Humour

Question: What's the difference between an International Master and a Grand Master?
Answer: A Grand Master is local, an International Master is across the world.

“Ignorance is blitz.” – Alfieri.

“So I was having dinner with Gary Kasparov (world chess champion) and there was a check tablecloth. It took him two hours to pass me the salt” – Peter Kay.

Question: Which football team has a couple of chess pieces missing?
Answer: QPR

“The pin is mightier than the sword” – Albert Horowitz.

Question: How do we know that Neanderthal Man played blindfold chess?
Answer: In excavations of their sites no chessboards or pieces have ever been found.

“Can you buy an entire chess set in a pawnshop?” – George Carlin.

Chess books or DVDs you'll never see

Nun's Chess Openings by Mother Theresa
A repertoire based on 1.Nf3, 2.b3 called...
The Queen's Indian Attack, Attack, Attack!
Aaron Nimzowitsch's plumbing classic, My Cistern

Excuses for losing at chess

About the first dozen of the following seventy-odd excuses for not winning were published online by Bill Wall, but it seems he himself got them from other sources. If you can think of any to add, let us know.

Dead batteries in hidden transmitter.
Went outside for fresh air, forgot about tournament, kept on walking.
Disturbed by own reflection in opponent’s sunglasses.
Confused ECO A29 line 13 note 87c with ECO A13 line 87c, lost queen.
Unlucky pairing with historical nemesis G. Kasparov.
Studied book How to Beat Bobby Fischer, was unprepared for other opponents.
Two words: opponent’s breath.
Shouldn’t have played on my opponent’s green and red Florentine set.
Forgot to say “J’adoube.”
My opponent did not follow my plan.
Distracted by my opponent’s time pressure.
He shouldn’t have played on in a lost position.
I thought it was a different time control, 40 moves in 5 hours.
I wanted to adjourn, but he made me play a move.
My opponent foolishly declined a draw.
My opponent looked as if he had a contagious disease, so I thought it best not to take any of his pieces.
My position deteriorated while I was in the toilet.
I had a clear advantage, and then my opponent found this lucky checkmate.
Every single one of my pieces was optimally placed; unfortunately it was my turn to move.
I was warned that a week earlier my opponent had beaten a GM - with an iron bar.
I lost on time while trying to decide whether to accept his cheeky draw offer.
It was stalemate, but then he played an illegal move, and I decided to play on because I thought I could mate him.
Bishops can move backwards? Since when?
Queens have crowns and there’s one in each corner, right?
I’d always thought that en passant was just another word for castling.
I wanted to see if the refutation worked, and I was proved right.
My perpetual check didn’t last very long.
The position was dead level apart from the fact that she could win a piece by force.
Everyone agreed I was winning, except my opponent.
I ought to have been more suspicious when he kept rushing to the book stall during the opening.
She idiotically blundered away her queen without realising that it was in fact a brilliant sacrifice.
I played the French Defence without realising that my opponent was a staunch Euro-sceptic.
He played the Exchange Variation of the French Defence, which everybody knows is drawish, but he played it all wrong.
I played Alekhine’s Defence, but placed too much faith in the principle of not moving the same piece twice in the opening.
Thought I’d try the King’s Gambit, but became demoralised when I went a pawn down on move two.
I played the Benko Gambit, but now regret my decision to castle queenside.
He refused to use my “lucky” clock.
My captain told me a draw was no good for the team, so I quickly resigned.
It was a theoretical draw, but my opponent wasn’t smart enough to realise this.
I would’ve won on time if he hadn’t have checkmated me.
The table was on a slope, which meant that his pawn queened first.
After the game I discovered that the chessboard we’d been using had an odd number of squares.
I reached out my hand to offer him a draw, but in so doing knocked my king over with my arm, and the gesture was misinterpreted.
My opponent wasn’t very bright, and afterwards it took me all of fifteen minutes to explain to him how and why he’d won.
Forgot to stop the clocks when I went to look for the arbiter.
Afterwards he admitted that if it wasn’t for my two blunders he might not have won.
He was extremely fortunate to win as earlier he had missed a mate in two.
Cosmic rays.
When I blame it on “dark forces,” I’m not just referring to the fact that he had the black pieces.
After a great deal of thought I sacrificed a piece, but next move I forgot why.
I wanted to see what would happen if I fianchettoed a knight instead of a bishop.
I make up all my own openings, y’know.
His knight wasn’t pinned after all.
It was a rook and pawn ending, but he had the rook.
Played QxN instead of NxQ.
I played all the right moves, although not necessarily in the right order.
She was in complete zugzwang, but then she found a way out of it.
My superior opening knowledge ran out when we reached the endgame.
Apart from the result, I actually played quite well.
He played a stupid gambit that just happened to work.
When he said he was twenty-four-twenty-five I though he was talking about his age.
My position kept getting better and better until finally I had to give up.
They’ll have to rewrite the opening books after that game!
He knew he was facing a superior player, so he raised his game accordingly.
My opponent saw me queuing for a coffee and told me I had enough time left for a couple of sandwiches as well.
I played a rook sacrifice, but he took my queen instead.
My partially-sighted opponent insisted I wear a blindfold to even things up.
I castled queenside, which was unlucky because ten moves later my opponent decided to attack down that very side.
The set had a bishop missing, so we had to use a spare pawn in its place. Need I go on?
Just bought Karpov’s book Learn From Your Defeats, and I was anxious to put it to good use.
Sat down at board 16 in the Major instead of board 91 in the Minor.
I was forced to play inferior moves in order to surprise him.
My lying opponent assured me that a draw would mean we would share first prize.
When I saw the letters IM on the scoreboard I assumed they were his initials.
I would’ve won the endgame if we’d got that far.
He reached the middlegame before I did.
I got my king stuck in my eye when I dozed off.
His knight just jumped over my impregnable pawn formation. Filip Comley
I gained the element of surprise by sealing an inferior move. Arthur Kent
I had a toothache during the first game. In the second game I had a headache. In the third game it was an attack of rheumatism. In the fourth game, I wasn't feeling well. And in the fifth game? Well, must one have to win every game? Sawielly Tartakower
Played a brilliant sacrificial attack including my queen, both bishops, a knight, and four pawns, only to realize that the checkmate-delivering rook was pinned to my king. Taalan Liebermann

And finally, from a Lew Hucks cartoon, “Watch out for the big ugly guy on board 14, Igor, he just bit the head off of your queen” [sic].

Fred’s First Congress

A tall but true tale

What follows really happened to... well, let’s call him Fred (in honour of the awful 1.e4 f5?!, which is known as the Fred Defence).

Fred hadn’t been playing chess very long, but he was beginning to win the occasional friendly game. Then one day he saw a poster for a local weekend congress, and decided to send off for details and give it a go.

Fred’s first problem was with the entry form; he didn’t understand the jargon and the different options. All the sections required you to have a grade, and Fred didn’t have one yet. But then he noticed a tourney in which anyone could play. “It must be specially for players like me,” he thought. So he ticked the box next to “Open.”

He also noticed that he could ask for something called a “bye” in the first round. And after checking that there was no hidden charge, he duly ticked that box as well. “Something for nothing,” it seemed to Fred. “I bet every one asks for a free ‘bye’ in round one.”

Anyway, Fred turned up for the start of the congress on the Friday, but was confused to find he wasn’t playing that night. Still, perhaps the evening wouldn’t be entirely wasted, as he had ticked that other box. Fred marched up to the officials. “Right then! Where’s this ‘bye’ I ordered for tonight?”!

Fred’s further adventures

This really, really happened

Fred, a near-beginner, sat down to play his first serious match, which due to a misunderstanding happened to be in the Open section of a local tourney. Despite being intimidated by the unfamiliar surroundings of a chess congress, he was determined to act confidently.

The controller had already shown Fred where to sit and started the clocks when Fred’s experienced opponent (who had the White pieces) hurried in late, sat himself down, and mumbled “J’adoube” before adjusting his pieces. For a moment Fred was puzzled, but then he regained his composure. “Ah, Monsieur J’adoube! Pleased to meet you. May the best man win. Only I couldn’t help noticing that you just touched your rook pawn, and I’m afraid in this country if you touch a piece...”!

Chess and custard mix

Sue Cox. Former club member Sue Cox from Fazeley got covered in custard and thereby raised £545 for Children in Need (Nov/1998). She sat in a bath for two hours while the staff and children of the nursery school she owns poured custard and water all over her at a charge of £1 per “tip.”

Sue was one of our most improving players. Perhaps the others will now start dousing themselves with custard in an attempt to improve their chess grade. [Do let me know if this works! - Ed.]

Opening theory

What the blurbs on opening books and videos really mean

Tired of the tried and tested openings? = Want to lose in a hurry?
A good practical choice = A terrible theoretical one.
A good fighting choice = Not only do you go down in flames, but you have to fight like mad all the way too.
You’ll really enjoy this, it’s fun to play = For masochists only.
Relatively unexplored = It’s so obviously crap that no one worth mentioning has bothered to look at it.
Easy to learn = Easy to beat.
The latest idea, complete with secret analysis = Someone touched the wrong piece in the opening and decided to write a book about it.
Surprise your opponents = Go on, give them a laugh.
As played by Anand = As played by Anne Hand.
All analysis checked by computer = Once I’d turned the spell-checker off, my PC couldn’t find anything wrong with it.
Written by a leading openings expert = No it wasn’t, it was written by Eric Schiller.
Revised, improved, or 2nd edition = I’ve taken out all the lines in the first edition where John Nunn found a forced mate in 3. [Thanks to Steven Carr for submitting that one.]