Archive for the ‘Chess’ Category

« Older Entries

What Were You Thinking?

Sunday, April 26th, 2009

It’s not Mr. Roger’s neighborhood. You’ll never find yourself on the corner of Grant and Royal.

The squares are each designated by a letter and a number, sixty-four squares. The rows are labeled “a” through “h” and the columns “one” through “eight.” The square in the lower left is a1 while the one at the top right is h8

They’re tough streets. Just last week a Bishop was slain at the intersection of Avenue C and 4th Street. And a few days ago, my son, Chris, was there. He got there through the Internet Chess Club portal. I was watching him play.

The Internet Chess Club attracts the best players in the world, and it attracts the rest of us too. Chris was playing a fifteen-minute game. His position was better than his opponent. His opponent had a light square weakness. Chris was exploiting it nicely.

I was watching, and commenting as the game proceeded (talking to myself). Chris couldn’t hear me, but the game would have turned out differently if he had.

The game reached a critical point. His opponent played his Knight to e4 blocking his Queen’s defense of critical light squares. Chris didn’t hesitate, he immediately played his Queen to f3 threatening mate on g2.

chessposition

His opponent moved his Knight to g5 attacking the Queen and the Bishop, and preventing the mate on g2.

The move Queen takes the pawn on f2 checking the White King followed.

The King forced to retreat moved to the only legal square, h1, allowing a forced mate.

I was talking out loud again.

“Queen f1 check,” I said. “Rook takes Queen. Rook takes Rook mate.”

He didn’t play it immediately. “Queen f1,” I said, a little louder. I was trying to stay calm—it wasn’t working. “Queen f1,” I shouted.

I kept thinking: He must see it. Why isn’t he moving? What’s he waiting for? He has 12 minutes on the clock, if he’ll just take a minute he’ll see it. It’s a simple calculation—it’s a Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess position.

Finally, he made his move.

“No! Damn I can’t believe you missed that,” I said, as I watched him retreat the Bishop. I couldn’t watch anymore. I disconnected from the chess server, but continued yelling at him. Asking him what the hell was wrong with him.

My wife, hearing the commotion, hurried into the room.

“What’s the matter,” she said, “are you okay?”

“It’s Chris,” I said.

“Is he hurt, what’s wrong,” she said.

I quickly assured her that he was okay.

“He had an easy mate and missed it. I can’t believe it. Two moves I couldn’t watch anymore,” I said.

“A chess game?” she said.

It took me a minute to calm down.

I said, “Chris is coming over later tonight for dinner and a movie. Why don’t you call him and see what he wants to eat. Oh, and while you’re at you could say this. . .”

I wrote down a list of the moves he missed along with my comments, on a slip of paper, and handed it to my wife.

“I have no idea what the moves mean, she said, “but I get the point, he screwed up.” She laughed, picked up the phone and dialed.

“It’s your mom.

“Hi, Mom. What’s up?”

“Jesus Christ Chris, Queen f1 check!” she said. “And Rook takes Queen, Rook takes Rook mate! What were you thinking?”

I had to laugh. What must my son be thinking, “What fucking game is she talking about? It has to be the one I played on the internet earlier. Dad must have told her what to say.”

“Funny, real funny, mom” he said to her. “Oh and tell dad two can play at this game.”

Tags:
Posted in Chess, Children, Family | No Comments »

Catching Zees

Saturday, December 6th, 2008

The thing about driving across the desert is that you can close your eyes, catch some zees, and when you open your eyes again nothing much has changed.

That’s the last thing I remember thinking. But, when I opened my eyes, up was down and down was up. The seat belt was doing a good job of holding me in place, but the assorted objects that had been resting comfortably on the floor, and on the seat, and in the glove box, a box that popped open on the first rotation of the car, were all obeying the laws of physics as they flew about.

A baseball bat from the floor behind my seat, carefully placed there to protect me should some punk decide to do me harm, flew near my head striking the windshield. I felt like the target of those physical laws, never mind that they didn’t know me from the bat. (more…)

Tags: , ,
Posted in Chess, Friends, Memories | No Comments »

The Chess Game

Monday, February 4th, 2008

“I guess you know what this means,” he said, as he captured my last pawn. He now had a pawn while I had nothing but my King. The winning plan is to escort the pawn to the eighth rank and there promote it to a piece, most likely a Queen. The game was in its eighth hour and I was tired. I’d been winning earlier in the game and then lost my advantage, and now it looked as if I would lose.

When you begin to lose your mind shuts down like a body when it dies. Thinking is difficult. You’d welcome an out-of-body experience. You’d like to be somewhere else, but you don’t really want to give up. You’re opposed to the idea. You have a responsibility to the game and to yourself to fight on.

You look at the board again with fresh eyes and you understand, it’s the opposition, that’s the key. You have the opposition in a King and pawn versus King ending. All you have to do is carefully maintain the opposition and the game will end in a draw. You look up, and there he is wearing a George Bush smirk, though at the time, some 30 year ago I didn’t know about the Bush smirk. My opponent still thinks he’s winning, he doesn’t know about Bush smirk either, but he’s wearing it.

You smile, he’s not sure if you’re about to resign or . . . You wait a moment and then say, “Yes, I know what it means. It means the game will end in a draw.” He looks back at the board and then at you. He sees what you see, but he plays on a few more moves. You demonstrate that you understand how to maintain the opposition. He says nothing, but circles a draw on the scoresheet and pushes it to you for your signature.

Posted in Chess, Memories | No Comments »

Well Goodnight Agnes

Saturday, June 16th, 2007

An elevator is normally a quiet place, all the occupants on a mission to discover something interesting on the ceiling while keeping an eye on the blinking red light registering the floor number as they ascend or descend. Las Vegas is different, a conjunction of happy vacationers bent on having a good time—cheery, hopeful, and friendly. It was just such a car we occupied with five others, eight total, well under the 3000 pound capacity, on our final night in Las Vegas. Let me see, were we going up or going down, returning from the latest round of the chess tournament, or on our way there. I don’t recall. I do remember I was standing near the wall on one side, my sons Tim and Chris on the other. The woman was standing in the middle.

I recognized her immediately. She had mid-western written all over her and child of the twenties tattooed on her glasses with rhinestones. She was probably one of those moms, like mine, who did the ironing while I listened to the Lone Ranger on the radio–hi ho Silver, away. Today she was in Las Vegas, and sharing the elevator with us. She was a look-a-like for Pauline, my father-in-laws second wife. Her hair was white and the whiff of grey was the frosting on the look-a-like cake.

I caught Tim’s eye pointing her out with a nod of my head while mouthing her name. He immediately nudged his brother, glanced at her, and repeated my message. They were both smiling now. The woman was talking to her husband. It was Pauline’s voice reincarnated in this stranger in Vegas having a good time.

Memories of the times in Yuma visiting Pauline and Earl flooded back, and Pauline’s catch phrase, an exclamation, one she often repeated on the Golf course flooded back. Sink a long putt and Pauline would say, “well, goodnight Agnes” or during an evening game of Shanghai rummy, Pauline’s game, a surprising play was guaranteed to generate the phrase.

The boys had heard her say it often, so when Pauline’s double told her husband that she felt a jackpot in her future, I couldn’t resist– “Well, goodnight Agnes,” I said. The boys would have spit up their drinks if they’d had any. They showed remarkable restraint by not laughing out loud– but best of all was the woman. It was as if she had known Pauline, as if she’d been in on our private communications from the beginning, she laughed and said, “Yep, that’s right.”

Posted in Chess, Family, Moments, Travel | 5 Comments »

Do You Play Chess?

Sunday, March 31st, 2002

In the early ninety’s when chess players still got together in person, my good friend Stephen invited the usual suspects over for a little barbecue and some chess. He said he had some visitors we would enjoy meeting. I asked who, he said that Grandmaster Alex Sherzer would be there and the rest he would save until later. I prodded without success.

It turned out that Alex was not traveling alone, the others in his party were introduced as Lyle, Zoie and Sofia. The conversation quickly turned to chess, the PCA the Intel Grand Prix, as well as the merits of different players. I think at least some of us were wondering, could this Sofia be Sofia Polgar, I know I was. We didn’t have to wait long to find out. About five minutes into the conversation Tim said, “well ladies do you play chess.” To which they replied “oh a little.” Most chess players know the code “oh a little” means oh indeed I do, and I’m probably better than you.

A few minutes later not satisfied, Tim said to Sofia, “you look a lot like Judit Polgar”, a real conversation stopper. Stephen said, “well of course she looks like Judit this is Sofia her sister”. Tim said, “NO, not really” to which Stephen in his most serious tone replied, “Yes Tim really”. Tim didn’t say anything for several minutes. Then you could see the realization on his face, like the sun rising in the morning a glimmer of light reflected in his eye. Then just as quickly as if the entire day had passed in that one moment the sun set and his face turned a dark crimson red. There was nowhere to hide; all he could manage was a soft oh.

Sofia gave us all gave a chance to prove our skill at speed chess, all quickly fell victim to a very good player. Tim claims to have won one game, but after watching Sofia crush Alex Sherzer game after game, I don’t believe him. Tim was not alone however, the previous weekend Sofia, Alex and company were in Tucson, Sofia wasn’t playing but was at the tournament where no one recognized her.

Note: Sofia Polgar is a two-times Gold medallist with Hungarian national women’s team in 1988 and 1990. Her biggest success was in Rome, 1989 with a performance rating over 2900! (Kasparov’s current rating is 2838) In a field of strong GMs she won the competition with 8.5/9, which at the time was a record in open tournaments.

Posted in Chess, Friends | No Comments »

« Older Entries