phorku's chess blog

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Aaaargh! phorku 6 - club 1

What a night. Last game of the championships and I get paired against a speed player. He never keeps score and I get to the board and he has it upside down making it extra difficult to keep score. He plays the Sicilian and I play the Halasz gambit. I drop a N in the first couple moves, slow down trap his B and end up with a good position 2 pawns down. I have massive pressure on the King side and his N is trapped most of the game. He castles long with a weakened pawn structure and I advance my Qside pawns to break it open. Instead of ripping him open I push my pawn through planning on getting a pawn fork that never materializes. Next thing I know my flag falls. We shake hands and I look at the clock and something is horribly wrong. According to the clock we used up 2.5 hours in an hour and a half. I say something is wrong, he doesn't pay attention and goes off to play his $.50 a 5 minute game with his buddy. Then I notice his clock is stopped because he didn't wind his side. He is already at another table and some squirt is standing there talking to me while I am trying to figure out what the deal is. Squirt keeps trying to show me how to wind the clock and I keep pulling it away from him telling him to stop that some thing is wrong. Squirt must be and idiot savant because he keeps trying to show me how to wind the clock. I am getting really irritated with telling him to stop and him constantly reaching for the winder. I take the clock and go over to my opponent because I am ready to punch squirt in the fucking face and don't want to spend the night in jail. My opponents 5 minute buddy says give him another half hour on the clock and my opponent agrees. The position is tough now and I am still very irritated and go down in flames shortly afterwards. My opponent was 1522 just over 100 points above me. While I should be happy about my overall performance I am mostly still pissed off about the whole thing with second game in a row with a blunder, misplayed a winning position, backward board, non score keeping opponent, stupid analog clock and squirt. Squirt better hope I never face him over the board because I want blood, I want to send him crying back to his mommy for some more breast feeding. Aaaaaarrrrgh!

5 Comments:

  • after one of those, for me, our relationship is OVER.

    By Blogger transformation, at 3:51 AM  

  • sorry if that was unclear. i do have humor, and was trying to give you a compliment, and appologize if that was equivocal.

    IF someone did that garbage with me, about the clock, we would 'be done'. its all very personal, or, as they say, a matter for 'preference.

    firm boundaries, that is to say.

    no, your work is always excellent, which is why i have your link so high up out of dozens, and, believe you me, i edit this list ALL the time.

    for me at least, you are highly relevant. not all bloggers are, and some folks just speak to us, others simply a no fit, no show, no interest...

    warm regards, david

    By Blogger transformation, at 9:37 AM  

  • That sounds really weird. I hate all of those windy-analog clocks so much, I bought a digital clock and insist on using it (after I found out that white is allowed to insist on digital if it is his preference: black gets to decide what side of the board, and which clock to use, unless black wants analog and white wants digital, then they use digital).

    But a clock you actually have to wind? That sounds like something from the 50s. And someone was actually thinking they were helping you by showing you how to wind a clock? Egads. Rainman.

    By Blogger Blue Devil Knight, at 3:05 PM  

  • Sounds very frustrating. It's easy to lose after something like this happens to you. Like BDK says invest in a digital clock.

    I also wanted to point out the fact that if you are not recording the game you cannot claim a win on time.

    By Blogger drunknknite, at 3:57 PM  

  • Hey phorku, I am probably one of the few people to actually know who you played. Having played this person at the same chess club, I have to say YOU CAN TAKE HIS HEAD OFF NEXT TIME. The trick is to not let his speed play, clock tricks, and reversed board get to you. Just remember that he makes mediocre, superficial moves. If you put a bit more time into the game than he does you can bust him. I beat him in a G/30 with surprisingly little difficulty, but lost on time in a 10-minute game. Keep up the good fight and get a digital clock! Perhaps we will play some time if I can manage to get to the club.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 1:17 AM  

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