Rhyl open but not now.

In 2003 at Whitby I needed a last round win for fourth place outright and a £2 prize, the game was going badly two pawns down in a rook ending, my opponent so they say fell down the stairs in the congress hotel and was unable to finish the game. 

"only the good Dai Young"

Have we a Billy Joel fan here?  That's the same thing that pops into my head whenever I read a topic Beast writes about Dai Young.

     don't confuse them with another famous player, Black Sabbath's, Die Young

I for one find it very easy to remember that chess is just a game.  This, however, does not mean it is any less important than everything else in life at the time of playing.  You just have to have confidence in your playing, at that point you automatically relax no matter how much is at stake.

That musta been his evil twin...