Rude/Crazy Behavior at Tournaments

All Things Chess
1

At the end of Silman’s How to Reassess Your Chess 4th Edition, in response to the question “Is chess a gentleman’s game?” he gives several examples of rude and crazy tournament behavior he has experienced or that has been mentioned in chess literature. They were pretty eye opening and or funny!

So my fellow gentleman and gentlewomen chess players, what rude or crazy behavior have you experienced at tournaments?

2

This wasn’t at a tournament, but a chess club: A little boy, maybe 7 or 8, decided to keep hitting my clock buttons as fast as he could.
I was putting away my stuff to go home, and the boy just walked up to my clock and started to hit the buttons as rapidly as he could.
-Not that the clock was going to move anytime soon, I’d had it set to 15d10. But the kid was hitting the buttons so fast… ADHD maybe?

I thought that was very rude.

BTW, I’m actually going though the 3rd edition right now. About finished with the chapter on the knights.

3

There are lots of them when you have played from the Fischer era to today:

  • Opponent writing notes on a roll of toilet paper while mumbling to himself
  • Player dressed up like the Unabomber with sunglasses and earphones. He fell asleep and snored during the game.
  • Spectator leaning on my shoulder so that he could get a better look at my game.
  • Master level player coming in 55 minutes late, demanding to use his own set, board, and clock.
  • Little kid jumped on my back while I was posting pairings in a scholastic tournament. He said he needed to see who he was playing because he was too little to fight through the crowd.
  • As a young player, an opponent asked me to resign before the game. I took all of his pieces and pushed the a and h pawns down the board to promote them.
  • During a game, a player told me that I must be a masochist for playing on in such a lost position. I went on to win.
  • Every time I beat one player, he told me I was lucky. We even reproduced move for move a previous game he lost without him noticing.
  • Watched one player at a World Open blow a kiss to an opponent during a game. The two went outside into the hall. The fight was entertaining.
  • Saw Vlastimil Hort munching on an ice cream cone while he was watching Anatoly Karpov playing a tournament game. Karpov gave him a dirty look. Hort disappeard and came back with another ice cream waffle cone.
  • Found several of my students at a major scholastic tournament climbing trees rather than getting their pairings for the next round.
  • Had to listen to the song “I am Cow” by the Angry Worms while driving several students to a state championship. They taught many of the kids there to sing it, too. I laugh when I hear it. Funny memory of that tournament.
  • Watched kids playing with pink and orange pieces on a yellow and white board.

There are too many to list them all. It has been an interesting career in chess.

4

I believe Harold Stenzel is working on a book of his anecdotes. It may never be published after all, but having read a few chapters of it, I hope he does get around to it someday.

A privilege of having directed/arbited with so many great people is getting to listen to the “war stories”.

5

My project seems to be one of chasing the goal posts as they get moved further away. Just when I think I’ve seen everything, some novice proves I haven’t. This weekend I’m a player at the USATE but that doesn’t stop the TD questions or setting multiple clocks each round.

6

At one tournament, I sat down across from a higher rated player who proceeded to tell me he taught chess and would gladly give me lessons for X dollars per hour. I drew the game.

7

What would be really entertaining (and perhaps educational) would be if you would employ this paragon to show you how you could have perhaps won the game you played with him.
Years ago, a friend of mine showed me a game he played and my analysis was unspeakably caustic toward his opponent. I did not notice his smile/smirk which increased with each move. Suddenly I realized that I was the idiot who was the author of the horrible moves I was witnessing. This was quite an experience and I hope that I can remain as objective in my analysis if a bit less pejorative.

8

When I was 11 or 12, I learned the chess notation (it was descriptive back then) from a book, and taught it to my brother and my friends. We were amazed that this allowed us to play a game without even being in the same room! I might be playing Strat-o-Matic baseball (a board game) with some other kid (Wow, it was a simultaneous exhibition!) in the kitchen while my friend was in the living room watching the TV, and we’d carry on a chess game on two boards, just by calling out the moves. It was great to not have to stare at the opponent, waiting for him to get around to moving, being annoyed at his creepy-kid behavior, so we did this a lot.

Now, surely, I thought, this must be how the World Championship matches are played: each competitor in an isolation booth with a squad of officials assuring good behavior and carrying the actual moves back and forth. Certainly, in the Big Time, these stars wouldn’t have to sit by one board at a table! That would be the cheap way out!

I was wrong, of course, but you have to wonder whether that idea would have worked.

9

World class bridge tournaments might be more likely to isolate players than chess tournaments do, since eyes, facial or body movements, intonation and even the time it takes to make a bid might all be used to communicate additional information when bidding.

I know there are coaches who teach their players to make their moves confidently to psych out their opponents, but that doesn’t really change the position on the board.

10

Reading the tomes of ACBL casebook rulings on breaks in tempo during bidding was enough to make me give up after reaching Junior Master. I don’t like not being able to think if I need to.

11

I had a scholastic player at a national elementary blitz take out his (prosthetic) eye to clean it in the middle of the round. Created quite a stir.

12

Arrogant Worms, not Angry Worms.

13

The strangest was about (my how time flies) about 6 years ago now.
Two senior citizens are angrily “having it out with each other, in the middle of the tournament hall”
I motion for both to come to me, which they do. We exit the hall so I can understand the issue.
I will not use their correct names due to a great remembrance of one, and desire not to use the other.

John-- This fella yelled at me
Edgar-- yes, after I had asked you three times to pay attention and hit the right clock, rather than
mine on the board next to you
John— we all make mistakes
Edgar–you know this goes back 15 years ago-- we played a tournament together at our clubs
old location, and you accused me of putting out your cigarette when you were in the restroom
Now, I did not do that, but you never believed me.
John-- That is correct, you did put my cigarette out then, and never apologized, and I have not
forgiven you.

Rob Jones
14

Do you mean you had him do it? Was it too dirty for proper tournament decorum?

15

LOL not at my request. The opponent called me to the board and said he was sick and could not continue to play because of what his opponent did.

I did determine, after some discussion, that the player did not take out and clean his eye just to distract his opponent.

16

Last year I played a higher-rated older Russian (?) man. The game went back and forth but he eventually ended up in a winning position (very active Q vs 2 clumsy rooks). However, every time I stood up from the table, he would stick his feet all the way across so when I sat back down, I would unintentionally kick him (the tablecloth prevented me from seeing where his feet were). No matter how careful I was when I sat down, I’d hit his feet because they were right in front of my chair. Now I’ve been playing over 40 years and I’ve never been accused of kicking my opponent but he got madder and madder and yelled louder (in his own language) each time I sat down. Eventually he missed a winning move and allowed me to force a win. He was just furious at me afterwards, claimed that I kicked him on purpose to throw him off and he stormed out yelling something (in Russian?) and I don’t think it was “nice game”.
On a related topic, what’s with the full picnic lunches that parents are providing to their kids during the games? Noisy wrappers, strong smells, slurping sounds. Can’t they just grab a granola bar and walk away from the board while they eat?

17

Welcome to modern parenting concepts–it is about their kids, and them, secondly, you and the
surrounding world need to take a back seat.

Rob Jones

18

We don’t let people eat in the tournament room at our events. There is a skittles/player/parent room to eat pizza, slurp drinks, and munch on snacks. The TD shoos spectators out of the main room if they come in with food. The most we allow in the tournament room is bottles of water or other liquid refreshment. We need to keep the room perfectly clean, according agreed upon site rules.

19

Maybe the CCA will take a page from your rulebook.

20

It’s called “nutrition”.

However, if the kids are eating next to a board, that’s rather rude. Ideally, there would be a skittles room and they can slurp to their hearts’ content. If not, at least go off to the side to eat.

I’ve decided that I will never host a tournament without a skittles room, and will never attend a tournament if I know that there is no skittles room, lobby, or some other place where I can go an hold a non-whispered conversation, or eat a sandwich, without worrying about disturbing games in progress.