Although I seldom mention it, my wife writes a blog on quilting (which she started a year before I started this one). Last week she wrote a hilarious post on buttons. You would think that of all the topics in the world, the least likely one to be funny is buttons. If you think that, you owe it to yourself to click on the link and read her post!
Anyway, that got me thinking: I really don’t have very much humor in this here chess blog. Mostly it’s pretty dead serious stuff. Maybe the only funny post I’ve ever written, in a sly way, was this one, but that’s only because I was telling someone else’s story.
So I thought, why not write a post about the funniest thing that’s ever happened to me in a chess game? Or the funniest thing I’ve ever seen at a tournament? It sounded like a great idea. And then I started thinking…
And thinking…
And thinking…
And I couldn’t come up with a single one! Maybe I’m just humor-impaired. Or maybe nothing funny ever happens in chess. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s impossible to remember a funny story from a completely cold start. Usually I tell a funny story because somebody else said something that reminded me of it.
However, some of my readers must have more skill at this than I do. Please tickle our funny bones with your funniest chess story! There’s no time limit… If you come upon this post five years from now, I’d still like to hear what you have to say.
If you insist, here are my really lame contributions.
Funniest thing I’ve seen in a tournament: Was probably when I saw two players who were both rockers. At one point they were rocking back and forth in perfect unison, so that their foreheads came within a couple inches of hitting each other. I kept waiting for them to hit, but they never did. Which means that this funny story lacks a punch line.
Funniest story from a tournament: I once went to a World Open with Bill Mason, who at that time was the strongest undergraduate chess player at Duke. Bill fit every stereotype you might have about a male Duke student: brash, self-confident, obnoxious, and definitely a male chauvinist. So it was great to watch him get taken down by a woman who was the ladies’ champion of Costa Rica (or some Latin American country). You’d think he would be embarrassed, right? Wrong! After the game he said he lost because he couldn’t think of anything else but her beautiful eyes! Leave it to Bill to lose a game because he fell in love with his opponent.
Funniest anecdote I’ve read: I think a lot of humor comes from personalities, the more outsized the better. Somehow a few years ago I picked up a book called Viktors Pupols: American Master by Larry Parr (1982), which is absolutely a raw gem. The best parts of it are the accounts of Pupols’ rivalry with Jim McCormick; the two of them were for many years the two strongest players in Washington, until Yasser Seirawan showed up. Here is a magnificent story that Parr tells about a game from the 1964 Puget Sound Open. In this case Parr is only the compiler of the tale. The first paragraph comes from an article by Cal Bertram, and the second and third paragraphs are quotes from Pupols himself:
“After finishing his game… it seemed that Jim’s ‘brilliant’ victory had filled his cup to overflowing with human kindness. Seeking to impart his vast store of chess knowledge to those more unfortunate than himself, he proceeded to help Leslie Vitanyi in his game with Viktors Pupols. However, Pupols did not see eye to eye with ‘Big’ Jim. This was made quite clear when the relative silence was broken by the clatter of flying chairs and the thud of McCormick’s body hitting a table…”
[Pupols:] “Those were our salad days. We were the young whippersnappers back then, and the blood warmed up quickly on occasion. I had no choice but to horizontalize pooorr Jim, as I was trying to seal a move with Jim standing directly behind my left shoulder cackling… I didn’t want to hit the man, but the position on the board was blockaded… so I decided to open up Jim’s position.”
“Yes, my punches with Jim have always been clean ones. I lead with my right, and I land one haymaker. He crrrumples up, and it just so happens that Bob Lundin or someone of similar size is standing nearby to separate us. It’s always planned that way: I land one punch, and Jim doesn’t get to punch me back. God knows how these things would turn out if he were able to hit back.”
Now there’s some chess humor! Even though I don’t know any of the people involved (I’ve played Pupols once, that’s it), it still makes me grin, especially the part about “opening up Jim’s position.” One might say that this story does have a punch line.
Okay, now it’s your turn!
{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }
My shortest tournament victory came in round 5 of the 1999 US Open in Reno.
1. f4 Nf6 2. Nf3 g6 3. Nc3 d5 4. d4 Bg7 5. e3 b6
Black’s last move weakens several light squares on the diagonal leading to the King. I figured now would be a good time to challenge those squares.
6. Ne5
At this point, I figured my opponent would think for a few minutes. I left the board to fill a cup of water and check on the opening of my friend’s game.
Upon returning, I already saw from a distance that all the pieces were jumbled in the center of the board. My opponent had taken his notation sheet and jacket. I was perplexed what went down. Fortunately, GM Arthur Bisguier, patiently awaiting his tardy victim on the adjacent board, kindly explained that my opponent played a move, pressed the clock, and immediately realized his error. Slowly it dawned on me. Those weak light squares had doomed the Black Queen.
6… Nbd7 1-0
One of the directors observed the high state of entropy upon the board and awarded me the victory. A couple of days later, the Black player politely apologized for hightailing out of Dodge, explaining that he (a local player) had a bad day at work. Alas, this being the US Open, I suddenly had 23 hours and 50 minutes to kill until the next round!
At least he was honest! This story reminds me of my first game with the Bryntse Gambit, which went 1. e4 c5 2.f4 d5 3. Nf3 de 4. Ng5 Nf6 5. Bc4 Bg4 6. Qxg4 Nxg4 7. Bxf7+ Kd7 8. Be6+ Kc6 9. Bxg4 e5 10. Nf7 Qh4+ 11. g3 ?xg4. Here’s what that last move means: My opponent, a Class-A player, grabbed the bishop on g4, intending to take it. Then he realized that … Qxg4 would lose the queen. So he held the bishop in his hand for ten minutes while the clock ticked. Perhaps he was looking for another piece that could take it, or perhaps he was waiting for me to go to the bathroom. In any event, he finally completed the capture, 11. … Qxg4. I played 12. Nxe5+ and he resigned.
20 years ago I once gave a simul to a large group of players which I knew quite well. During the play it was agreed that somebody would bring me juices so we wouldn’t lose time with it. However it was still getting late so at some point I got instead of juices, beers which I anyway happily drunk.
After the simul people congratulated me of having played well despite having drunk some beers. I replied: “Which beers do you mean?”
A few years ago I signed up for a rapids tournament at the Marshall Chess Club which is a few blocks from my apartment. The club director had just taken the position. He was a Nordic/Germanic type fellow and very well organized. He called a meeting of all players to explain the contest rules. Each game was to be 5 minutes.
I raised my hand. “How do we adjourn a game?”. He looked startled. “Adjourn a game??!! But it is only 5 minutes long!” Then he stopped and realized that he had been snookered. “Ach, you are fooling wit me”.
At a club night game( G/20 or some such) 3-4 years ago I adjusted my knights to face slightly toward the middle of the board at the beginning of the game as I always do. It’s not a superstition, but it is definitely a habit.
My opponent asked if I would face them to the right(or the left, I don’t remember). I said no and that I liked them the way they were. He rather went off on me saying I was rude and a menace to the game of chess and the like. This of course only extended my resolve to not adjust the pieces.
Well, the game started and he slammed down moves. Horrible moves. I was crushingly winning by move 12. It was going to be difficult to not be mated in the next half dozen moves without giving up massive material.
After making my 12th move my opponent got out of his chair and left the room. Maybe 4-5 minutes total had passed since we started the game.
I assumed he was just mad at himself for making such a mess of his position and he’d return in a minute or two and resign or play some half-hearted moves to play it out. But actually, he never returned. And I mean never. He has never played another rated game of chess.
Great stories so far! Let’s see a few more!
The funniest chess game moment for me was this game I saw on Tim Krabbe’s site:
Ojanen – Ridala, Helsinki 1959
W: Kh4, Ra8, p. a7
B: Kf7, Ra2.
We all know that the black king should stick to g7 and h7, and putting it to f7 allows White to win through a skewer. So White triumphantly played 1.Rh8?? with the idea of 1… Rxa7 2.Rh7+ and wins, however after 1… Rh2+ the game ended the other way around.
OK, here’s a classic from my own experience.
At the 1982 US Junior Open, an 8-round event, I started 6-0 (including a win over the top seed) and had a full-point lead on the field. My 7th-round opponent was Stuart Rachels, who had recently become the youngest master in US history. I outrated him a little; plus, I was a lanky 20-year-old former wrestler, while Stu was 12 and tiny.
He made an inaccuracy in the opening and offered me a draw. But I liked my position enough (and was on such a roll in the tourney) that I turned it down.
Shortly after that, I sent my queen on a surprise raid deep into his territory. I’d calculated all the sharp lines – except I’d overlooked something terrible a few moves down one line, and of course he saw it. Soon, I found myself grudgingly saying “I resign,” then standing up to offer a handshake.
Little Stu looked up at me, smiled, and said “I guess you should have taken the draw!”
OUCH! My anger surged, and only my last ounce of self-control prevented me from leaping across the table and doing him *grievous* personal harm.
Epilogue: We both won our last games and ended up as c0-champs, appearing together on the cover of Chess Life. I was a year too old to qualify for the winner’s automatic entry into the Junior Invitational, so he got to go instead. He kept improving, and at age 20, he was US co-champion. Shortly after that, he retired from chess and became a philosophy professor. He’s now working on an instructive chess book featuring many of his games – and I’m helping him edit it. Because, after that first inauspicious meeting, we ended up becoming lifelong friends. That makes me extra glad I didn’t beat the you-know-what out of that little punk back in ’82.
The epilogue is the best part of this story!
I also have a Stuart Rachels story, or rather two stories!
I played him in the US Junior Open, which he was en route to winning, when he was 12 and I was about 19. By this point the local media had realized this 12 year old was the favorite to win the tournament, and they swarmed the top board. I got distracted and dropped a piece. Afterwards, Stuart kindly took me aside and gave me what I remember as an older-brother style lecture on dealing with distractions. Yeah, 12 year old lectures 19 year old. I remembered that 27 years later when I finally returned to tournament chess, and 51 year old me got a really helpful lecture from 15 year old opponent. Sometimes you just gotta swallow your pride!
The media then wanted to film us actually playing–they weren’t happy with the shots they had gotten from a distance during the game. So we played a little blitz, and they said “No, no! Too fast! It’ll just be a blur!” So we moved slower, but they said, “We can’t focus–please tell us which piece you’ll be moving in advance.” We did that, but they still weren’t happy. “Those moves are too long, it’s too much camera motion. Make smaller moves.”
So we set up a classical fianchetto position minus the defending bishop, and I got my queen and a pawn on f6 and h6 and gave mate on g7–a nice short move. We spontaneously shook hands, which they liked so much they made us do it again. And that night it was on TV–me checkmating Stuart Rachels! The local family I was staying with was so impressed!
Dave, could you say hi to him for me?
Hi Mary,
You played Stu in the second round of the Junior Open that he and I won. (I have a crosstable of the event. You drew with the 2nd seed, master Dana Therrell, in the last round – good job!) I’m guessing that the media didn’t view him as “the favorite to win the tournament” at that point (he was only the 7th-highest-rated entrant), but rather that they found him cute and photogenic because he was so young. Nice that you got filmed beating him in that made-up position!
I’ll pass along your greeting to him. BTW, I remember that you were from Anchorage. My mom lived there for many years and my sister went to Dimond H.S.
I believe this is a Russian chess-humor story, and I don’t know if it’s true, partly true but “improved”, or completely made up:
An urban chess master came to visit a small-town chess club in order to give a blindfold simul. As the story goes, it’s critical when playing multiple blindfold games that each one be distinctive, so that you can keep them straight. But to the master’s horror, on move 1 all of his opponents played 1…b6. He made various different moves on the different boards, trying to keep them straight. On move 2 half of his opponents played 2…Bb7 and the other half played 2…Ba6. Desperately, he made diverse moves… and on move 3 some of them played 3…Bc8, others 3…Bb7, others 3…Ba6.
There was only one thing to do. He pleaded the need for a bathroom break, crawled out the bathroom window, and took the next train back to the city!
My husband’s favorite, for some reason, is a story of Koltanowski’s (true or not, I don’t know): Koltanowski was at a major scholastic tournament and he came upon a board where two tiny players were doggedly playing on even though there were only kings left. He decided it wasn’t his place to intervene and left them to it.
Later, he encountered one of the players and asked him if it had been a draw. “No,” said the child tearfully, “he mated me!”
Humor at the actual board tends to be a lot drier, but I like this one, from an online slow game (3 days per move). I sacrificed a piece to obtain (as White) a position with Black pawns on a4 and b4 and White pawns on c4, d4, e4, f4, and g4. My opponent wrote me a note to the effect that h2-h4 for my next move was “esthetically forced.”
(I won this: Stockfish thinks I was down a lot in the pawn-wall position but White’s side was much easier to play than Black’s. Alas, however, I did not play h4.)
Here are a few whimsical happenings (though not ha-ha funny).
1. In the last round of the 1985 New York International, I played Dr. Ariel Mengarini. Out of contention for anything, I played my very first Alapin’s Opening (1.e4 e5 2.Ne2). After my second move, Mengarini – an erudite man who’d been playing at the master level for about 50 years and had faced many of the greats – looked up at me and asked wryly, “And what do you call THAT?”
2. I’m not sure why this one cracks me up whenever I think about it, but it does. At the 1979 US Team tournament, I was on a well-balanced team that scored 4-0 shutouts in the first three rounds. We then won 3-1 in round four. Our team captain was a master named Doug Brown, a notorious joker. When a friend asked him how we had done in round four, he put on a mournful expression and sighed, “We lost a game.” “Oh,” the friend said, “So you’re three and one now.” “No no,” Doug replied, smirking. “We lost a GAME.” (For the record, we went 6-0 and won the tournament, but the results were never reported in Chess Life – supposedly because the guy who directed the tournament was having some kind of feud with the USCF office staff.)
3. Last year, during the final round of the US Amateur Team, I was walking around the main playing room when an unfamiliar guy about my age accosted me with “David Gertler!” I looked at him quizzically; he said, “We played in the under-13’s” – meaning a junior tournament 40+ years ago. The rest of the conversation:
Me: “And you are …?”
Him: “Tod Chasin.”
Me: “Ah!”
Him: “You played the Classical French.”
Me: “You left me with the bad bishop and won the ending.”
He laughed, and we parted ways.
(The valuable information we chessplayers store in our memory ….)
I could tell lots of stories about directing low-level scholastic tournaments – the kind of events where, if two opponents have both been in check for a long time and you can’t reconstruct the game, you just call it a draw. Maybe another time!
Dave and Mary, I really enjoyed reading your stories of the 1982 U.S. Junior Championship, and I think it’s wonderful that you had a sort of online reunion after all these years! The only U.S. Junior I ever played in was 1974, and I already wrote a long post about it several years ago. If you’re curious, it’s at http://www.danamackenzie.com/blog/?p=173. (Or search for “Chess, baseball, Nixon, 1974.”) I kind of regret that I didn’t play in more U.S. Juniors. You only get a few chances.
Dana – I also played in the 1974 Junior Open! That was near the start of my chess career, and it would be 7 years before I played in the Junior Open again. I’ve just left a comment on your post about that tournament.
Now look what you’ve started, Dana! Every story will spawn the telling of several more, and comments on the ones already told.
But if half of the stories don’t involve Viktors Pupols, I’ll be disappointed.
When I played in the 1983 CalChess Masters Open (a 9-day, 9-round swiss in Berkeley, with a large donated prize fund courtesy of Richard Fauber, and many top California players), Viktor gave up his queen for rook, piece and pawn against me. We set the board in fire, working on opposite wings while the center was blocked (in a Benoni). At one point, I looked deeply at a line in which he allows me to promote and obtain a second queen, while he rampages through my ranks, ending up with two rooks, two minor pieces and two pawns, to keep the material balance. But it wasn’t clear whether I had an advantage, so I chose something else, and we weren’t even sure after the post mortem.
But there was an even better story forthcoming in the last round! The night before the last round, it was clear that LA master Paul Koploy would play white against Pupols, who famously championed the Latvian Gambit, and I egged them on a bit over beer and pizza in hopes of seeing such a melee. Well, it happens that they arranged an early start time, so Viktor could start his drive back to Seattle later in the day; when most of the games were just starting, we were treated to seeing Koploy’s king on d4 at move 18, while Pupols had protected passed pawns on g3 and h2 – which were established in the first ten moves! GM Larry Christiansen, who was at the time editing a biweekly chess newspaper called The Players Chess News, walked in, passed the board, then returned after two more steps, peered at their scoresheets, and asked if they would send him a copy of the game for publication after the event.
Here it is:
[Event “CalChess Masters”]
[Site “Berkeley”]
[Date “1983.??.??”]
[Round “9”]
[White “Koploy, Paul”]
[Black “Pupols, Viktors”]
[Result “1-0”]
[WhiteElo “2350”]
[BlackElo “2250”]
[ECO “C33”]
[PlyCount “97”]
1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nc3 Qh4+ 4.Ke2 Nc6 5.Nf3 Qh5 6.d4 g5 7.g4 fxg3 8.Bg2 g4 9.Ne1 gxh2 10.Bf4 g3+ 11.Nf3 Qg4 12.Nd5 h5 13.Ke3 Bg7 14.Nxc7+ Kd8 15.d5 Nge7 16.dxc6 Ng6 17.Bd6 Bh6+ 18.Kd4 Bg7+ 19.Kd3 bxc6 20.Nxa8 Nf4+ 21.Bxf4 Qxf4 22.Qd2 Qxd2+ 23.Kxd2 h4 24.Bh3 d6 25.Bxc8 Kxc8 26.Ke2 Rh5 27.Nxh2 gxh2 28.Rxh2 Be5 29.Rh3 Bg3 30.Rf1 Rh7 31.Rf3 Rg7 32.Rh1 Kb7 33.Rhf1 Kxa8 34.Rxf7 Rxf7 35.Rxf7 h3 36.Rh7 h2 37.Kf3 Be5 38.c3 Kb8 39.Kg2 Bf4 40.Rf7 Be5 41.Rf5 Bg3 42.Rh5 Bf4 43.Rxh2 Bxh2 44.Kxh2 Kc7 45.Kg3 Kd7 46.Kf4 Ke6 47.b4 c5 48.bxc5 dxc5 49.c4 1-0
(It can be replayed here: http://www.chessbites.com/Games.aspx?d=kZAkCkCZ)
Dave – I bet if we think about it for long enough, we’ll come up with a bunch of funny stories involving Doug Brown. And if we tell them widely enough, maybe someone will come out of the woodwork and tell us whatever became of him. He is the only one of the seven of us who all hung out together and eventually all became masters, who we have lost track of. For those who don’t know him, well, how to describe him? He was the John Belushi of chess! Same body type, same wild and all-in sense of humor. Once, at the Moorestown (NJ) Chess Club, he taught a new arrival the basics, but told the new player that knights were worth more than rooks. He said he wanted to see if the player would then develop a style that emphasized blocked pawn structures and used knights better than rooks!
Doug was the leader of that 1979 team on which we won the US Team Championship – as first board, he had to hold off the top player from every team we faced, scoring 4.5 of 6. You and I scored 5-1, and Tim Lee, 6-0. I think our 20.5 of 24 game points must still be the best ever in that event. And was there anything funny about it all? Well, yes! Our team’s name! Doug made it up – pure gibberish: Mahko Ornst. Worn proudly on our t-shirts, and we were bound not to ever explain it. The name will be found on the rotating trophy listing every winner back to the early 70s (if not further) for 1977, as well as the year we played with Doug. Hikaru Nakamura’s father, Sunil Weeramantry, was on Doug’s team in 1977.
And that reminds me of the funniest thing I had happen to me during a game. I grew up in fear of Doug and of Sunil – a bit older and higher rated than the rest of us. So when I finally played Sunil in a Goichberg tournament in Philly in early 1980, I was so scared of his ferocious attacking systems as white, that I played the hedgehog – moving darn near every black pawn up one square to the third (sixth) rank. So, at some point, as Sunil used up most of his clock time, hunting for a way to attack my cowering and cowardly defense, he leaned low across the board and quietly said to me “Goddammit! Come out and fight!” Eventually, he broke through and won a pawn on the kinsgide, but he was castled K-side, and I was able to castle Q-side and counterattack successfully on the open files. (One day, I hope to be able to tell of being 1-0 against the father of a world champion – go Naka!)
Hal – Yes, I certainly have other Doug stories, not all of which I will share publicly! 🙂
He was renowned for playing the “Pork Chop” opening in blitz games and, I think, in the occasional meaningless tournament game: 1. f3 followed by 2. Kf2.
In a tournament, he hung a piece on move 5 vs. an IM (Balinas?): 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 Nf6 4. dxe5 Nxe4 5. c3 (sneaky) Be7?? 6. Qa4+. Doug got mad and decided to keep playing and just throw everything he had at White’s king, and supposedly he nearly broke through there before the piece deficit finally proved too much.
I also have a Sunil story. At the 1979 Philadelphia International, I was playing his pupil John Jarecki, who would become the US’s youngest master in a few years. At that time, I was a 2000 and John was a 1600. John played the Advance Variation against my French Defense, and while I was walking around as we neared the middlegame, Sunil came up and smilingly whispered “Little Johnny knows this opening very well, he is going to crush you!” That made it extra sweet when I caught Jarecki in a tricky mating pattern on move 26.
An echo of this story came decades later when a blizzard hit during the US Amateur Team, forcing many players to stay an extra night. A blitz tournament was organized, and in the last round I was paired with Asuka Nakamura, Hikaru’s older brother [and Sunil’s other stepson]. I saw Sunil and Asuka look at the pairing chart, and Sunil said something like “Oh, you got Gertler, he’s easy.” Another win that was sweetened by his belittling of my skills.
It’s actually impressive (surprising? disappointing?) how often chessplayers talk smack about each other, mostly behind their backs. I could tell more stories ….
Hi Hal,
I was waiting and hoping that you would chime in here! I figured that if anybody knew any amusing chess stories, it would be you.
I’m glad finally to hear the story behind the mysterious name “Mahko Ornst.” While I can’t say that I lay awake every night asking myself, “What did Mahko Ornst mean?” it does tie up one previously loose end in my understanding of chess history.
Dana – This won’t completely assuage your curiosity, but in at least one year, Doug organized a second team called “Mahko Younce” (that spelling may be wrong), and I have a dim recollection (from the ’70s) of someone telling me that in the language Doug had invented for these team names, “Ornst” meant “orange” and “Younce” [or whatever] meant “yellow”. Whoever told me that may not have been correct, but that’s what they said. (Hal – remember anything about that? Did the teams ever wear different colors or anything? Our winning Mahko Ornst team just had black-and-white shirts, as I recall.)
Well done, Dave! As I recall, the Ornst shirts were brown, and Younce, yellow. But as an alternative to never explaining the names, I believe it was OK to make up explanations, but never to give the same explanation twice. Also, it was OK to nod knowingly but without comment, whenever anyone came up to any of us and launched into their guess as to what it meant.
well this story was funny to me at the time but not the rest of the club playing in the tournment. THIS is back in the 90,s I was in a tournment in a chess club. I drew a new kid who just joind the club and he was a royal pain. THE time control is 40 /90 standard. SO this kid is making all these comments I was walking around drinking coffee. THE minute he moved I walked over moved and hit the clock. I was thinking i am hungry so i let my clock run and told him i am going around the corner for a hot dog and soda. I called my girlfriend on the phone out sidee of the store. A guy comes around the corner and tells me the director says get back here now i was gone an hour and had 15 minutes left on my clock. I race around the corner in my van run inside the kid yells yes i win you only have 12 minutes on your clock! I looked down at the board and I said 12 thats a good number mate in 12 your king right here! I then blitzed him into that 12th move mate in under 2 minutes. he said impossable noody can do that I said look its mate. then I looked at my clock and said i have ten minutes left yet can i go get another hot dog! everybody laughed and he picked the board up and threw it across the tournment hall! pieces flew everywhere he ran out the door i yelled the frizzebe tournment is at the park next weekend! i almost lost my membership for that joke.