lastgame

Chess connections: (1) I played chess with my father who played once in a simultaneous exhibition against Alechine. (2) I won a blitz game against someone who won a blitz game against someone who won a blitz game agains Tal! (3) I played a tournament blitz game against someone who drew a standard tournament game against Bobby Fischer. (4) In a club tournament blitz game I won against a player who was the strongest in Michigan at the time. (5) Early summer or late spring, I played one long night easily way over a hundred blitz games against Igor Ivanov (!). I was taking 7m, he was taking 2m. I lost all games but one. While I was thinking about my moves, he was watching tv, changing channels, he told me the story of his life, ... He watched the board mostly from a distance, and coming back to make his move without rushing his steps. The one and only game which I have won was a known dramatic Danish(?) gambit, where white sacs his pawns, and queens get exchanged indirectly, in an interesting way. I played black. Actually, I didn't remember the opening well, and Igor has helped me to follow the book. Then soon I made one more move, and Igor suddenly was sitting at the table and making some terryfying noises, like a wounded bear--he was a big guy! I asked: what's wrong? And he responded: you made such a damn good move! After this, indeed, I managed to carry the game to the victory. He was a very nice person. He won a tournament game against Karpov. This gives me a winning path of length two to Karpov. And Igor also drew a game against Kasparov, which gives me a plus score path of length 2 to Kasparov.

This is a small chess world, quite democratic, and even a complete patzer can have short connections (paths) to world champions, and even purely winning paths (not scores, just paths :-) or at least plus paths.