On 2 separate occasions I’ve had a player object to my upholding a claim of triple occurrence with the statement: “His position occurred three times but mine only twice”.
At the 2012 Greater NYC Scholastics a player made an unsolicited move on his teammate’s neighboring board. Before I told him he just lost his own game I asked him why he did it. His answer was: “I’m trying to think of a reason”.
At the 2011 Manhattan Open when I forfeited a player caught in the act of looking up a move in the French at the chess book store early during his game (not coincidentally also the French Defense) his response was “But you caught me so fast I didn’t even get to the position I was looking for”.
One time my friend and I walk into Rossolimo’s chess shop in the Village. My friend buys a chess set. Before walking out, he says “wait, I want to open up the bag and look at the pieces. I want to make sure that the knights move like knights”…
Years ago an expert friend of mine had what appeared to be a good but a complex position against a master. In walking by his board, I saw the opportunity for a complicated series of moves, but had to get back to my game.
Later, after my friend lost, I asked him what happened, and asked if he had looked at the complex sequence of moves. He nodded in the affirmative and said…
I’ve used that instruction in teaching - in that the human mind craves certainty and so it will sometimes encourage you to make an unfavorable choice simply because it is certain - whereas it may have been much better to make the unclear choice.
This is a very good point. It can really be psychologically hard to refrain from playing a forcing line that you have spent a lot of effort calculating, even if you’re not that happy with (or certain of) your evaluation of the position at the end of it. I’ve spent a fair amount of energy in tournament games convincing myself not to play those moves, and it’s generally energy well spent. I think it’s something I’m better at now than I was when I was lower-rated, and that correlation is not accidental.
I actually played one of these moves (well, not 13 moves deep) and won the game despite the fact it was just plain bad; however, my alternatives in a position where I needed a win were limited to drawish sludge.
I would say it’s even more important to stop yourself from calculating that forced line in time, so that you still can have enough of it left to consider the alternatives. Otherwise, the move you end up playing after rejecting a forcing line that turned out to be not as good as you hoped, might be an outright blunder.
Funny you mention that. My parents had no idea what I was getting into, but I did myself. I loved chess, but never totally immersed myself in it, never played as many tournaments as others, for fear that an already-eccentric personality would turn outright nuts. I really feared I would turn into some of the people I saw. I always wonder how much better I could have been…or how much crazier I could have been, had I gone the chess-obsession route.
Over the 30 + years of competing in tournament chess as well as having been a TD, I have seen some funny quotes over the years. Here is a few that come to mind:
A young Junior player at the club I used to run was paired against an 80 + year old man, and this Junior player was the son of a strong “Expert Player”. The youngster played this Senior Citizen tough, and the Senior offered a draw. The youngster replied, “Hang on, let me ask my Dad”. I, along with this Senior player were a bit stunned, so he went over to his Dad and asked his permission about whether they can have a “Dog”. What of course is funny about this is that the Elder might have trouble hearing draw offers, but both his Dad and I stated that his opponent did not offer a “Dog”, but rather a “Draw”. The youngster only knew that there could be only 1 winner and 1 loser, and was not aware that tournament games could end up in ties. Needless to say, the kid accepted the offer of a draw.
This game occurred on February 1st, 1987. Set up this position: White - Kc6, e6, and g4. Vs. Black - (Me) Ka5, Be7, a6, and g5. White plays Kd7 and offers a draw, which was his 4th draw offer of the game and 6th overall. Earlier in this contest, I had offered 2 draws, and both offers were turned down. There was a plethora of “Trash Talking during this Game” After thinking for 30 minutes on this position, where everything was calculated to the end, I blurted out, “I am sorry, I win by 1 Tempo, Oh Don’t Resign yet, Allow me to Demonstrate”! My opponent, who was a real good sport, did in fact allow me to demonstrate the win, and as a last joke to this very funny game, where I forced the sequence of moves of having his king on g8 with his pawn on g7, and gradually bringing my own king closer, I reached the position with my queen on h5, and the king on d6, and this is where I “Pretended” to play Ke7, but I did not release the piece, and I looked up at my opponent and the crowd that had assembled, and stated, “Uh Uh” and then played the kind to the correct square of e6, and then loudly proclaimed, “Mate Next Move” and my opponent promptly slammed down his king in disgust. The crowd that had assembled were on the ground laughing so hard, and it did at least show my opponent a lesson not to “Trash Talk” so much!!
This event was the 1988 U.S. Class Championship in Somerset, NJ, and I was matched up against a very tall Expert Level player. As black, I offered him a draw after making my 19th move, and he took such offense to this, that he took his queen, slammed on the square and yelled, “No F-- Way”, and towered over me. Talk about intimidation! I then took my rook, slammed it behind my other rook, and proclaimed, “It is Time to F— Mate Your Face”! The game continued to the end without further incident, and eventually I outplayed this giant of a man in a minor piece endgame, and hit him with 2 “1 Liners”:
a) “Next Time, Pick on Somebody Your Own Size”!
b) As I was walking out to the hall after the game, I yelled out, “And David Just Slewed Goliath, Again!!”
I remember watching Steve Tennant (2350-ish), circa 1980, playing an A player. The A player was, IIRC, up an exchange, and had roughly 5 minutes to Tennant’s 1-ish to make the time control.
At this point the nervous “A” player stuttered “Would you l-l-like a D-D-D-d-draw???”
Tennant, stared at the position in disgust for several seconds - and with his flag hanging loudly proclaimed “I would not LIKE a draw, but I will ACCEPT one.”
I’m pretty sure I wasn’t the A player quoted above, because I lost all my games with Steve Tennant circa 1980 while he was in Chicago.
But about a decade ago, I was paired against him in Milwaukee, and the game ended in an eerily similar way.
In the late middlegame, my king was in the middle of the board (what else is new), and he had a queen check that at first glance seemed absolutely devastating. By pure luck, however, my only reasonable response to the check (an interposition) also put him in check, in a way that saved the day. The natural continuation would have led to a forced three-fold repetition, which of course I would have been delighted with.
As it turned out, however, the three-fold repetition was also his only reasonable response. Instead, he deviated, trading into an endgame which was clearly superior for me. He must have hoped his 500-rating-point advantage would be sufficient for him to win an inferior ending.
It wasn’t, though, and I eventually won. Tennant did not LIKE the prospect of a draw, but should have ACCEPTED one.
Circa 1980, the gap between the two of you was more like 300 points, no? I learned back then the inadvisability of taking Bill Smythe (whose king was always already centralized) into an ending.
