This reminds me of this joke chess puzzle:
The solution is to promote the pawn to a black knight.
What is the most SURPRISING incident happen with you while playing OTB tourney?
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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
I agree.... The TD told him he should have done this....
Czechman wrote:
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 :(
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.
http://www.uschessleague.com/games2/liuburke12.htm
By the way, that is the game link. I was black and the position occurs after MY 36th, 38th, and 40th moves, with white to move! Correct me if I'm wrong.
mashanator wrote:
JMB2010 wrote:
http://www.uschessleague.com/games2/liuburke12.htm
By the way, that is the game link. I was black and the position occurs after MY 36th, 38th, and 40th moves, with white to move! Correct me if I'm wrong.
Threefold repetition does not necessarily have to be 3 moves in a row, just exactly the same position repeating 3 times with the same player to move. They could be 40 moves apart although humans wouldn't be too likely to notice that.
Uhhh... I know :-) It was the same position each time.
mashanator wrote:
Threefold repetition does not necessarily have to be 3 moves in a row, just exactly the same position repeating 3 times with the same player to move. They could be 40 moves apart although humans wouldn't be too likely to notice that.
I once saw a successful 3-move-repition claim on about move 160 when the positions were 11 moves apart.
piphilologist wrote:
mashanator wrote:
Threefold repetition does not necessarily have to be 3 moves in a row, just exactly the same position repeating 3 times with the same player to move. They could be 40 moves apart although humans wouldn't be too likely to notice that.
I once saw a successful 3-move-repition claim on about move 160 when the positions were 11 moves apart.
Wow!
FirebrandX wrote:
JMB2010 wrote:
http://www.uschessleague.com/games2/liuburke12.htm
By the way, that is the game link. I was black and the position occurs after MY 36th, 38th, and 40th moves, with white to move! Correct me if I'm wrong.
Probably bad site code. Your opponent was able to claim 3 fold before making his move, whereas your 3-fold came after your move. The site code prevented you from claiming the 3-fold, because it came after you had to make your move. It's wrong for the site to do that of course, but the site is thinking you shouldn't be allowed to claim a draw on your opponent's turn. You must claim before moving, but that fails to cover scenarios like this.
Thanks for the explanation!
FirebrandX wrote:
JMB2010 wrote:
http://www.uschessleague.com/games2/liuburke12.htm
By the way, that is the game link. I was black and the position occurs after MY 36th, 38th, and 40th moves, with white to move! Correct me if I'm wrong.
Probably bad site code. Your opponent was able to claim 3 fold before making his move, whereas your 3-fold came after your move. The site code prevented you from claiming the 3-fold, because it came after you had to make your move. It's wrong for the site to do that of course, but the site is thinking you shouldn't be allowed to claim a draw on your opponent's turn. You must claim before moving, but that fails to cover scenarios like this.
Claiming draws online are always a little wierd. OTB you are supposed to claim before moving (FIDE) or before hitting your clock (USCF), but you can claim draws online after your move on certain sites (ICC I know of for sure). Not completely sure on how chess.com works on that one, but I can't remember having any problem claiming a draw here.
Out of curiosity, do you (JMB) have the original link (on chess.com) to the game? I only ask in case the USCL move list isn't correct, which wouldn't be the first time actually.
JMB2010 wrote:
piphilologist wrote:
mashanator wrote:
Threefold repetition does not necessarily have to be 3 moves in a row, just exactly the same position repeating 3 times with the same player to move. They could be 40 moves apart although humans wouldn't be too likely to notice that.
I once saw a successful 3-move-repition claim on about move 160 when the positions were 11 moves apart.
Wow!
in fact it was even longer than I thought
http://chesstempo.com/gamedb/game/3294448
positions after 162...Kf6, 173...Kf6, and 181...Kf6 were the same.
Due to the 30-second increments and game length the next round was 1 hour late.
must have been hard to recognize that.
great thread. i have nothing to add.
My first big OTB tournament was in the Chicago Open. It was the first round; I was rated around 900 or so and my opponent was 1100 or 1200. We were seated about in the middle of a long row where you needed to go past at least a dozen players to get to the end of the row.
My opponent apparently wanted to freak me out because after every one of his moves he would get out of his chair, walked to the end of the row and come and stand behind me as a I looked at the board.
I got so flustered that I soon lost that game. I didn't know it at the time, but I should have complained to the TD. To this day I'm bothered by the fact that I let that guy get to me.
I had a bit of "revenge" later when I beat one of his "buddies" in the 5th round.
FirebrandX wrote:
TALminator wrote:
My first big OTB tournament was in the Chicago Open. It was the first round; I was rated around 900 or so and my opponent was 1100 or 1200. We were seated about in the middle of a long row where you needed to go past at least a dozen players to get to the end of the row.
My opponent apparently wanted to freak me out because after every one of his moves he would get out of his chair, walked to the end of the row and come and stand behind me as a I looked at the board.
I got so flustered that I soon lost that game. I didn't know it at the time, but I should have complained to the TD. To this day I'm bothered by the fact that I let that guy get to me.
I had a bit of "revenge" later when I beat one of his "buddies" in the 5th round.
It's actually legal for the guy to get up and look at the board from your perspective, so long as he's not making noise or bumping into you.
According to FIDE chess rules " It is forbidden to distract or annoy the opponent in any manner whatsoever..."
I found it annoying and distracting, so I think I would have been within my rights to ask the TD to tell him to stop. there was another table with players behind me, so he was directly behind me.
@firebrandX (and Samsch): I never said I had a problem with him watching from behind. This guy was hovering. You said as long as he didn't touch me, he should be okay. I say that if I reach up to put both hands on my head (elbows out, fingers interlaced) and I bump into the guy hovering over my shoulder...that's too close. That's not arbitrary nor unreasonable and I think any TD would back me up on that.
You say as long as he doesn't touch me, it should be okay. Would you feel distracted if your opponent put his head over your shoulder with his face 6 inches from yours, you wouldn't consider this annoying or distracting? There is a limit.
I was playing in a local interscholastic tournament and my opponent forgot to hit the clock after 1. e4. I stared at the board, pretending to think intensely about my next move while covering my mouth with my hands to hide a smile. My opponent was stifling laughter, visibly amused by my seeming stupefaction at the King's Pawn Opening. After about 10 minutes, my opponent was obviously extremely tickled by the time it was taking me to think... until he himself looked at the clock and pressed it under a blush of mortification. He was already down 10 minutes and proceeded to receive a crushing loss.
GuAdRa678 wrote:
I was playing in a local interscholastic tournament and my opponent forgot to hit the clock after 1. e4. I stared at the board, pretending to think intensely about my next move while covering my mouth with my hands to hide a smile. My opponent was stifling laughter, visibly amused by my seeming stupefaction at the King's Pawn Opening. After about 10 minutes, my opponent was obviously extremely tickled by the time it was taking me to think... until he himself looked at the clock and pressed it under a blush of mortification. He was already down 10 minutes and proceeded to receive a crushing loss.
by FIDE rules if his clock ran all the way down to 0 without you moving, the game would count for tournament purposes but not be rated. Each player has to make a move for the game to be rated. I don't know how the USCF rules work here.
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.