That brute of a boy!

[chessgirl]

by Jon R. Edwards

About five years ago, I taught a young 8 year-old girl named Anna. Blond hair, pink dresses, delightful smile. A real tiger over the board.
In fact, as I recall, Anna won her first 5 tournaments. But I'm getting ahead of the story.
It was her third tourney, or thereabouts. A local Barnes and Noble lent us space for a kids event. Registration started in mid-morning. There was no entry fee, and the book store donated some nice book prizes. A woman came up to register her son, with a 6 year-old girl at her side.
Of course I asked if she also wanted to enter her daughter.
"She doesn't know how to play."
"No problem. I have some time. In ten minutes, she'll know enough to play."
"You don't understand," was the reply, "she's a girl."
I had no response to that kind of illogic. Obviously, her daughter did not play. So here we were at the beginning of the final round. A swiss system, so that winners play winners. Anna had won her first four games and was paired against the largest boy in the field. Frankly, he was the largest boy I have every seen. And it was clear that he had not bathed in quite some time.
It made for an interesting juxtaposition. Little Anna paired against a man-mountain.
Play started, and the same woman who had kept her daughter from playing stepped up to my table.
"You must be the most incompetent director on the planet to have paired that sweet young thing against that brute of a boy!"
"I'll take a look." So I got up, walked over to Anna's board, looked for a time, and then returned.
"You were right" I replied, "I was very unfair... That boy doesn't have a chance!"

[Chessleader]

lol, nice

"No problem. I have some time. In ten minutes, she'll know enough to play."

10mins in her dreams

[Q Smith]

Haha, great anecdote!

I have a slightly different story, which is pretty similar but where the parent of the boy towered over the girl, and his beer belly was pressing against the girl's chair!

Fortunately, order was restored when the arbiter noticed this, reprimanded the parent and kicked him out of the playing hall for the rest of the day. The girl went on to win the game and the tournament as a result.

[Antichrist]

Very nice anecdote, do you have any more stories?

[Q Smith]

None as good as the previous one but here's another.

There's a chess tournament and all is fairly quiet. Player A's mobile phone goes off. Nobody notices and play continues. Player A's mobile phone rings a second time, about 15 minutes later. He is caught by the DOP, who declares the game lost for Player A. Player A takes the DOP outside for 'a chat'. Player A punches the DOP straight in the face. Before Player A can deliver any more damage, the security guard from the adjacent room grabs Player A, restrains him, and Player A is arrested. However the conclusion is quite peaceful as the DOP didn't have any serious injuries and Player A escaped with only 50 hours community service.

Not your garden variety tournament...

[Antichrist]

That's a pretty violent incident at a tournament! Good story, I'd share a few myself except they're more along the lines of time scrambles rather than disputes.