Chess and the Enjoyment of Alcohol While Playing

[Smythe_Dakota]

If the tournament is held at a vineyard, or even a pizza place that serves beer, it would probably occur to prospective participants that alcohol might be available to the players. For most venues, however, a requirement for organizers to specify “no alcohol” in pre-event publicity seems a bit excessive.

P.S. That cop at the pizza place might have been testing the organizer, who passed the test with his “no” answer.

Bill Smythe

[tmagchesspgh]

Many of us have seen players in large open/class tournaments drinking beer, wine, cocktails, and other libations at the board. Usually it happens in the later rounds on the lower boards, when one’s ambitions of glory or money have long been wrecked. The players are relaxed and more interested in socializing. The hotel management and the hotel bar is happy to sell alcohol to tournament players to make up for the fact that many players do not stay at the site or eat in the hotel restaurant. Sipping a drink during the game is less of a problem than those who come completely and obnoxiously drunk or high to a contest.

[relyea]

@tmagchesspgh

Many of us have seen players in large open/class tournaments drinking beer, wine, ####, and other libations at the board. Usually it happens in the later rounds on the lower boards, when one’s ambitions of glory or money have long been wrecked. The players are relaxed and more interested in socializing. The hotel management and the hotel bar is happy to sell alcohol to tournament players to make up for the fact that many players do not stay at the site or eat in the hotel restaurant. Sipping a drink during the game is less of a problem than those who come completely and obnoxiously drunk or high to a contest.

Am I the only one who occasionally plays the game of trying to guess which “dirty words” are censored?

Alex Relyea

[wintdoan]

@relyea

@tmagchesspgh

Many of us have seen players in large open/class tournaments drinking beer, wine, ####, and other libations at the board. Usually it happens in the later rounds on the lower boards, when one’s ambitions of glory or money have long been wrecked. The players are relaxed and more interested in socializing. The hotel management and the hotel bar is happy to sell alcohol to tournament players to make up for the fact that many players do not stay at the site or eat in the hotel restaurant. Sipping a drink during the game is less of a problem than those who come completely and obnoxiously drunk or high to a contest.

Am I the only one who occasionally plays the game of trying to guess which “dirty words” are censored?

Alex Relyea

No. Here, I’m guessing that it’s a synonym for mixed drink.

[ChessSpawn]

@wintdoan

@relyea

@tmagchesspgh

Many of us have seen players in large open/class tournaments drinking beer, wine, ####, and other libations at the board. Usually it happens in the later rounds on the lower boards, when one’s ambitions of glory or money have long been wrecked. The players are relaxed and more interested in socializing. The hotel management and the hotel bar is happy to sell alcohol to tournament players to make up for the fact that many players do not stay at the site or eat in the hotel restaurant. Sipping a drink during the game is less of a problem than those who come completely and obnoxiously drunk or high to a contest.

Am I the only one who occasionally plays the game of trying to guess which “dirty words” are censored?

Alex Relyea

No. Here, I’m guessing that it’s a synonym for mixed drink.

The cockatoo?

[wintdoan]

c o c k t a i l

[ChessSpawn]

@wintdoan

c o c k t a i l

c o c k a t o o

[jjamesge1]

@LouisReed

We had a parent at a non-scholastic event go bananas when they saw their child’s opponent drinking a glass of wine at the board. The adult player was in no way inebriated and seemed to want to just enjoy a glass of wine on a Saturday night while playing (rated) chess. I think that the parent ended up forfeiting the game by making the child leave the playing hall.

Some religions prohibit alcohol. Even many churches only want their congregation to drink wine for communion, and not partake of alcohol.

I’m not saying it was wrong or right for a guy to enjoy a glass of wine with chess though. I guess it really depends on the social setting.

I’ve played chess at a coffee and wine establishment. Three games of chess were being played at the time. I don’t think any chess player was drinking wine, but certainly some of the other customers were drinking wine.

It wasn’t a regular place to play chess, but rather in college, the chess team was just traveling though and the coffee/wine place seemed like a good place to catch some games the night before the Saturday tournament. We bought enough coffee and snacks that the owner was pretty happy, and left a good tip to boot.

That was over 25 years ago…