Strange but True stories

I'm playing in the 2007 Michigan Open State Championship this weekend and would like to tell a story about what happened at the tournament.

About 150 players showed up to play in 3 sections:

OPEN Section - 1800 and above
RESERVE Section - 1500 - 1799
BOOSTER Section - 1499 and below

But there are also 3 different time controls, the 4-Day, 3-Day and 2-Day, so as you can imagine, the tournament directors are very busy trying to keep all the pairings right.

Well, what happened to really mess this thing up is that in round 2 two players from the 2-Day event finished their game and player 1 went over and marked the scoresheet showing that he had won the game. But then player 2 went up to the scoresheet and seeing that player 1 had maked himself as winning the game, corrected the score to show that HE had won the game! 😲

Talk about screwing up the pairings... when one of the players brought up the fact that there was a dispute of who had actually won the game the director had to go dump is pairings for round 3 and go find the players with the dispute. He sat them down at a board and the three of them started playing through the game to see who had reall won.

Ok, so picture this: There are around 150 players standing around for the next game, but the pairings can't be made because two people disagree on who had won the game! So the tournament director sits the players back down to their game and starts going over the scoresheets to determine who had won the game.

But there's yet another grimlin in the works... once into the middle of the game the score sheets don't make any sense. Yes, BOTH scoresheets are so corrupted that the TD has no idea how the game continued... and the players even start arguing about what had been played next.

So the TD tells the players that since the game moves cannot be verified after a certain point that the players must RESUME PLAY from the position that was verified.

HOWEVER, since 150+ people are waiting to play their next round game, the TD tells the two players that their game will have to be sealed and adjudicated in order to make the next round pairings and keep the tournament on schedule. They will have to finish their sealed game after their next round....

With this he pairs both players as if the game was a draw in order to keep the tournament moving. After the players finished their round they could not leave until they finished the sealed game.

One of them won that game, which means that he got a break in the pairings for round 3. However, I still find it difficult to understand how two players could play a game, part with each other's company, and then disagree on who had won the game. 😲

I tried to post something to explain my disgust for the player who was obviously pathetic and cheating....

but somehow it blocked what I wanted to say....

Chess is dying.....everyday we see cheaters......and like the story I just read.....can be counted as cheating.....

I just don't know what to say........

maybe it was something like this...one player was winning, and the other did not noticed the winning combination, and maybe he was up on material and thought eh is winning...the winning guy was looking in the eyes of the opponent, and when the loosing raised his eyes to look back the 1st one initiated the final handshake, like a recognision of his win...and in the same time the second was thinking the 1st one was resigning...
maybe both were really thinking they were winning...

Originally posted by vipiu
maybe it was something like this...one player was winning, and the other did not noticed the winning combination, and maybe he was up on material and thought eh is winning...the winning guy was looking in the eyes of the opponent, and when the loosing raised his eyes to look back the 1st one initiated the final handshake, like a recognision of his win...and in ...[text shortened]... was thinking the 1st one was resigning...
maybe both were really thinking they were winning...

Neither of the players could prove that he won, because of messy scoresheets.
Then I'd say that both of them lost.
Rules say that a scoresheet should be in order.

If it was a Monrad type of tournament, pairings of each of the rounds is dependent of the previous one, then the tournament couldnt be put in heold because of two messy players with their messy score sheets. If it was a Berger kind of tournament, on the other hand, then it was possible to post pone the game until later, but before the last round.

Heres my contribution to the strange but true, from a tournamant many years ago.
I was playing a young lad, and desperatly trying to swindle a win, a queen to a rook down. My opponent spotted his opening and gleefully forked my king and rook with his queen. What he didn't notice was that my rook could take his queen, leaving me an easy win. No sooner had he let go of the queen, he grabbed it again and went to put it somewhere else.
Of course, I called him on it, and he insisted that he didn't want to play the move. I had no desire to be the bad guy bullying some kid, but at the same time I didn't want to lose a tournamant game by letting my opponent brake the rules.
So I stopped the clocks and called the tournament director. He wandered over and took both players stories. Both of us agreed on the account given above, with the addition by my opponent that he'd dropped the queen by accident.
Next the director asked around for witnesses. Only one friend of my opponent was about, but he kept quiet. The director then ruled that because there were no witnesses my opponent would be allowed to complete the move that he wanted to.
I did my best to stay rational and pointed out that no witnesses should be necessary because we were in complete agreement about what had happened. I also asked the director to explain how you determine that a move was made 'by accident' and which chess rule dealt with it.
He stuck to his guns and the ruling was made, although he did point out that there was a complicated appeal procedure.
In the end I agreed with my opponent that I would launch the appeal, if if it was in his favour I'd resign. He seemed quite happy with that and eventually a panel of chess poobahs got together and awarded me the point.
The whole thing was just too silly for words.

Phil.

Originally posted by MrPhil
Heres my contribution to the strange but true, from a tournamant many years ago.
I was playing a young lad, and desperatly trying to swindle a win, a queen to a rook down. My opponent spotted his opening and gleefully forked my king and rook with his queen. What he didn't notice was that my rook could take his queen, leaving me an easy win. No sooner had ogether and awarded me the point.
The whole thing was just too silly for words.

Phil.

Guy was playing in a week-end tournament that was a two hour drive from where he lived. Sunday afternoon he was anxious to get headed home, but was playing a jerk that didn't want to acknowledge he had a lost game and kept offering him a draw, knowing the guy had a looooong drive home. Finally they hit the first time control and the jerk sealed his move, forcing the guy to drive home, then all the way back the next week-end to continue.
The jerk didn't show next week, the guy started his clock and told TD, who opened the sealed move: "resign".

Many years ago I played this 12 year old kid in a tourney organised by his chessclub.I sacrificed a bishop thinking I had a mating attack which turned out to be total rubbish.From the point of my sac on the kid went to the bar after every move getting advice from his older buddies.I said nothing,my game was lost anyway so who cares,right?The game went on,I traded my queen for 2 rooks while creating an outside passer and in the end managed a draw by repetition.
I got up from my chair,ignored the kid and instead went over to the bar and said to his buddies 'Well played guys,but I think you missed a win somewhere' 😛🙄

Later I still did a post mortem with the kid and told him he shouldn't get advise from others while playing.

Originally posted by Sam The Sham
Guy was playing in a week-end tournament that was a two hour drive from where he lived. Sunday afternoon he was anxious to get headed home, but was playing a jerk that didn't want to acknowledge he had a lost game and kept offering him a draw, knowing the guy had a looooong drive home. Finally they hit the first time control and the jerk sealed his mov ...[text shortened]... w next week, the guy started his clock and told TD, who opened the sealed move: "resign".

A humorous anecdote that I heard… something along the lines of…

GMs Yusupov and Lev Psakhis are training together. At one point, Psakhis reads from a collection of top quality games and plays out the moves at lightning speed on the board.
Yusupov: Lev, why don’t you slow down?
Psakhis: Why should I?
Yusupov: Your brain isn’t being given a chance to understand the moves
Psakhis: But I’m training my hand to make good moves

This is an account I read some time ago in another chess forum. The player found himself playing a kid but got increasingly annoyed with the kid for making silly grunting moves everytime he moved and at various intervals as he was thinking. The player even asked the kid to keep the noise down but the kid ignored him and carried on.

After the game the player decided to approach the kids father and let him know that this sort of behavior isn't normally acceptable in tournament play. Half way through the father apologised and said that he couldn't do anything about it as his son was deaf.

In a side tournament for parents at a kids tournament I was playing a Dad who was unfamiliar with using the clock so on almost every move I reminded him to press the clock as I thought this was appropriate to the spirit of the occasion. In time I was in a totally won position with something like a few pawns and a rook v's a lone king. Now the guy starts running away round my pawns with his king while his kid and a few onlookers cheered as I realised there were only a few seconds left on my clock. The flag fell and they cheered as if having won. He then starting arguing with the adjudicator who correctly awarded a draw.

It is more hard for me to understand how both players had recorded a differct game then the game they played. Could they not both be disqualified for how they recorded the game?