I was once doing well in an over-the-board tournament and then paired with well known Chicago master, Dr Eugene Martinovsky. We had each won our first 3 games.
I was playing Black and on about the 11th move had a slight advantage and Dr. Martinovsky offered a draw.
I knew that if someone offers a draw early in the game, he thought he had the worse of it.
So, I turned down his offer of a draw. [he was rated about 2350]
About 1/2 hour later, I resigned.
surprise!
I once played in a game where I forgot whose turn it was (I'm not very good at chess XD) and ended up sitting there for 10 minutes, waiting for something to happen before it hit me. Then I asked the opponent, and he was pretty empathetic about it, I moved and the game resumed XD
I didn't witness this myself, but I heard about it from a tournament director. There were these 2 kids playing (for the drama, let's say they're playing for 1st place in the top section at the last round) and they're down to seconds on their clocks (this was before time delay was in general use). So they're playing, and one kid makes his move and hits the table beside the clock. The other kid instantly moves, but gets a penalty for an illegal move because his opponent had not yet completed his move!
I was playing in the major open in British Championship two years ago when a player on a neigbouring board had a heart attack. The arbiters announced to the hall that we could all stop playing but my opponent and I just carried on playing. The gentleman in question apparently was OK eventually.
I had recently learned the moves and was playing my friends for a buck a game . They were just as bad as me . After a few weeks I was winning most of my games and my friends wouldn't play me any more . So i decided to take my new found talent to do some serious ass kicking at a tournament . Well I had lost every game and was on my last game . after I played 1.g4 my opponent let out a kind of held back laugh . Anyway the game went on and i was in a lost position . Players were walking by shaking there heads . my opponent was jauntily making his moves with a smile on his face . But as in so many low rated games there usually appears a tactic . And there it was ! Bam ! I won the exchange and a pawn . His jaws dropped and his ego was crushed . In the end I had a K & R against his lone king . But i couldn't figure out how to mate him . A crowd gathered as we were the last game . I had 15 minutes left and he had 5 . He finally ran out of time . But I kept playing when some guy said out load "your opponents out of time" .
my opponent jumped up and was going to fight him . My opponent said "I was just going to put the Whammy on him when you said that " . I said with just king . I said sit down and put 10 minutes on your clock . He did and calmed down . I finally checkmated him barely in time . The crowd cheered and had a good laugh . I'm still upset that they didn't throw gold coins on the board .
I had to break up a fight once at a chess tournament. Was not expecting that.
Been there, done that.
Cept it was g/90.
I've told this story before...
Playing in the Canadian Open in Montreal in the early 1970s... '73? '74? somewhere around there.
Players included GMs Larsen, Hort, Ljubujovic, and others.
Down on the lower boards with the other fish, a player a few boards down from me lost his Queen quite early in the game... my game was still in the opening when he resigned. He exchanged a few polite words with his opponent, then headed towards the exit. His opponent looked over the GM games on the top boards for a few minutes, then he also headed towards the exit.
As he approached the doors, his erstwhile opponent leaped out from behind a large potted plant, kicked him right in the balls, and ran away.
The tournament director called the Montreal police and explained the situation. The police interviewed the victim, then settled down to wait.
Sure enough, the "attacking player" showed up for his next pairing, and was arrested and carted off by the police.
Gosh, I haven't played in decades, but I think I may have smelled a bad fart back in the day. I lifted up my collar over my nose and played on. Nobody ever confessed.
I was in an endgame with B and 2 pawns against N and 3 pawns. With great effort I might have been able to draw. I walked around the room for a few minutes contemplating my dilemma. To my astonishment, when I returned to the board my opponent announced “ I resign”. It must have been a hallucination, because several hours of analysis since then have not uncovered any way I could have won that game.
Saw a game in a team match recently between two inexperienced players which eventually resulted in just white pawn h4, black pawn h5, and kings. White (on our team) had fought back a lot to reach this position. After thinking for a few minutes, Black resigned! His logic was that there was no way to stop White winning his last pawn.
We won the team match 2.5 - 1.5 ...
When I was age 18 I played in the US Open in Omaha Nebraska for my first tournament ever.
My first surpise was winning vs an expert in my very first USCF game. [I had the black side of the Ruy Lopez] Someone told me "You beat the Champion of Puerto Rico!"
Later in the tournament I was playing Clark Harmon--I think he was junior champion of the State of Washington. Clark was getting the best of me and we were in an endgame where I was close to resigning.
But then I noticed GM Pal Benko was watching our game from about a table away. Why would a grandmaster who was leading the tournament watch a game between and unrated player [me] and a junior?
Then the thought came to me. Benko was known as a high expert on the endgame. He had a column in Chess Life on the endgame.
I then saw it...I quickly sacrificed my knight for 2 pawns. This left Clark with a king and bishop and pawn vs my lone king. But his pawn was a "rook pawn" and his queening square was the wrong color. It was a draw.
Benko then came to our table excited and exclaimed in a rather loud voice that the game was a draw! Clark was surpised but very quickly accepted my offer of a draw.
.. I learned, rather late in Life ; That people, Don't like to be stared at, {chess tournaments, included, of course}.. Anyway, I metaphorically, got under, 4 different chess-players, 'skin' as a result, {including, one then attractive, 'junior' girl, 'star' player}.
The most 'stare'-stopping, response I got, though ; Was in a 1980s, 'Oregon', tourney ; Where, 'I.M'. master, "John Grefe"; Returned, my 'stare', after about, a 12 second, delay. ..ha!
{I was in awe of him, 'cause, he was the Only 'titled' player, there!}.
Most surprising incident for me has still got to be from a tournament I was at in South Carolina on the final weekend of October 2002.
It was round 2, and I was sitting next to a player named Chris Mabe (he was to my left). About 4 years earlier, this person that supposedly was a member of the Patriot party named Scott Gru-Bell moved into South Carolina. He seemed innocent at first. I even played in a few of his events in 1999 and early 2000. Then, he starts pulling off a lot of BS. There was a club I used to play in at the time that plays one rated game every Wednesday night (I now play at a different club that does the same thing on Tuesday night - it's ran light years better). This guy Scott would literally speak to many of the lower rated players and try to drag them over to his own "club" that he claimed met at the same time on Wednesday night at the same Wendy's restaurant. He also then proceeds to post on the state chess Website that had much lower security then, and he was able to hack the system so that he can post derogatory comments and they would be listed as if they were posted by other people, as in identity theft! He would also send out emails telling people that they must call him.
Well, he sent out an email to this guy Chris Mabe, and Chris Mabe sent an email back to him basically telling him to F off! Now Chris was in North Carolina while Scott was in South Carolina at the time (both near the state border). Apparently, there was some old law that made it so that if you used profanity in an email in South Carolina, it was an arrestable offense. I happened to look up as it was my opponent's turn and I noticed him crack open the doors and peak in the tournament hall, which I thought was creepy. Clearly he saw Chris sitting to my left. About 20 minutes later, cops are walking in, coming to the back row where I am seated, and literally, with my own two eyes, during round 2 of the tournament, Chris Mabe gets arrested! We find out from one of the directors and then treasurer of the South Carolina Chess Association what it was that was going on. One of the directors bailed him out during round 3. I didn't hear anything about an actual trial. If there was, Chris won it easily.
Since then, this creep ran a TV show on some local Charlotte channel and called himself the Chess Wizard. He had grown his hair out and grew a beard the size of Santa Claus. He basically harassed the NCCA and SCCA for another 3 or 4 years, and then just fell off the face of the earth. Nobody has seen or heard from him (that I'm aware of) in a good 10 years.
It's going to take something big to beat that one. Next closest thing was a power outage during Round 3 of the 6-Day Schedule at the 2004 US Open in Fort Lauderdale. It lasted about 10 to 15 minutes and everyone stopped their clocks. Still nothing close to the incident in October 2002 in South Carolina.
ThrillerFan is correct.
A friend and I were too late for registration but we decided to go to Rock Hill SC anyway just to watch. Just as we entered there was a big kerfuffle and the police came in and took Chris Mabe away. We wondered what the hell was going on. I heard the name Scott Gru-Bell mentioned. A couple of years later I played him OTB but that's another less interesting story.
Hmmm.
Nothing too weird.
At the LOTS (Land of the Sky) tournament many, many years ago I witnessed a guy wear the exact same cotton sweat suit for all 5 rounds. It was navy blue and he was a rather large individual. He reminded me of Violet Beauregarde after she chewed the experimental piece of gum. Hey if its comfy and fits go with what works I guess.
In my first tournament I witnessed a "Chess mom" guiding her son through a game. She stood directly behind her son's opponent and would make faces until her son's hand hovered over the correct piece or pawn she wanted him to move. I wish I had a video of that, it was really obvious and quite comical. Eventually we were able to get her removed from the tournament hall. The TD was the most timid person ever to direct and she was hell on wheels all 4 and 1/2 feet (1.37 meters) of her.
I thought the poor guy was going to have a nervous breakdown when she started swearing at him in German.
Hmmm.
Nothing too weird.
At the LOTS (Land of the Sky) tournament many, many years ago I witnessed a guy wear the exact same cotton sweat suit for all 5 rounds. It was navy blue and he was a rather large individual. He reminded me of Violet Beauregarde after she chewed the experimental piece of gum. Hey if if its comfy and fits go with what works I guess.
In my first tournament I witnessed a "Chess mom" guiding her son through a game. She stood directly behind her son's opponent and would make faces until her son's hand hovered over the correct piece or pawn she wanted him to move. I wish I had a video of that, it was really obvious and quite comical. Eventually we were able to get her removed from the tournament hall. The TD was the most timid person ever to direct and she was hell on wheels all 4 and 1/2 feet (1.37 meters) of her.
I thought the poor guy was going to have a nervous breakdown when she started swearing at him in German.
How far back was many, many years ago? I wonder if I was at that tournament.
I've been at Land of the Sky every year from 1999 to 2017 (and will be there in a month) with the exception of 2007 (simply busy) and 2010 (was at Tunica, Mississippi for a World Series of Poker Circuit Event).
once i was playing an person in an otb tournament that otb player was mated by me up to 10 times every time he took it back and said i willl kill you if you call the arbiter. he was twice as big as me that time and i also was a sissy that time. at last i lost my temper and called the arbiter. WHILE i was calling the arbiter he changed the position of the peices.the game was agreed to a draw.