Sep-12-12
 | | wordfunph:   vs 
0-1 |
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Nov-08-12
 | | Abdel Irada: I wonder if Elsness thought the final position would be stalemate. There are cases on record of players successfully hoodwinking their opponents into thinking such positions are exactly that and taking a draw. If that was what White tried here, it apparently failed. |
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Nov-08-12
 | | Robed.Bishop: Yes, an odd way to end the game. |
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Nov-08-12
 | | Phony Benoni: These days, move 80 may mean that both sides have seconds or less left. I have seen players make unexpected moves like 80.Rf1+ in an effort to startle their opponents into overstepping. Probably the worst case I saw had Black with only one legal move whereupon White, whose flag was trembling, had mate in one. White even had his hand hovering near the mating piece. So Black, after pausing for a minute or two to heighten the tension, made an illegal move which left his king in check. White was too dumbfounded to react, his flag fell, and Black claimed the game on the grounds that illegal moves could not be corrected once the game was over. Black was forfeited and tossed out of the tournament, quite justly in my opinion. |
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Nov-09-12
| | Abdel Irada: <Phony Benoni>: It's a bit different, of course, but that reminds me of a blitz tournament in which I once played in Berkeley. The event was a double round-robin, and my second opponent was someone named Max rated about 2375. In our first game, I played the Marshall Attack with Black, and my opponent's king was out in the center of the board in a tense chase, the result uncertain. One thing that *was* sure: We were both down to seconds left. I created a threat, and my opponent picked up his king, vacillated for a moment ... and put it back down on the same square and hit his clock. That, at least, is how *I* perceived it. According to him, he *had* made a move; and, fortunately for him but not for me, one of his friends was on hand to attest that he had done so. In any case, I not unnaturally stopped the clock and claimed illegal move (which at that time was an immediate loss). Since, however, I couldn't prove my case, it was I who was forfeited — for stopping the clock. |
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Nov-09-12
 | | Shams: Stories like <Phony Benoni>'s are why serious chess (even blitz) should never be played without some sort of delay or increment. I'm sure Irina Krush agrees with me. |
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Nov-09-12
 | | perfidious: <Abdel Irada> Might your opponent (sans surname) at Berkeley have been Max Burkett? |
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Nov-09-12
| | Abdel Irada: <perfidious>: He might indeed. How did you happen to come by that? I'd completely forgotten his last name (and was hesitant to use it anyway even had I remembered it because I didn't wish to malign him). |
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Nov-09-12
| | perfidious: <Abdel Irada> Burkett was one of my opponents in a CC invitational, ca 1982 (which unfortunately I never managed to finish). My recollection is that at the time, Max was ~2300 and lived in Oakland. |
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Nov-09-12
| | Abdel Irada: I'm not sure if it was Oakland or some other East Bay city, but it was somewhere in there. As for the rating, I wonder why the pairing chart showed him as 2375. The highest rating shown on the <CG.com> database seems to be over 100 points lower, but I distinctly remember its being as I described. Maybe it's a matter of ratings bifurcation between FIDE and USCF, with the latter in use for this tournament. Certainly, those rated by both organizations tended to be rated higher by the latter, exemplifying the ratings inflation problems of the era. |
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Nov-09-12
| | Phony Benoni: Back in those days, Michigan had its own ratings system for blitz tournaments. Perhaps there was one in Northern California as well. |
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Nov-09-12
| | Abdel Irada: <Phony Benoni>: If there was, I never heard of it. |
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Kibitzing
sac: 18...Nxe5