I went 0-4 last night. Clearly the lack of PCT practice has hurt my danger sense. I walked right into a basic knight fork of rook and king, among other silly errors, but still had a great time. I got there early enough to play couple blitz games against a guy who beat me last time, sort of meet the former club president and champion, who once beat Fischer in a simul, and enjoyed the all male commentary and critique of top chess woman with big boobs (sorry Polly!)
My round two opponent was the son of the soon to be mentioned chess dad. By name and accent, I'm guessing they are from Eastern Europe or Russia. The son is about 12 or so (I really suck at judging ages- if i were every a carnie at one of those age guessing games, the age window would have to +/- 10 years or I'd be out of prizes in an hour) and handled me. Even though it was G/15, he got up a few times and walked around the room to glance at everyone's games.
Round three was his father. I had a tight, cramped position as white with a Bishop bound up playing super pawn on the queenside to prevent a rook intrusion. He brought his king out, since his kingside pawns had advanced, the center was open and there'd been a tit-for-tat on the queenside, and I was able to exploit a pin on his pawn to manuever my previously hopeless knight in the center to the rim with a few threats to his bishops, and was able to take a Bishop and get a rook deep in the center.
Unfortunately, I wasted a minute deciding that he did indeed have one more defender of a central pawn than I had attackers and ended up losing to a bank rank mate with less than 10 seconds left. I was hesitant to trade down to a minor piece ending, but I think I should have.
At the end of the night, the son was playing the last game, got in time trouble and flagged, although his opponent missed a skewer to win the queen and win by force. then the fireworks happened. The father jumped up his kid's ass like nothing I'd seen. The tourney I took my daughter too had a few school teams and one or two lone parents, and it was all touchy feely, give it your best kind of stuff.
I don't recall the boy walking around that game, but he may have early, and they disagreed over how much time was left at some stage. Everyone was like, "Dude- chill. Its a game", but he was hung up on how his kid was a spoiled American brat and plays the game of chess, not the sport.
I hope to crush the father if we play again. I had him, but couldn't close the deal. Not that he'd go easier on the kid. He'd probably vent any frustration on him.
Dads like that ruin the joy of the game for their children. Unfortunately I've met more then my share of psycho chess dads and moms. Not only as a player, but worse as a under paid and over worked scholastic TD.
ReplyDeleteBTW: No ffense about the big boobs comments. The closest I can come to big boobs is playing like a big boob. :-)