What's the most upset you've seen someone get at a tournament?

I've never been to a tournament, so I wanted to ask the people who have, what's the most upset you've ever seen someone get at one? What happened and what did they do?

Haha, one guy threw the (flexible so it didn't hurt) board at me after I beat him when everyone was looking. (It was a huge upset too, I'm proud personally)

It would be a funny prank if someone did that at a simul against a GM. Not throw the board at the GM, but just all of a sudden flip the board over and run out of the room screaming.

Hahaha I'd wanna see that XD

@Slovenslik

That's exactly what happened to me too!

Here is proof that chess affects peoples' emotions in a basic and primal way. The negativity of chess is powerful enough to make a child neurotically piss his pants, and then continue to play like that. And there are some people that actually want chess to be mandatory in schools?!

Chess affects me in a bad way too I must admit, I was playing blitz games all day, and even when I was winning, I found myself insulting my opponents. I knew I shouldn't insult them, but the urge was so strong and it felt so good in the heat of the battle to make hatefull comments to them. I said to one person "Silly buttface, tricks are for kids!" when he was down a piece in an endgame and refusing to resign. And you know what, it actually felt really good to say that to him.

I've mentioned this incident before in a thread on bad sportsmanship but its worth reposting here.

I was playing in a Qualifying Tournament for the State Championship many years ago. I had blundered a strong position & lost a piece but I had a good chance of salvaging a draw by perpetual check. A guy on the board next to me picked up a piece then replaced it & moved another. His opponent challenged the move & the guy threw a fit about it. He stood up & started shouting abuse at his opponent, it was a major scene & was disrupting the whole tournament. The Tournament Referee was called & declared the game forfeit & banned the offender from the rest of the tournament. That was the correct call ..... but I was the real loser. I had 5 moves to play in 2 minutes to reach the 60 minute time control in a very complex position. I made a wrong move & eventually lost the game. Post game analysis showed I did have a draw but I missed the key move due to the scene going on at the next board. I placed 2^nd in the Tournament by 1/2 a point.

So I lodged a complaint which lead to the offender being banned from all future tournament play. I found out he had done this before. My game was analyzed but the result was not changed (I did not dispute that call, I couldn't prove that I could have definitely drawn the game considering the time pressure)

The was a sequel to all that which involved a confrontation in a car park before another tournament. The banned guy accused me of ruining his chance of becoming Australian Champion. I suggested the Australian Checkers Championship might be a more appropriate choice. I blocked the ensuing punch with a motorcycle helmet & ... well we don't need to go there, but as far as I know he never played Tournament Chess again.

...Dang. Intense.

I saw somebody cry at a U1500 when I was 16 because he lost a game where he missed a very simple mate from his opponent while threatening a forced mate in two.

Isn't it normal for people to cry? I watched the documentary "Brooklyn Castle" and all the kids cried when they lost. Ah, the joy of chess!

It's only acceptable to cry in certain situations, like when my friend passed away in a car accident...  Losing a game is nothing compared to something of that magnitude.

It's only alright to cry when someone dies?

I can actually understand why they cry, when you put a lot of hard work into something and then you fail at it, that's pretty upsetting.

Death is inevitable for all of us, but losing any given chess game isn't.

I don't mean only death, but that was the only occurance within the past year where I cried and although death is definite, it can occur in such an unexpected way that it's a tragedy when somebody dies at 19.  This isn't the place to talk about it, though, so if you leave a comment pertaining to this, I won't respond to it.

Better for us all to be dead. This is a world designed so that animals have to kill and eat each other, that's sick. Who wants to live in this  crumby world where animals have to eat each other to survive. I wish none of it ever existed.

I try not to insult people like that, but I always end up doing it anyway. The only thing that sucks is when it happens to me, and my opponent is winning and insults me as he wins, that makes me so angry that I wish we were playing OTB so I could punch them in the face.

The funny thing is that when you get even older, you'll switch back to thinking that way. Except this time it's not based on teen angst but reality. Peoples early to mid 20s are often the happiest time of their lives, you just wait.

I don't know if you are really serious or not; or this is just high irony, and it is flying over my head.

But if you are serious then there are a few ways you can answer that problem. The first one is that what you are saying is what you might call a 'map of the world', or 'how the world works'. This info sits in your brain. The brain doesn't do complex calculations everytime you want to do something, in fact it takes shortcuts, it tries to save energy, and takes the last known instances as facts.

Basically the brain is a really clever stupid machine. So your impression of reality can be really skewered. But you can change it as well, by consciously doing good things, by exercising virtues, you brain starts to think and see good every where. It rewires it self in the way you use it. Don't just go along with the default setting.

Competitive play, of dominating the other guy, brings out an adverserial outlook of the world; it gives you a me vs them world view; an every man for himself perspective. 

So cook a meal and invite some friends over and you will see it is not the end of the world.

At the last interclub night I attended, one old guy, who was known to lose frequently by running out of time, lost, by running out of time, against a young girl. Clearly unable to control his emotions, he marched up and down the tournament hall (half of the games were still underway), repeatedly spitting out the eff word and banging his empty water bottle against his thigh, like he had profound Tourette's syndrome, for a good half hour. The girl who beat him was concerned for her safety so a few of us surrounded her for protection until he calmed down.

arkledale