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

Yes, when it actually happened. Although I had done a little combo on him about the 50th move, it had been a long game.

What is your record against GMs ponzi ?  IMs ?   

For me, the weirdest thing to ever happen was an arrest of the player sitting next to me.

This happened in the 2002 Southeastern Open, which was in South Carolina, I believe Columbia.  Chris Mabe, back then an upper-1800s player, now a master, and I face in the first round, and we draw.  So we are on side-by-side boards for round 2, backs to the wall, so we could see the whole room basically because we were on the last row farthest from the doors.

A guy by the name of Scott Gru-Bell, who moved into the area around 1998 or 1999, I happened to notice peeked in the door to the tournament hall.  Just happened to look up at the time.  Thought nothing of it.  Scott started out looking like a legit business man.  Clean shaven and everything.  I even went to a few of his 1-day tournaments in 2000.  However, he had major issues.  He was supposedly the leader of the Patriot Party, which based on what others told me, I haven't done the research, was some type of White Supremicist group.  He was out to basically steal players from local chess club to try to run competing clubs specifically at the same time.  He did this throughout the Northern South Carolina and Charlotte North Carolina areas.  Then, anybody that tried to fight what he was doing, he would put up lies on message boards of the North Carolina Chess Association and South Carolina Chess Association Websites.  The North Carolina one wasn't secure at the time, and he would even put up posts under another person's name.  He put up a derogatory post with MY NAME on it, and occurred during the week, during the day, and weeks later, I get called in my by manager being asked why I'm putting up derogatory comments at work, and was about to write me up and give me a stern warning until I told him it wasn't me, and to have them do research on the IP address.  Turns out it wasn't me, it was this fool Scott Gru-Bell.

So anyway, he would also send annoying emails to people, and he sent one to Chris Mabe.  Chris responds with "Leave me the f*** alone", or something of that nature with the f-word in it.  Supposedly, at least in 2002, in South Carolina, all you have to do is say that someone harassed you and they arrest you.  Well, about an hour or two into the round, maybe 30 to 45 minutes after I noticed the peek in, police are coming thru the room, and proceed to arrest Chris sitting right next to me.  Everyone in the room has a "What the f***" reaction.  I mention I saw Scott peek in and he might have something to do with it, and the director gets him out of the cell during round 3.  Chris had to take a loss for round 2, and a half point bye for round 3.  He did play rounds 4 and 5.

Since then, this fool Scott grew his gray hair out really long, and he ran some stupid chess show on local TV in Charlotte where he was the chess wizard for a few years in the mid-2000s.  He is one of a very short list of people that I actually would not miss if he was dead!

That event/arrest in late October 2002 in South Carolina has got to be the weirdest and most surprising thing to ever occur at a chess tournament that I've attended, and I've seen plenty of hoopla and drama at chess tournaments!

Was Kane a South Carolina scholastic champ or class champ ?  What kind of champ ?  

Ok, slight correction.  It wasn't in Columbia, it was in Rock Hill, which is just over the state line from Charlotte, about 20 miles south of Downtown Charlotte.

OMG, where was this?  This way I know where never to go!  If the TD just let that slide after being reported, especially if I'm the one that reported it, I'd be chewing the TD's ear off, and so as to avoid being expelled, I'd be giving him explitives to the end of eternity after the last round!

As for those on my list of Organizers and/or TDs that I would avoid, and highly recommend all others avoid, that list is very short right now, but it looks like it will have a 3rd added to the list.  The worst ones are:

- Frank Berry - He's just an absolutely obnoxious human being.  I've had the misfortune of playing him twice, once in SC, once in Fort Lauderdale at the US Open (a win and a draw, respectively).  I understand he runs tournaments in Oklahoma

- The Cajun Chess Association - I went to 2 of their events.  The first one, in Orlando in October 2003, the guys that ran it were off and busy drinking or doing whatever else.  Nobody was there to direct.  In 2006, In Charlotte, after they changed management, the woman who did registration and book sales was nice, and appeared to be intelligent, but they bring only 1 director for a 120 player weekend tournament, and he f'ing plays in it!  You should NEVER have a tournament over 50 players without a NON-PLAYING Director!  Small little 10 or 20 player tournaments where the director plays, fine!  120 player tournament with 3 directors, one of which playing, fine!  But NOT 120 players, 1 director, and he plays.

So those are two organizers I won't play in tournaments at again.  I don't support jacka$$e$, and I surely don't support an organization that failed miserably twice, both due to things that were very much under their own control, not extenuating circumstances!

Reb. to answer your question 3 wins over current GMs no losses or draws.

However two of the GMs were close to being GMs but not quite there when I won from them.

I don't know about IMs but it has to be plus. 

@ponz111 Great record. What were the time controls, if you remember?

http://www.scchess.org/history/history.htm     scroll down and you will see a list of SC state champs from 1926- present and his name is not there .  

Maybe amateur champion?

That seems like the right thing if he's around ~2100.

In 2009 he finished second , half a point behint Timur Aliyev , a 2300 player . 

The time control vs the over the board grand master were standard for USCF tournaments whatever that was back 39 years ago maybe 40 moves in first 2 hours?

Vs the correspondence GMs the games took approximately a year each.

I did notice I won from an "SIM" who was the only player I know to be an international master now. I was not aware of titles when I was playing other than semi titles such as US former champ over the board or winner of a correspondence national championship--which are not titles.

I needed 3 more games to get a permanent ICCF correspondence rating and unfortunately at first they were going to rate the prelims to the United States Correspondence Chess Championship where I did quite well in 3 preliminary sections and would have boosted my rating but then a new administrator decided not to count those games. I won 2 of 3 of those sections and scored 10 1/2   1 1/2 in the 3rd. This would have been more than 25 games rated--more than the 3 I needed..

So a very weird situation where I did not get a permanent ICCF rating due to 25 some games NOT being rated.  And earlier, some 39 years ago, I did not get my USCF master title [for a 2200 USCF rating] because 8 games I played [and I won all 8] were not rated....

@ThrillerFan  I was there that day.  A friend & I went to Rock Hill on a whim just to observe the tourney.  We weren't going to play so we were in no hurry to get there.  But we arrived just in time to see police in the hallway "escorting" Chris away.  Needless to say, we both wondered what the freak was going on.

A year or two later I played S. G-Bell in the Class Championship at Cherokee, NC.  Nice venue btw.  Anyway, our game was about dead even but I was in time trouble.  At one point he got up sporting his now graying long hippie hair and began to do some type of yogi stretching exercises.  Very distracting but still I tried to focus my attention on the board.  Sadly, my skills weren't up to the task because he beat me in a classic Lucena ending which he obviously had memorized by heart (as we all should),

  Anyway, he was a weird dude.

Responding here because I know the lady from Cajun Chess relatively well. The tournaments run in Texas with Cajun Chess are very smoothly run. I know this because my father often works those tournaments (the past few years) and I TD'd one of their scholastic tournaments a few years back.

I know you have had troubles with them in the past (especially that previous guy who had serious life issues, FWIW, and is no longer connected to the company at all), but I promise that tournaments are not poorly run nowadays, at least the ones in Houston.

The most surprising incident happen at a chess tournament?

...and when we got home, we found a HOOK hanging from the CAR DOOR!!!

Wow that's pretty terrible.

I've been to at least two of his tournaments before, billed as "North America Open."  I've never played him OTB (played his brother once), so I don't know how obnoxious he may be, but the tournaments were well run.

One of the days before the last round they had something like 20 pizzas delivered, free to whoever wanted some pizza.

Playing in a tournament in Vegas. It was my first time in Vegas, so I guess I stayed out a little too late (got to my room at 4:30 am, morning round at 7:00). While playing my first game, my opponent threatened mate. I studied and found a way out of it that started with moving my King's Rook. Sat back to review, picked up my coffee . . . and it was my Queen's Rook! Oops

Beautiful story! It communicates especially well to other coffee lovers, such as myself. 

Going to make one now, but I'm going to watch very carefully that I don't drink out of my own queen's rook by mistake. 

I'll be drinking to successful defenses against mating threats!

are yougoing to the one in a few weeks?