Several years ago it was a typical Saturday $10 open with the usual cast of characters toiling in the chess hall.
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Meanwhile in the skittles room sat director Bernardo Iglesias at the PC with Kent Leung giving a chess lesson to a young beginner. The boy's mother was just sitting soaking in the quiet ambiance of the BCF chess world. When suddenly in stormed Scott Didham
who began moving pieces of a chess set with authority while talking in a loud voice at the pieces. He was criticizing himself for a series of moves and told himself never to make those particular moves ever again. Scott then quickly left. The mother had a shocked expression on her face and Kent calmly said to her, not to worry, Scott is an ok person.
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But it gave me room for thought about how chess players, very intelligent people, who occasionally can respond to their play results in a quirky way due to the tension and adrenalin generated in the heat of the battle. This is a byproduct of the concentration and effort used in playing. To an outsider the reactions of us nerds might be taken as eccentric behavior, but to us insiders we learn to accept these responses within reason as just part of the game.
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In fact most of us quite enjoy the machinations and expressions of our chess comrades. I especially love to watch postmortems and the interplay between players. There are very few things in life where we get the opportunity to reconstruct what happened and even get to pick the brain of your opponent to get their perspective. It's especially entertaining if there is a theoretical difference of opinion. There is an honesty about it all, which is very important in seeking chess truth.
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I always felt that the organizers of the Kasparov vs Deep Blue should have anticipated a victory by Deep Blue and realized that they should give Gary Kasparov several minutes to decompress, if he lost, before interviewing him. I though it was bad planning on their part to let him vent in public.
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And in my games when an opponent is not so happy for blowing their game, I give them a little leeway because I have been in that position of not taking a loss so well. Some losses still give me pain years later.
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Are you more accepting of a chess player's reaction to bad outcomes as compared to say a pro athlete's behavior? Where is Bill Lambeer today anyway?
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(Bill Lambeer invites Larry Bird to a post-game analysis.)
Please Comment. Thank You. Mike Griffin 10/20/2009
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