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ChessBeast Xmas Special Chessbeast hates xmas. If anyone's reading this wearing a party crown at a jaunty angle, chomping on a turkey leg and tapping their feet to Bing Crosby's christmas faves, I'm sorry to be a 'bah humbug' (yes, this is a noun now) but xmas really can be hell on earth for us sociopaths. One of the few things that gets me through the 'festive' season with sanity intact is chess. I once made a list of the pros and cons of christmas. The cons column needs its own website to do it full justice. The pros column read... 1.
Time off work A good xmas chess competition should be made up of several parts, say 6 puzzles, ranging from fairly easy to difficult (but not so insanely hard that you take one look and then burn the newspaper). The recommended routine involves gathering as many of these competitions as you can, from newspapers and magazines, then saving them until that inevitable special day, mid-festivities, when you wake up with chronic indigestion and a biblical-strength hangover, all your least favourite relatives are due to visit at the same time, probably lingering all day getting slowly more drunk and tetchy, and the tv will be on full volume showing "Mary-bleedin'-Poppins" and all those other wonderful xmas lobotomy-fests! When you start feeling the irresistable urge to beat your 'wacky' cousin Craig's face in with what's left of the turkey, simply reach for your chess puzzles and, hey presto, the whole dismal farce will fade into the background. If anyone asks what's so fascinating, try to keep to one word answers, or better still primal grunts. They'll soon give up on you, and congratulations, you've won! ------- I won a prize in a xmas chess competition once. Sad to say, I entered one in the Times newspaper, twice, to have more chance of winning. A few weeks later 2 signed copies of "Discover Your Chess Strength" by Raymond Keene duly arrived. Some wags might say that's 2 too many copies of anything by Raymondo, or that it's a shame I didn't get unsigned copies, cos they're worth more. I already knew my chess strength far too well, thanks very much, but that wasn't the point. I had won a prize for a little skill and the price of 2 stamps, and I was well pleased with myself. So, to give Chess Beast readers a shot at the same warm, smug glow, there's a copy of the latest Kingpin magazine to be won by one reader who can solve the following problems.
Tie-breaker: "I went to the Hastings Xmas chess congress and all I came back with was..." Closing
date for entries is December 29th 2002. There was no winner last month because
no-one entered. So I'll keep that Kingpin for myself, thanks very much!
The Smallprint Expert "The smallprint expert turns up at the 3-day weekend tournament over an hour late and his opponent will be awarded a full point bye for a no show. The expert then states he wants to be re-paired because it doesn't say in the small print on the entry form that if he arrives after an hour he will automatically default. The congress organiser says something like "well it's pretty bloody obvious" and the expert says "not to me it's not" and ends up with a full point like he wants. The expert then takes a half-point bye in the next round and goes home because he can't be bothered waiting till the afternoon. Next morning, on 1.5/2, the expert turns up over an hour late again - same problem, same argument from him...I want a full point bye. The controller says no way, you knew yesterday what the rules are, at which stage the expert whips out a photocopy of the entry form he signed and says "these are the terms and conditions I signed...I'll sue if you don't give me a full point bye." He gets a full point bye. He stays this time, wins, and goes into the final round on 3.5/4 after playing one game. In the final round - you guessed it - he turns up another hour late, claims his full point bye, and wins the tournament with 4.5/5 having played only one game, leaving everyone effing and blinding behind his back - curiously no one will say anything to his face, and it's congratulations all round as he collects his cheque. Or rather, he doesn't collect his cheque because he can't be bothered waiting, and has it sent on to him. NB: this works best with an 'ineffectual controller' (qv)." Thanks
to MrPrincie - believe it or not this is based on fact!
"It happened
in a German minor league game. According to our ratings my opponent was supposed
to be the weaker player. After doing our opening moves he took his snuff out of
his trouser pocket and consumed it in a very loud and annoying way. Each two to
three moves he offered his snuff to me which I declined. After he was offering
snuff to me for the fifth time I started to smile because it was so obvious for
me that he was trying to irritate me and disturb my concentration. Recognizing
my smile, this guy immediately went to his team captain to complain that I had
laughed at him. Note: I didn´t laugh at him at all, I just smiled. After
his complaint a debate began, at first only between both team captains but soon
spreading to the other members of both teams. The result of this 10 minute debate
was that I could smile as often and long as I wanted, of course. Thanks
to Silanov
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