There's a fellow who would beat Fischer in blitz when BF went to SF, but again these guys had a hard time making any ends meet hustling.
Seriously? You have a citation or a link or a name? Or witnesses?
Bobby crushed the field in a World Class blitz tournament with something like 19/22.
jakesabeast said, "one of them pushes the clock off of the table in a time scramble."
If one of them did that to me, I'd make my move, reach down, press the button on the clock, and leave it on the ground. I'd also have my iPhone video running the whole time.
There's a fellow who would beat Fischer in blitz when BF went to SF, but again these guys had a hard time making any ends meet hustling.
Seriously? You have a citation or a link or a name? Or witnesses?
Bobby crushed the field in a World Class blitz tournament with something like 19/22.
Yeah, exactly. Some nameless nobody beat the World Champion...the guy who did this in a tournament of the strongest players who ever lived..
https://www.chess.com/blog/RookHouse/herceg-novi-1970
No. It's just another romantic myth. We all love the story of the faceless mystery person, the nameless genius who is really the best but no one knows their name. It's a ghost story, like all the rest. Like "There was a guy who always beat Phelps as swimming, he just never wanted to be in the Olympics. He swan in the ol' waterin' hole outside a' Branson Missori!"
Stupid ghost story is all it is.
I'd like the hustlers to try that shit on Nakamura, see how that goes for them.
lel
Just out of curiosity, how good is the average chess hustler playing in a park or somewhere?
I think not so good. You could play for money!
There is a very simple question that no one mentioned so far: who decides who has win? You might want to naïvely believe that FIDE rules is the thing... But, hehe, no it's not! As I describe in my blog article about foul tricks in OTB competition, any real chess player with a bit of common sense shall avoid any money prized unofficial game or tournament of any kind.
I went once, in NYC, to one of those hustlers, knowing very well what I was doing. Still got surprised, when after I claim for "touched piece", the guy simply argues that I should have said it before the game, if I wanted to play "by the rules"... Unbelievable but true. I did not care a one second about the one dollar at stake, I only wanted to play a game and was willing to offer the poor guy his dollar no matter the outcome. Still, I tried to explain him for about 15 minutes, even telling him I'm a referee for the FFE, that what he was saying was just impossible. But he held on his stand, firm like a rock, struggling against every logic and truth in order not to lose a dollar...
I dropped it somehow, and compromized to a rematch, the first remaining "blank". Anyhow, I declared he should not worry about the dollar, and I offered him 4 or 5 bucks so we can relax and play a few friendly games. I even bought a six pack of beer so we could enjoy it all even better (we were both streetwise enough to hide it from the cops).
And so, once we were playing not for money anymore, he was okay with losing. I'm not sure but I think we scored 2-2 or such. We were drunk anyway, haha.
Anyway, this is not chess anymore, this is just an other world in chess disguise. have your fun if you want, but no referee will come save your money if you find yourself surrounded by guys approving some made up rules from your opponent... 
There's a fellow who would beat Fischer in blitz when BF went to SF, but again these guys had a hard time making any ends meet hustling.
Seriously? You have a citation or a link or a name? Or witnesses?
Bobby crushed the field in a World Class blitz tournament with something like 19/22.
Yeah, exactly. Some nameless nobody beat the World Champion...the guy who did this in a tournament of the strongest players who ever lived..
https://www.chess.com/blog/RookHouse/herceg-novi-1970
No. It's just another romantic myth. We all love the story of the faceless mystery person, the nameless genius who is really the best but no one knows their name. It's a ghost story, like all the rest. Like "There was a guy who always beat Phelps as swimming, he just never wanted to be in the Olympics. He swan in the ol' waterin' hole outside a' Branson Missori!"
Stupid ghost story is all it is.
Wrong !!!
I forget the fellows name, he just passed a year ago. Silman wrote a blog remembering him awhile back. Blitz specialist who played in only 1 tournament or two. Fischer won the majority of games, but often lost and stormed out of the club on several occasions. Shouldnt be hard to find the excellent article, Silman knew him well.
Steve Brandwein, legendary blitz player
Of course players of his caliber can't stay under the radar for long. Fischer went to SF because of a few top blitz players there in Haight-Asbury
Steve Brandwein, legendary hustler
Nice article! But you should note @Silman's comment in there where he says:
Looking at some Chess.com forums (which happened to mention Brandwein), I noted that some ignorant folk viewed Steve as a hustler. This is completely false. A hustler pretends he’s not very good in the hope of fleecing you of your money. Steve only played if you approached him and insisted on a game, and if you were lucky enough to get a “yes” from him you would know beforehand that you had absolutely no chance to win.
There's a fellow who would beat Fischer in blitz when BF went to SF, but again these guys had a hard time making any ends meet hustling.
Seriously? You have a citation or a link or a name? Or witnesses?
Bobby crushed the field in a World Class blitz tournament with something like 19/22.
The obvious flaw with this argument is that the players were invited, had Fide titles. The blitz specialist could never enter such a tourney and possibly make the GM's look bad !
Totally agree. Steve was not a "hustler".
He does prove though that untitled players can play blitz at the highest levels.
I need to edit my statement as it was misleading characterizing him as a hustler.
Hi Prof Pownall,
I actually found the article prior to you posting it on the thread. What a wonderful story. He dominated the blitz scene among highly rated masters, and to score 20% off Bobby Fischer without studying Chess like Bobby Fischer...., that's like Rainman Genius.
Wrong !!!
I forget the fellows name, he just passed a year ago. Silman wrote a blog remembering him awhile back. Blitz specialist who played in only 1 tournament or two. Fischer won the majority of games, but often lost and stormed out of the club on several occasions. Shouldnt be hard to find the excellent article, Silman knew him well.
Fair enough, sounds like the story was true in spirit but not in detail. Steve Brandwein was apparently not a hustler and never played not lived like one. He was evidently a genius who played a lot of chess, lived around chess most of his life and was very practiced and possibly studied, just never competed in large scale touarnaments. The USCF said he'd be about 2300 from the titled players he'd beaten, which you and I know how as 2500 today. So we was a legit player, he just never played in many tournaments, although he did play in apparently some. Silman said Fischer the few he lost was what kept him interested in playing Steve, but I found nothing about Fischer storming out in a huff.
It depends on where you go . I went to the cafe of Chess in Frankfurt Germany in the 80s and there were hustlers in there that were better than GMs at blitz . In fact , I was told by some Germans that Roman Dzindzihashvili had been there before and lost money ! I have also been told by a Russian GM that the hustlers in Moscow regularly beat known GMs at blitz for money and many of them have no rating at all as they dont play organized chess but are super strong blitz players .
Come on, that can't be true. It takes hours of study a day, a large opening repertoire, good understanding of opening, middle game, and endgame, and plenty of practice against really good players or coaches to be a GM.
If Paul Morphy couldn't make it to GM strength, then bullcrap that random hustlers in parks can be GMs without coaches or consistent study habits.
You were careful to say that it was at blitz and not slow time controls, and the GMs mentioned are not necessarily strong blitz GMs, but even still. A GM is a GM is a GM. Those stories have to be made up. If you saw some of them beat GMs at blitz, then I would still bet either the GMs were very distracted/casual or the hustlers were disguised GMs themselves, not just hustlers.
The good chess players starts young, and many of them takes GM lessons at the age of 10,11,12. At 14 they are FM and IM at 16. When reaching IM it is really hard to improve, and a lot of them quits or stops working hard for improvement. With a background like that it is fine to hustle in the parks.
About blitz. GMs are good at it, but we have one IM -kid in Norway that keeps up with them.
golf hustlers ....winning money.. " A fool and their money is easily parted " As my old dad said, " " "never gamble with strangers ""Good advice..
If you get lured into their and out of yours psychological comfort zone by playing along with their banter and such, then they might seem to be really good; but the truth is, it is not that they are good, it is that you are thrown out of your natural habitat and are playing terrible chess. If you, however, calm down, just focus on the game and don't care about their psychological tricks, then you will see that most of them are mostly improvisers and lack any knowledge of theory; they make a lot of beginner mistakes, and I won't even go into the way they approach the opening... ~1300-1400 would be my guess.
This is as far as honest ones go. You can't really rate cheaters, especially those that will never admit they have cheated and will hold their ground, insisting that "the knight was never there, I took it on the 13th turn". With those, the best thing you can do is walk away; there is nothing to gain from playing them.
Simply a romantic myth that "street hustlers" can regularly beat GM's at blitz. I knew the very best "hustler" (they soon become well known) in L.A. in the 80's. To earn a few bucks he had to frequent the skittles room at tournaments. He held his own vs the likes of Roman Diz..., but lost more than won. Great natural talent, but no desire for study. Chess was simply a way to make a few extra bucks, few being the operative word.
There's a fellow who would beat Fischer in blitz when BF went to SF, but again these guys had a hard time making any ends meet hustling.