Ever have one of those nights when you realize that you should’ve stayed as far away from a chessboard as possible? After our first move I realized I had set up the board wrong (White’s pieces were on the 8^th rank). Del and I both admitted that we "cheat" by looking at those little letters and numbers for help in writing down the game. So we turned the board around and set the pieces back up. Several moves later Del laughed and pointed to my Queenside; in setting the pieces back up I had reversed the positions of the Knight and Bishop. Back to day one of Chess 101 for me.

But these were minor errors compared to what happened on move 15 of the game.

This was the position after White’s 14^th move (O-O-O). I panicked when I saw the pin, and I went into defensive mode. I briefly thought of Nb3+, but saw that it just lost the Knight for nothing. I thought about c5, but I realized White could attack my Knight more times than I could defend it (what with c3 and Nf3) so I figured c5 was pointless and probably weakened the Queenside (where I might like to castle). Finally I decided to castle Queenside which added another defender of the Knight and got my King out of the middle.

Del responded with c3, attacking the Knight again:

Now came my whopper of a move. I was always under the impression that since you can only make one move at a time, you are at least spared from making more than one blunder per move. I was wrong.

What I had planned was to move the Queen over to f5 and hope for Qxf5, whereupon Nxf5 puts me back in the game at least. This really wasn’t very good thinking because after Qf5 White can simply take the Knight with the Rook. I always forget that my partner doesn’t have to move the way I would like him to!

Del had stepped out for a minute, and when I saw him coming back to the table, I figured I’d spent enough time mulling over the position, and as there was nothing better, I should move. So I picked up the Knight and moved it to f5. I stared at the board in horror, "That wasn’t the move I wanted to make!" I whispered to no avail. The move I intended (Queen to f5) was bad enough, but moving the Knight to f5 was suicide. My ever-elusive goal of hitting 1500 rating points, which had been dangling like a carrot over the board, was whisked away.

But, you’re saying, that’s still only one blunder per move. Not so; I missed mate in two! Del pointed it out to me after I resigned. 15…Nb3+ followed by 16…Qxd1++. I know that if I saw this position in a book it wouldn’t take me more than a few seconds to see the mate. But, you see, I had looked at that move on my previous turn and ruled it out. I didn’t even bother to reconsider it this move! I was still in defensive mode. I… (fill in your favorite excuses here…)

So now I was feeling pretty stupid. I began wondering if there was a limit to how many question marks you could put after a move. I settled on three. Then I decided to watch the other games in progress to see if I could learn how to play chess…

Clint showed up thinking it was speed night, but it worked out well when Ken decided to let him sub for him in his game with Chuck.

In their game there was a major battle over an open file. Neither side could seem to make headway, and Chuck offered a draw, which Clint declined. "I could still lose this," was Clint’s modest reply. But Clint eventually broke through in a position something like this (I’m hoping they’ll write up their game for the next newsletter, but for now this is how I recall the gist of the critical position):

This forced 1. Kg2. Clint now had a mate in two (which he found in the postmortem). 1…Qg1 2. Kf3, Re3++. Unfortunately, he played 1…Rg1 and the White King managed to slip away. Even though Clint’s mate-in-two wasn’t as obvious as mine, it made me feel less like an idiot to see that it happens to good players too.

Keith and Gary had reached an even endgame with just Kings and Pawns remaining. Gary offered a draw, but Keith decided to play on. He moved his King towards one of Gary’s Kingside Pawns, and Gary moved his King towards one of Keith’s Queenside Pawns. This allowed Keith to capture the Pawn and eventually win the game. In the postmortem he told Gary that if Gary had moved his King to protect his Pawn then Keith would’ve agreed to a draw.

Will was up three pawns as they went into the end-game. But Duane had about fifty minutes left on his clock compared to Will’s 2 minutes! Will offered a draw which Duane immediately refused. So Will thought fast, pushing pawns and hitting the clock with enough force to earn several dirty-looks from other players. I think we all know now how these clocks keep wearing out so fast, Mr. Treasurer! Eventually he Queened a Pawn, gave it up for a Rook, and then Queened another. He wiped out Duane’s pieces and Pawns like a madman, and then began shoving Duane’s King around until the following position was reached with White to move:

It was at this point that Duane calmly told Will: "Your flag is down."

Shortly afterwards Will could be heard down the hallway yelling, "Disgusting!"

When Duane left he quipped, "Sudden death is sudden death."

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