English Chess Forum

David Grobler wrote:Different things distract different people.At the recent Sheffield Weekend Congress I was distracted by a player who was drinking bottles of beer at approx 10:00 in the morning . Noise doesnt bother me in the slightest....

Hi David

Yeah I saw him, he was doing it during every round. He seemed to have a backpack with an unlimited supply of Bex and a bottle opener - I personally found it quite amusing, but I know what you mean, I wouldn’t have fancied playing him - by the end of the game he had about 6 empties lined up next to him at the board

Still if there is a bar at the congress I will occasionally indulge in a pint with my game (not a morning round!) so I’m not really one to talk

There was one very annoying junior who shall remain nameless, at the recent Heywood congress (and I think I’d played him before at York) who literally offered a draw after every single move, once we were about 10 moves into the opening. I was well within my rights to complain to the arbiter - but he was no older than 9 - you can’t really can you.

I was determine to trade off, eek out my extra pawn and win the ending, but at one point he offered a draw, I said no, he then left me thinking at the board. He returned, saw I had not moved and offered another draw - this particularly irritated me and I could feel myself getting seriously p***ed off so I stuck my hand out and accepted - a decision I regretted about 2 minutes later.

From talking to other players I found out he’d done it in every other game.

Jon Mahony wrote:I was determine to trade off, eek out my extra pawn and win the ending, but at one point he offered a draw, I said no, he then left me thinking at the board. He returned, saw I had not moved and offered another draw - this particularly irritated me and I could feel myself getting seriously p***ed off so I stuck my hand out and accepted - a decision I regretted about 2 minutes later.

From talking to other players I found out he’d done it in every other game.

Well, it worked for him then, he got what he wanted.
Why not just decline politely the first two offers and then systematically ignore the rest?

That happened to me once, a long time ago. I said something like "When this game is a draw, I'll tell you". Did the trick - not one more offer, and I won.

Hmm; draw offers on every single move is so heinous that with or without intent to distract, I'd be inclined to be very firm with juniors. (If an adult did that, I'd be minded to put them straight to a final warning, unless there was a clear reason they were doing this without conscious will.) Of course, that means taking them aside and explaining the distraction etc. In France I had a girl offer me three draws in twelve moves; which was rather frustrating because I was a clear pawn and positionally ahead, it was one of those long technique endings, so I just popped over to our arby and no more offers came.

As far as drinking at the board, up here in Cumbria we once had a guy (who shall remain nameless) who was so lashed that he was arrested for drunk and disorderly at one of our tournaments, and subsequently banned! Shame really, with one pint he was quite a dangerous player.

Sebastian Stone wrote:Having the same surname as me, but having a higher grading.

That's pretty annoying.

For some people it's more likely to happen than others.

True. Despite inactivity, I do take a perverse pleasure in telling friends that according to FIDE, I am the strongest Brown in the world. GMs with that irritating silent e don't count.

Sebastian Stone wrote:Having the same surname as me, but having a higher grading.
That's pretty annoying.

From the rating thread:

Stewart Reuben wrote:I tried giving the FIDE Rating Officer a bottle of vodka to bribe him to ensured that Julin Hodgson did not continue to be confused with John. It failed. Julian suggested the easiest thing to do was for him to coach John in order for him to become a stronger player

There are a couple of other Cookseys, we are not related to my knowledge. I don't think FIDE has ever confused them with me. But ChessBase does. I was confused by a game I did not remember, until I realised it was at a tournament I have never entered

Some event organisers have 'borrowed' inactive people's names and rating. Then sent the data to FIDE stealing rating points from the player. They hoped inactive players might not notice. No doubt they have often been right. FIDE now check that somebody isn't playing in two events simultaneously.
I would call that rather annoying even if you never, ever learnt about it!

Stewart Reuben

Is this not common practice in Romania?

Simon Brown wrote:That happened to me once, a long time ago. I said something like "When this game is a draw, I'll tell you". Did the trick - not one more offer, and I won.

I was quite tempted to more or less say exactly that (I was thinking about: "If there are any more draw offers in this game, I'll make them") But I'm still a little gun shy of juniors since one burst into tears at the board, after she blundered her Queen against me in a league match a couple of seasons ago still played on as well - I was seriously tempted to offer a draw just to get out of there, but the team needed the point.

Eddie Gufeld story. It was a little girls' tournament.
One girl made her move and promptly burst into tears. Her opponent could take her queen. The opponent went and consulted the arbiter, 'What should I do?' The arbiter said, 'I can't advise you, jut play your own game.' The opponent wnt back to the board, the other girl was still crying. The opponent took off the queen. The first girl dried her eyes, made her next mobe and announced triumphantly, 'Checkmate!'
Stewart Reuben

"There are a couple of other Cookseys, we are not related to my knowledge. I don't think FIDE has ever confused them with me. But ChessBase does.

So does ChessGames. It's only after multiple postings on there in the last few weeks that I've managed to get a dozen or so games wrongly ascribed to Graham D Lee correctly re-assigned to Peter N Lee.

Opponents drinking beer can be quite annoying, but it depends on how they do it. I have a club-mate who drinks nasty cheap French lager and manages to produce some foul-smelling belches as a result, which he sends my way across the board, all unintentionally, as he even does it in 5-minute games. Smells like he's been eating crisps as well, even though I've neer seen him with a packet! I don't say anything as he's got some personal problems so it would just be a bit petty.
One local veteran manages to drink four or five bottles (25cl) over an afternoon, and it doesn't seem to affect his play. And no nasty smells either.
Other than that, I find White opponents swapping off pawns to head into a French Exchange very annoying, I didn't come all this way to be bored to death. I doubt I could complain to the arbiter about it though.
Oooh, just thought of another one! There's one guy I dread playing against. A few years ago I read a humourous article about different types of chessplayer, and one of them was the "Rainman". Rocks back and forth in his seat, mutters to himself etc. I thought to myself, "this is pushing the weird chessplayer stereotype at bit far". Unfortunately, this person actually exists! So the guy I dread playing against is actually a souped-up version of Rainman. At the start of the game, everything's fine, no unusual movements, but as soon as the tension increases on the board, he starts rocking back and forth. Ratchet the tension up a notch and he holds his head in his hands with increased toing and froing. One final ratchet and he starts grinding his teeth. Not only do I find this very distracting (distressing even, the guy seems to be genuinely suffering) so do players at other boards. No-one has ever said anything as far as I know, as it's obviously some sort of psychological problem, but if I play in the same tournament as this guy, I dread being paired against him, or even being on a nearby board.

Ive posted a fair bit on this thread...and I read all post with interest . But my opinion now is that there aren't THAT many instances of REALLY bad behaviour . I now firmly believe the worst situation is when you come up against someone who smells...unfortunately this is all too common . On a Sunday morning I could well be guilty of this myself ( Saturday night tradition of a curry) , but surely the worst is the sweaty body odour from the unwashed (and theres a lot of that towards the end of a weekend ) . Four hours of that is a REAL struggle......and what can you do about it ?

"Hmm; draw offers on every single move is so heinous that with or without intent to distract, I'd be inclined to be very firm with juniors."

Quite right - either they are deliberately cheating, in which case it needs to be dealt with now, or they genuinely do not know it is illegal, so it is a good time to learn.

Last time I complained on here about juniors cheating, I got a PM criticising me. Apparently, I shouldn't complain if juniors cheat...

To balance it up, I played an American veteran (who spent a long time in England) who behaved perfectly until he was a pawn down and then started to talk all the time, asking how the clock worked and stuff like that. It didn't work.