What is the most SURPRISING incident happen with you while playing OTB tourney?

This happened in a rapidplay (30 minutes each) game a few months ago. I was about 2000 fide, opponent about 1900 fide. I can't remember exact move order but this is basically what happened; I was black.

His blunder was perhaps more surprising than his reaction.

It was surprising to me that I beat a grandmaster. [that would surprise anyone rated under 2200]

It was surprising to me that I won two USCF tournaments with a perfect score but did not get rating points.  [also a little upsetting]

You should sue USCF for a master title.

Here is a surprise I gave to a friend of mine.

Tom and I had shared first place in several 5 round USCF tournaments as we would often win our first 4 games and then a draw happened although we never had an agreement.

One tournament I lost a game and after 4 rounds I had 3 wins and 1 loss and my friend Tom had his usual 4 wins. Before the game he talked to me and clearly wanted me to accept a draw so he could easily win the tournament.

I told him I was going to play for a win even though i would have the black pieces.  This was clearly a shock to my friend but we had never had an agreement on drawing the last round--it just happened as both of us wanted that draw to tie for first place in previous tournaments.

Surprising but not too funny.  Once in the middle of a round the silence was broken by a loud groan and a thud.  It was on the top board and I figured someone had blundered and resigned, punching the table.  Looking up though one of the players was on the floor.  He was epileptic and had a seizure.  The thud was his head hitting the table as he collapsed.  Paramedics were called, he was taken to the hospital, and was able to return later that evening (although he withdrew from the tournament).

The round was paused for about 30 minutes, my opponent stopped our clock quickly and was one of the first people to go try to help him.  It was a tense R and pawn endgame where I was in time trouble.  He was rated 18xx me 17xx.  I decided it would be unfair to analyze the position so I left the board.  When play resumed I ended up losing, although later analysis found a somewhat simple drawing idea, although it was unintuitive to me to trade rooks into a pawn down K+P endgame, I could have held that way.

I was volunteering at a chess camp (K-12) and there was a tournament with all the players on the last day. I served as an unofficial TD, so I got to watch all the games. There was this one really cute kid, the youngest in the elementary section, with a rating of 796 (I believe 812 was the highest in that section).

I watched this kid play--he was too nice! After an opponent would blunder, he would explain why that move was a blunder, and let the opponent take back his move. 796 would also tell opponnents  to hit their clock, and often forgot to hit his own!

In about the 3rd round (after easily winning his previous games), 796 played someone with a rating of 382. About 7 moves in, 796 takes his opponnet's queen. A few moves later, he is up over 15 points of material--and offers his opponnent a draw. When I saw this, I couldn't believe my eyes. But get this: his opponent declined. After a few more moves, 796 resigns. All the other TD's are shocked (because we all wanted him to win the tournament). I asked the kid about it later, he said that he didn't want to win 1st place because the trophy was too big for him to carry home (which was true, ironically), so he wanted to win 2nd place! Can you believe that?

9th very good story!  Quite a surprise!

lol, what a top kid.

I dont really have nay great stories, I participated the state open a few months back and after every round some guy would scream something like "F**k f**k f**k", or "I cant win a single fking game!!", VERY loudly (i dont think he was doing too well). 

lol, what a nice kid!

Nate 23

I think it is 39  years too late to sue for a masters title and besides I no longer have proof.

Tell chess.com staff, they might count you as one and give you a premium membership.

The chances of that are slim and none, I think but thanks much for the suggestion!  I do not even get a premium membership for having won the finals of the United States Correspondence Chess Championship.

But sincerely thank you for suggestions.

What I mean is this: chess.com awards premium memberships to masters. They even give them to those who haven't purchased the master title. Maybe if you tell them what happened and that you should be a master, they would give you one. Also, why don't you play in another tournament? If you lose, you just lose a few bucks, if you win, you become a master!

i think he means in some cases (maybe fide titles only) you have to pay a small ammount for the certificate and stuff or w/e

I vaguely remember hearing this once before 

Yes, with FIDE titles there is a fee involved that is normally paid by the national federation that the player belongs to . If the federation won't pay it for some reason then the player may pay . 

Back 39 years ago i realized that my over the board USCF chess was not near as good as my correspondence chess and even though I could have been a master [per my last performance streak of one loss and 2 draws and 13 wins vs opposition which included one gm and a couple of high masters and a couple of ordinary masters]

I just did not covet the USCF master title as I was going for higher things. Winning a national title where the preliminary rounds consisted of experts and masters and you had to place first in the prelim to even make the finals and then to win the finals is [to me] a lot higher than a uscf master.

but in any event -now I am not the player I once was, I have brain damage to specific areas of my brain and this includes spatial and I have other severe health problems and would not even be able to get to a chess tournament. I do not mind at all not getting a free membership and do not mind not ever getting the uscf master title there is no room in life to really hold on to a grudge . sure I was mad at that tournament director for a few days but then I got over it. 

Peace

Of course I did not realize 39 years ago about chess.com and whatever their rules are.

In the early 70s I played in the English lighting chess championship played over a week end with the team event on Friday and Saturday and the individual event on Sunday. When we arrived we met a friend of one of my teammates who was a quiet, very scruffy, beatnik style guy sleeping in a van.  During the team event this guy played Jana Hartston and had to warn her twice about moving after the buzzer (in lightning chess a buzzer sounds each 10 secs and each player must move at once so as not to eat into the opponent's time). Anyway she kept being slow and eventually this guy claimed and was awarded the game as a result.

So now it is Sunday and I am playing, with no distinction, in the individual. I passed scruffy and asked how he had done, "Oh, I won." Next round, same thing. And again. So now he is playing up near the top. And keeps winning. Comes the second last round and he is playing Bill Hartston one of England's top players at the time and (then) husband of Jana.  By now I (and quite a lot of others) was much more interested in the exploits of scruffy than in my own game and as soon as I finish I hurry over to join the crowd watching scruf -v- Bill Hartston.  The position is sterile and soon enough scruffy is offering a draw. Which offer Hartston, looking very smart in suit, collar and tie, treats with a measure of contempt. This is his chance to avenge his wife and besides, this unknown scruffy patzer will soon enough blunder.  But he didn't and after a tough fight it was Hartston who cracked.

So now it is the last round and scruffy needs a win to take first prize, his opponent will at least share first with a draw. Now there was a great deal of rivalry at the top of English chess at this time, a financier Slater was pumping money in and Hartston and Keene had been in hot competition (until pipped by Tony Miles) to win a prize for the first english person to become a GM. So scruffy's opponent is quite tickled at the idea of scruffy finishing ahead of Hartstone in this event.  He played for a while, achieved what looked to me like a clear advantage but then offered a draw which scruffy was very pleased to take finishing second in the event as a result.

Jana left Bill Hartston some time after this altho', of course, her smartly dressed husband's failure to crush the untidy patzer who would not tolerate her rule infringements can have had nothing at all to do with that!

Weelll. As the lad was crying.

I ... think ... she ... did right.

Yes, she did right.

A nice girl. She's going to make some other lad (or this one, who knows) very happy one day.