Ever sat at the Wong Board?

[Chris Bernard]

Just back from the usual well run and enjoyable Congress at Imperial College.

https://union.ic.ac.uk/rcc/chess/2017/0 ... pril-2017/

Round 4 Sunday morning and two players both with the black pieces near me get up for a stroll at around move 10. One comes back sits down and starts analysing the position, is about to make a move when he is tapped on the shoulder by the player who should be at the board pointing out he should be at the next table. The player smiles, shrugs sits down at the next board and starts analysing....

What if he'd made a move ?

[James Hooker]

Grischuk did it, but I guess luckily it was at the beginning of the game

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xc7J66zelQ8

[Reg Clucas]

I'm sure it happens all the time. If you look at the ECF database there are several players with the name 'Wong'.

[Paul Cooksey]

I played an entire Surrey league game for Guildford against the wrong player. Both boards 1 and 3 were late, and ended up the wrong way round.

But I blame the well known arbiter involved

[Nick Grey]

Never played anyone by the name of Wong. Ever.
Surely you mean Wrong?

Was at a county match once where Surrey Players sat on the wrong colours so ended up with 7 blacks to opponents 9 whites. Not sure how the match captains did not pick this up before the start of play.

Surrey players have frequently sat at the wrong board even when match captains have shown the team sheet & given the player an audible verbal instruction. I have even directed opponents to the correct board even when their captains have not.

On the Surrey side - the older the player the more likely they are to sit at wrong board is my experience. They also tend to be the most experienced.

The only time I have sat at the wrong board is at a 4NCL division 3 south match where at the last minute the arbiters moved me to a higher team on board 1 & grading differential of 1000 fide or 120 ECF - apparently I was the sub. It was only when the arbiter said some messed up message & this was least disruptive. The downside was that the next day I was forced to play on board 1 rather than board 5 for my team.

There can be an upside to this? Opponents being unable to prepare for you & also if you score 1/2 with the black pieces against stronger players it gives you confidence in the next game.

[Jonathan Rogers]

.... the older the player the more likely they are to sit at wrong board is my experience. They also tend to be the most experienced.

This reminds me that when I was due to play Smyslov at the Lloyds Bank Masters, the 68 year old wandered into the playing hall and sat himself opposite Ian Rogers, who kindly escorted him down the hall to where I was waiting.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

.... the older the player the more likely they are to sit at wrong board is my experience. They also tend to be the most experienced.

This reminds me that when I was due to play Smyslov at the Lloyds Bank Masters, the 68 year old wandered into the playing hall and sat himself opposite Ian Rogers, who kindly escorted him down the hall to where I was waiting.

So what happened in the game?? And how many world champions have you played over the board in a serious game like that?

[Jonathan Rogers]

Just Vasily. The game can be found here

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1126915

It wasn't such a bad loss; after being cramped from the opening - following what I understood to be theory at the time, I wonder whether his 8 h4 was a novelty, obvious though it now seems - I kept the going for a while. But I should probably have captured on f4, and I then went under in my time trouble.

It was unusual for me to be in time trouble back then, but of course this was rather an unusual opponent. To make things even more surreal, Sir Stuart Milner-Barry came up to the board while I was approaching time trouble, VS got up and the two men embraced each other.

A Harry Enfield character would have shouted "Oi! Living legends! Hug and embrace OUTSIDE the playing area!"

[JustinHorton]

I tried once. Fortunately there was somebody already sitting there.

[Alex Holowczak]

Ali Jaunooby was late for a round, which is about as surprising as waking up and realising you have feet. So he is used to just wandering in at sitting in the gap. I remember one Congress where he was only the penultimate player to arrive, and there was much merriment when the player who was supposed to be playing there arrived 15 minutes or so later.

[Kevin Thurlow]

Good stories from Jonathan and Justin. I was annoyed at Hastings many years ago to be playing John Emms (who is a thoroughly decent chap and good player), as Bronstein was one board higher. His opponent was exactly the same rating as me but earlier in the alphabet, so got the higher board... Pity he wasn't called Wong.

Chines arbiters have huge problems pairing Wongs as two Wongs don't make a white.

[David Kramaley]

When I first started playing for Bristol Uni, I was completely new to over the board chess. I sat at the wrong board for quite a while waiting. As I was a Master's student, another Bristol Uni undergrad sat opposite me and we were about to play when the captain noticed and rectified it haha. This was the first game of the season, I got to know all my team mates after that

[Geoff Chandler]

I'm always sitting at the wrong board.

The wrong board, the wrong opponent...the wrong result.

Someone mention pieces set up wrong.

This one I've had to do in GIF format because it involves castling.

R. Burns v A. Lawrence-O'Reilly, Edinburgh Congress 2005

[Alistair Campbell]

When I saw Geoff had posted I assumed he was going to mention Phil Condie. I forget the exact details, but I think it involved one of the Edinburgh Congresses in the early 80s - presumably due to numbers, the Major and Challengers tournaments were split in 2 (a recipe for confusion); also, I think the Challengers was/were the weaker of the 2/4. (There was an Open for the top players). Phil turned up slightly late and seeing an empty board (in what was one of the Challengers tounaments) sat down, played, and lost, when he should have been playing in the higher tournament.

That was the tournament where having drawn on the Friday night (being slightly put off by Mike Basman taking an interest in my (or rather my opponent's) game), I found myself paired with he same opponent in round 2.

On a slightly different note, I have returned to my board and found a different person sitting there (not my opponent). Johnny Marr, late lamented Edinburgh player used to turn up and watch games into his 90s - if he felt tired, he'd just sit down at any spare seat. That would be off-putting too, seeing his grin and the glint in his eye - even if it wasn't his game you feared a sacrificial attack was on its way.

I've a faint recollection of being about to sit down at the wrong seat recently (I forget when) but for once realised my mistake before I made it. I can't remember if this was the start of a round or mid-game, so that's not particularly helpful for this thread.

[Stewart Reuben]

The late Harry Baines told this story about a lower section in the British Championhip. Mr A was playing Mr B (I have no ide of their real names). Some time during the round Mr A approached Harry, the chief arbier. 'I don't want to seem silly, but I don't think I'm playing the same opponent as earlier in the game. Harry approached Black. 'No, Mr B had to go home, so I've taken his place.'

In one King's Head Rapidplay, a player was sitting waiting for his opponent who had not yet shown up. Eventually a man appeared and they played. The player handed in the result. 'But you won on default!' exclaimed the arbiter. What had happened was that someboy wandered into the venue, not having entered, saw there was an empty space and sat down, thinking it was a friendly game.

At the British Championship in Eastbourne there were name cards for all the boards. Ali Mortazavi should have had black, but came to the board and found the cards had been set up incorrectly, showing him as white. So he started the game as white. Presumably his opponent James Plaskett turned up later. He took the black pieces. The story I was told only today in Crete, was that James thought, 'Why bother to waste a white on Ali, I'm going to win anyway'. I couldn't possibly comment, bu I'll ask him later this evening. He is currently playing. As you will gather I am not.