I posted before about the girlfriend holding the kasparov book she bought me until my birthday. I neglected to tell the story of how I met her, it is because of chess! By the way, we might get married in December. It depends who wins the current match. If Anand wins, we get married. If Kramnik, no. (I’m just kidding, it’s a takeoff of the movie Diner)
The story goes back to summer of 1974 (no misprint!). I'm 18 years old, playing in the chess gate in the park. She and her friends are 13. They think all chess players are nerds. They come into the chess gate to bother us, steal our pieces, etc. They took my Chernev book (I think it was Practical Chess Endings) and hid it somewhere in the park.... Little girls just having their fun, ya know. And SHE is the ringleader of it all. She wrote her phone number in my chess life (false number of course, false last name). You get the picture. Kids being kids. Actually, i wasn't exactly a mature 18 myself.
Of course, 18 - 13 is a big age difference at that point, too big to be friends or anything else. Anyway, the older she got, the more i liked her. My group and her group started hanging out. I asked her out when she was 19, she said no, she was seeing someone. We stayed friends all those years.
Fast forward from 1974 to 2006, a mere 32 years later, two marriages in between for her (none for me, a few near-misses). I finally take the plunge and ask her out again. She says yes. And that's where we are today. When people ask us why it took 32 years to get together, i merely say "hey, don't rush me". When her old friends find out we're together, their first comments are "HE DOESNT STILL PLAY CHESS DOES HE???"
To this day, when i mention chess to her, i get called a name, however it's for fun now (well, it was then too). She buys me chess stuff now. She's actually going to buy me Chessbase 10. Her daughter is buying me Fritz 11.
By the way, she never learned how to play. She offered to learn, i was afraid to teach her, mainly for fear she might take it up and refute all my opening secrets, bust my Modern Defense....
What's the moral here? In chess terms:
1. You can win a chess game even after 150 moves.
2. The game is not over with a single setback.
3. Patience, Patience.
4. If you find my Irving Chernev book, please contact me.
Interesting story though. Many have ask me why I married a lady so young (15 years younger than myself), my reply : " I would rather smell perfume than liniment" 