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The following stories and anecdotes are, to the best of our knowledge true. There are a lot of strange people in the chess world, and it is hardly surprising that strange things happen to them!
Dancing with the Phish!
Among the many musicians who enjoy the Royal Game are the members of the band Phish, one of America's most popular touring bands. They even played a game against the audience while on tour in 1995. Read
all the details here.
Sleeping with the fishes?
A famous Grandmaster found himself less than fully engaged by the opposition in an international tournament in New York in the early 1980s. He actually managed to fall asleep at the board. His opponent,
an International Master who was trying to earn a Grandmaster norm, could have just let the GM forfeit. Instead, he went to the arbiter and asked what to do. The arbiter ruled that gently waking the opponent would
not violate any rules. The IM woke the sleeping giant, and eventually earned a draw and the admiration of all the competitors for his sporting spirit.
Sleeping with the masters?
At the same tournament, American star Joel Benjamin experienced a nightmarish form of jet lag. When he arrived the day before the first round, he went to sleep, and was disturbed by a maid who had the
audacity to try to clean his room. When he asked the time, he was told it was 1:00. Joel thought it strange that the cleaners would be up working at such a later hour, and promptly fell back asleep. A few hours
later, downstairs, your editor, about to embark on one of his worst tournament performances, was sufficiently disengaged from his first round game that he noticed Joel was missing, even though the games had started
a half hour earlier, at 4:30 in the afternoon. A call to Joel's room confirmed the comedy of the absurd: Joel thought it was 4:30 AM, not PM, and had slept all day. With the curtains drawn he thought it was the
middle of the knight. Benjamin eventually made it to the round.
What does it take to win?
After seeing Kramnik fail to win against an insipid opening ploy by his opponent, Anand aked him, "What's the point of training for so many years if they can play moves like that and you don't
win?".
"Mad Dog" Renman takes a fall
In a rush to get to the 1984 Berlin Summer Open, Nils Gustav "Mad dog" Renman found himself on a train headed in the wrong direction, and had to get back to Stockholm to catch a train which would bring
him to Berlin in time for the event. Unfortunately, the train had no scheduled stops which would help. He decided there was no alternative to leaping from the moving train, with all his luggage in hand. A good plan,
but the execution was a bit lacking and he turned up in Berlin a few days later with a broken arm!
Flagging Fascination
In the 1981 Ed Lasker Memorial at New York's Marshall Chess Club, Yugoslav Goran Antunac met with an unfortunate fate in a crucial game. He had completed 39 moves with well over a minute to spare and
just had to play a move to reach time control. The position was favorable, and almost any move would do. With arbiters and spectators watching, he glanced at the clock, and his gaze remained rooted to the dial. He
did not move, but simply stared at the clock until the flag inevitably fell, when the arbiter had to give him the bad news that he had lost the game. Such a fixation with the clock is not unheard of, but rarely is a
game lost because a player simpy refuses to move! Shortly after I posted this , I fell victim to the same thing, and blew a completely winning position and a major upset. Perhaps I should be more careful
about what I post! -- Ed
Have they no shame?
As reported by Adam Raoof: Due to a burglary at Golders Green Church Hall over Xmas in which all Hendon Chess Club's equipment was stolen, we have cancelled the
Blitz tonight ...
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