So in defense of the abysmal game I played.... Here is an attempt at the inner game my shrink will be hearing about.
It was a typical day at work. Filled with 80% of non-fun stuff and 20 % of the stuff I went to school for. 4PM rolls around I pop out of a meeting to call my daughter to see if she has everything she needs to do dinner that she volunteered for. I make a list of things to pick up on way home...to time it so she can cook the main dish, that I can scarf quickly before running off to chess club and make my move as my clock's time will have elapsed. Of course, I was delayed getting out of work because the 700 pound gorilla who's meeting I had to run in his absence was now chasing me for how what happened in his absence. 6:15 I pulled into driveway, threw the spag sauce at my daughter and set the table. Made a feeble attempt to log into work to give the gorilla his update on line... DAMN VPN was down.
DING! dinner! Screw the update... let's eat and go to the chess club. 7:10 rolls around and I dash to the door with set in hand. I pull into the chess club parking lot at 7:35 and run in to find where my board is and who I am playing. My clock is running and my opponent has played 1.e4 ( only five minutes has elapsed on my clock) Sweet. I write down the game data, who I'm playing, take my coat off etc. My opponent is nowhere to be seen. I play 1...c6. ( BTW... IT's only 7 moves try to follow along.... I have a diagram at the end)
My opponent comes back with a coffee. We shake hands, he sits and plays 2. d4 I respond promptly not wanting to waste any more time and get into a similar time scramble like last week 2...d5 3. Nd2.
Nice he wants to be a little creative... Ok I'll bite... 3... dxe4 4. Nxe4 Bf5 5. Bd3 Where have I seen this before? Why don't you go after my bishop? WTF? This is a move out of order. But wait. Its sound. He doesn't want to waste time ... pure development. I can't easily play Nf6... I want to play Nf6 but I can't.... I am blind to Qxd4 at this point because now my mind wanders... I am thinking of the gorilla at work... I am thinking of my daughter's dinner...how nice... for a change... maybe my wife will like it too...but she was working late for her new gorilla as well. We are all tense. I play 5...Nd7 ....thinking ...maybe I can play Ngf6 next move ...because I am NOT thinking about chess... I will save that for the middle game...yeah. I am only warming up right now. If he plays his night to f6 with a check I take... then if he takes the f5 bishop I got the queen check on a5 ...yeah! I'm good ...it's the opening ...what could possibly go wrong?
6. Qe2...... Huh? an early queen move? No problem... I can still play 6...Ngf6 yeah! take that maestro. 7. Nd6#
Final position after 7.Nd6# I have black.
OK... I am not here... A gorilla took my brain.
14 comments:
Ugh. I'm sure you'll be able to forget it quickly, but a game like that can be so demoralizing. When I'm playing chess, I look forward to the weekly game so much, and when it fizzles it's a major downer, for the evening at least.
Life remains busy for me, and I'm sticking to my original claim that I won't likely be back in action until June. I wonder how far my level of play will have dropped by then....
Hey Guy, it happens to everyone, even to karpov.
Take a look at Christiansen - Karpov Wijk aan zee 1993
I can't help much 'cause my english is very bad, but I hope you have success on your journey!
Good Luck!
Sir Augusto
1. Maybe if you changed your handle to something like WinProne, you'd have better subconscious vibes.
2. This is the exact reason why I limit my playing at the MCC. I prefer to play without the baggage of a full work day.
3. Blunder Prone (you really do need to change this name), it's a long journey. Shake it. I'll paraphrase a bunch of people: Getting fooled once is a lesson; getting fooled twice the same way is... Take the lesson and move forward.
--Howard
Some of my best games have been against Howard when he's tired. :)
This just happened to me in a blitz game on FICS - learning a new opening, playing a little tight, suddenly white plays 9.Nd6 and it isn't mate but exd6 costs me my queen.
C'est la vie. As Howard says, you write it off & move on.
The game lasted 7 moves and ended in mate.
Is it OK to say that I laughed mentally here? (Not AT you; we all have this stuff happen.) Sorry. Maybe we need to have "especially embarrassing loss" week over the various blogs.
Ditto Howard and Derek. Keep your head up.
I will be able to bounce back. I've learned not to get too phased by these loses and I can put it all in a healthy perspective. I have a lot going on the side with the job, the wife and kids. I play chess and study the game as an outlet. I actually find it relaxing and a great venue for handling stress.
One of these days, the off the board stuff will settle down. I try not to focus on rating anymore, hard is it may be at times. However, If I can sustain my rating under these kind of stresses, I believe once things really do settle, I should have an opportunity to get beyond this plateau. Meanwhile, the flat lands aren't that band, I am really getting a greater depth on my inner workings and fine tune my weaknesses.
I'm now comfortable playing both 1.e4 and 1.d4, a year ago I was all a wreck about being a one trick pony. I'm developing a better eye for positional evaluations, and tactical patterns.
Where I am failing is not in execution of these. Rather, its my inner distractions. Some days are better than others. I bounce back pretty quick.
No Howard, I will not consider changing my moniker. I've grown into these stripes. It fits well with my self depreciative nature. After all, To blunder is human. Is it not? This is a celebration of being a human playing chess
Welcome to the short loss club. That was certainly uglier then my 11 mover that I posted in the fall. Sometimes those evening games can be brutal especially when we're dealing with King Kong for a boss, and our mind can not turn off work.
Losses like that become good blog material. In fact when I lose like that my first thought becomes, ohhh an amusing post for my blog. I guess that's part of the blog addiction thing.
How is 3. Nd2 (the main book line for years) "creative"?
LEP inspired me to come up with a new feature in my blog called wacky wednesdays where I'll hightlight some dumbass loss from my past.
Maybe I should host a bloggers bloopers carnival of annoying losses. Any takers?
His "night to f6" ?
Reads like he had a day's advantage...
george, i just checked my opening book in chessBase, and while i am certain this (or one of its variants!) has happened to me also, not this exact same position.
this is the ultimate embaressment for us Caro-Kahn players.
Polly : I'm glad to have been an inspiration for "wacky Wednesday"
Anon1: Creative in a sense that as much as I play hte C-K I rarely run into this move order. I realize that this is a main line.
Anon2: " You silly Kin-ig-its, I taunt you!"
DK: Yes for a C-K player... this will leave a mark.
I shall move on.
Incidentally, this trap is described in the Everyman Books "Starting Out: the Caro-Kann".
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