English Chess Forum

My lucky pen ran out of luck and my unbeaten run came to an end last night

Any suggestions?

Lucky horseshoe?

You could break in a new lucky pen by using it against an easy opponent - then you will have captured some of the winning magic without too much trouble.
I forget which of my pens are lucky quite often, but I have a couple of lucky shirts which get pulled from the depths of my wardrobe when I am in need of something special - I have an occasion next tuesday when one will be required, even if it is going to be cold.

Gavin Strachan wrote:My lucky pen ran out of luck and my unbeaten run came to an end last night

Any suggestions?

Lucky horseshoe?

I don't so much have a lucky pen as a pen I always use. When I lost the last one I went out and bought one as close to it as possible.

I do have lucky books (booklets really) that I rest my scoresheet on. My usual lucky book is Houdini's Miracle Mongers. I usually switch to something else for the next game after a loss, though.

Solution: have a couple of backup lucky pens.

It's like a crop rotation system.

In my youth, when I strongly believed in the power of lucky pens, I used to introduce a new pen by using any old pen for the start of a game and then swap over to the candidate new Lucky Pen when my victory was almost certain. If I wasn't winning then the pen would stay in my pocket until the next game. I suppose you could do the opposite as well - if it looks like your position is going down the toilet, switch to a Losing Pen so your Lucky Pen doesn't get tainted by the loss.

For some reason this thread brings to mind shooting an arrow at a fence and painting a bullseye round it.

I have a lucky hat that I sit on.
Long story short, I took my hat off 1 time, accidentally sat on it, and swindled a totally lost game. Only lost 1 game since, and the hat fell off of my seat in that game!

well next day tried to break in a new pen and managed to scrape a draw against someone I usually beat. I'm blaming night shifts as opposed to dodge pen as I should have lost the game and managed to salvage a draw.

Gavin Strachan wrote:... I should have lost the game and managed to salvage a draw.

The lucky pen works its magic!

I gave up on the concept of a lucky pen a while ago - mine was a fountain pen which I always thought looked rather posh, unfortunately it leaked in my inside pocket at last year’s Halifax Congress and ruined my favourite jacket - it's cheap biro's nicked on the way out of work now!

The lucky aspect didn’t work so well anyway - after finishing the Saturday on 2.5/3 and looking like one of the favourites in my section I proceeded to get crushed both games on the Sunday and leave with sweet FA.

Jon Mahony wrote:The lucky aspect didn’t work so well anyway - after finishing the Saturday on 2.5/3 and looking like one of the favourites in my section I proceeded to get crushed both games on the Sunday and leave with sweet FA.

It could have been worse. You could have started with 3/3 and then finished with 0.5/2.

I blame this on the fact that on the Sunday I noticed that I'd written the date down wrong on Saturday's scoresheets and I then started writing the correct date on the scoresheets on the Sunday. Clearly the luck needs some date confusion to work properly...

Maybe your opponents on the sunday had even luckier pens then you.

Well I won the U170 rapid at the London Classic and didn't use a pen, though I noted that most of my opponents except in the last round wrote their moves down.

I start every congress with a new lucky pen, (often just a borrowed one) , trouble is the luck runs out faster than the ink!

My lucky chess underpants work wonders mind but that’s another story completely!!(corrected nice one Simon)

Paul Robson wrote:My lucky chess underpants work wonders mind but that’s another storey completely!!

I bet that raises the house.

I'm going to try the Lucky Cap Gambit tonight for the first time. I shall report back.