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FirebrandX
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.
I googled the guy and found this funny article:
http://www.fortmilltimes.com/2009/06/02/589126/nobody-beats-the-wiz-chess-master.html
It seems you need to only break 1500 USCF to consider yourself a chess "expert" and hold simuls. I'd have squashed that peanut in a one-on-one game.
NM iFrancisco
- 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.
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.
N2UHC
The most surprising incident happen at a chess tournament?
...and when we got home, we found a HOOK hanging from the CAR DOOR!!!
waffllemaster
Anyway, my last run-in with the TD was when I finally beat his daughter in the final round of an open swiss. Every time he paired us, his daughter got white and would end up beating me. Even in the last game she got white, but I changed my opening repertoire and easily beat her. The TD then tried to log it in his computer as yet another win for her, but I caught it and refused to leave until I watched him correct the entry. He resisted for several minutes, but I wouldn't back down. After that, I never played in another one of his tournaments again.
Wow that's pretty terrible.
- 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
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.
latvianlover
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
solskytz
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!
Abhishek2
are yougoing to the one in a few weeks?
Bobby Fischer wanted to have a house in the shape of a rook. Maybe it will pay you to get LatvianLover a coffee cup in the shape of a rook before you play him in Vegas .. you never know!
you and your coffee chess.
That's would really be a great example for coffee-house chess
No. I play poker now. I found that I'm not good enough at chess to spend $250 on entry fee. Plus hotel and travel expenses. I make about $12.50 an hour at Hollywood Park Casino. Haven't been active in USCF since about 2002 or 2003. Would like to play something local here in LA, for maybe $100 or less.
MoonlessNight
My opponent had a passed pawn, I went to capture it with my knight, but accidentally used his knight instead!
wagnerk
oh yeah. i had this weird time once.
a couple of years ago, i was in a tournament, and i was playing this guy and easily checkmated him, and he kept denying checkmate. after he hadn't playe a move for 5 minutes just trying to find the move that would stop checkmate, i called over a judge and he judged the situation as checkmate.
the guy started freaking out like he was having a hallucination of a monster, and then went under the table crying that i had somehow disrespected the guy's family.
i hadn't done anything except for win the game.
he kept freaking out and then the judge signed on his board that i had won and the person under the table had lost.
afterward, even while the guy under the table is claiming that i have been a disgrace to him and the rest of the world, the judge offers me a small trophy for sportsmanship, and i accept.
that was pretty weird.
personally, i think that there are others that are weirder, but this was pretty freaky. i ended up getting a 4.0/5.0 in the tournament.
ClavierCavalier
This reminds me of this joke chess puzzle:
The solution is to promote the pawn to a black knight.
BigAlex
I have a story!
Once I was playing a blitz tournament and as my game finished I started to watch one of the top tables. The game was in the last minute. All of a sudden white promoted a pawn to a queen but there was none spare queen available so he grabbed a rook and put it upside down telling this is a queen, then the other player said: No it's a rook. Then they started quarreling about whetherthe upside down rook was a rook or a queen then the Black flag fell... The black player then angrily threw all pieces against the white player in a childish manner. Tense situation
The moment the opponent tried to claim it was still a rook, I'd have immediately paused the game clock to signal a TD to provide a queen. Never get into an argument with the opponent while the clock is running. That's just foolish.
I agree.... The TD told him he should have done this....
stevenaaus
Back in the early 70s I played on a team in Detroit. We had to play 5 rounds in 5 consecutive weeks and I was playing the last board in our clubs lowest rated team.
I won all four of my previous games and when I showed up to play the 5th I was informed that our club president has brought in a ringer to play the first board, essentially moving everyone down one board bumping me off the team.
I walked out and never played another game of chess until just over a year ago.
The joke's on me... all those years wasted. I suck today because of my bruised ego 35+ years ago.
Chess players don't have egos. Wait... Oh yeah ;)
But being bumped like that sucks :(
IM JMB2010
This isn't OTB, actually a US Chess League game, but this was very interesting.
I am in a difficult ending when, to my surprise and excitement, my opponent allows me a move to get a 3-fold repitition. To make sure the claim goes through, I press the draw button, and it comes through as an offer of a draw, which he, of course declines. Then I make my move and press the draw button again, assuming that it goes through as a claim. It goes through as an offer AGAIN. At this point he probably assumes I am just being annoying, and declines again. Later, when the draw was certain, I was engineering a forced sequence of checks to ice the draw. After doing this for a couple of moves, he offers a draw. However, since I am mechanically making moves, I don't see it and make another move. Then, to my bewilderment, HE claims the draw on reptition. How did he do it and I couldn't? Anyway, if I had lost the game, I would have been mad due to the earlier repitition. Plus, the game could've ended on move 46 instead of 106.
Later I look back at the game and discover, shocker, there was no reptition. But then at some tourney someone asks me why didn't I claim the draw by repitition. I look back again and discover, shocker, it's back again!
The game was played on chess.com that particular week and I'm wondering why this happened.
After 18 months, FINALLY made it to 1800 rating
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