Rules about drinking alcohol before or during matches

[matt_ward]

It just seems I am wasting my time this country is surpose to have freedom of speech. Although from what I have witnessed so far everyone is against me! What is the point of having a forum if people are just going to resort to insults towards me.

I thought everyone is entitled to a view I am so sorry for being horribly mistaken; I have been called and had all sorts of things thrown at me at school. That is somewhat understandable considering at the time they were young, now adults are also lowing the standard and throwing insults has anyone thought it might be they are not reading my views properly.

Matt.

[Paul McKeown]

It just seems I am wasting my time this country is surpose to have freedom of speech. Although from what I have witnessed so far everyone is against me! What is the point of having a forum if people are just going to resort to insults towards me.

I thought everyone is entitled to a view I am so sorry for being horribly mistaken; I have been called and had all sorts of things thrown at me at school. That is somewhat understandable considering at the time they were young, now adults are also lowing the standard and throwing insults has anyone thought it might be they are not reading my views properly.

Matt.

Matt,

I don't think anyone has set out to hurt your feelings: however, you have abused this forum, perhaps unwittingly, and you must expect some blowback. Growing up is often painful, we all have to do it, sometimes even as adults and it is rarely pleasant.

As far as I can see, the question isn't one of free speech, but how you employ the principle. A forum such as this has established rules ("etiquette" or "netiquette"), often unwritten. Some of the more important of these can be summarised thus:
1. Read what others have written before posting. They may already have provided a good answer to your query, or you may find a good place to post your query or your nugget of wisdom.
2. If you haven't anything worthwhile to contribute to a thread, don't scatter nonsense around with gay abandon.
3. Don't hijack threads for temporary relief from boredom.
4. Read what you post, before you post, check it for spelling and for grammar. Check its comprehensibility: for if you can't understand what you have written, then why should you expect anyone else to be able to, or want to?
5. Keep on topic.
6. If you wish to say something critical of others, expect that they, their friends, or indeed neutral observers, may subject your postings or indeed you, in your person, to close examination and indeed harsh words.
7. Grow hairs on your chest and stand tall; if people disagree with you or tell you that you are out of order, take it on the chin. Think about what they have said, maybe you were wrong? And a sad fact of life is that, sometimes, you will even be scorned for being right.

I don't really want to read the lesson, but you don't seem to be taking the message in the way people have intended. Keep on trucking, but try to abide by the laws of the highway and drive with consideration for others.

And good luck with your chess.

Regards,
Paul McKeown.

[Neill Cooper]

I mainly play Surrey and Croydon League inter-club league chess, with the occasional one day rapidplay. I have rarely seen anyone drinking alcohol at the board in the past 10 years (I think only one SCCA club meets in a pub) so it is not an issue for me.

When I was young a penalty for playing chess was getting home and finding my sweater reeking of cigarette smoke. Never did I think of trying to change this, it just went with the territory.

[Stewart Reuben]

Neill - When I was young a penalty for playing chess was getting home and finding my sweater reeking of cigarette smoke. Never did I think of trying to change this, it just went with the territory.<

What do you mean, when you were young? My mother complained, for the same reason, to me of my smoking when I was an adult, when I have never even had one cigarette unlit in my mouth. When I was 14 (57 years ago) I captained my adult chess club Islington II team. We played an away match where the room was full of cigarette smoke. This resulted in my being away from school for over two weeks. I was fully in agreement with my not playing in away matches again.

Of course eventually I created a FIDE regulation (about 1985) that in due course stopped all smoking at the board everywhere. Poker has undergone much the same transformation, partly because so many countries ban smoking in enclosed spaces. But at the Victoria Casino some people stopped smoking at the table before that partly because of my health problems. Now, for that casino, they have built an outside area. When people return to the table they smell like chimneys.

Stewart Reuben

[Ben Purton]

I think the comparsion between smoking and drinking is a very thin one.

The direct negative externailty of one of them makes a more serious case for banning at the board.

If I drink, I am not negatively affecting my opponents health.

You could argue NHS strain with drinking, but this is a overall politics thing rather than a purely chess one.

Ben

PS: I have not drunk since the london classic, that was my last drinking.

[Paul McKeown]

This has gone so far, I think it's time for a chorus: Macc Lads.

Enjoy.

[NeilJerzynek]

never goina happen, most players enjoy a beer, most chess clubs are in pubs, I don't hear him complaining about the chess clubs that have a room in a rough working mans club where people say f*** off at the bar every minute-that's a lot worse for kids.
If you ban alcohol chess will become 80% less popular than now. You also didn't say (but somebody else did) about people who go out for a smoke and come back with bad breath.

Get real

[Ljubica Lazarevic]

All this talk has worked up a thirst, glass of red anybody?

[Paul McKeown]

Let me pour one and clink glasses

[Howzabout a beer glass clinking emoticon, Carl, please ]

[Carl Hibbard]

Let me pour one and clink glasses

[Howzabout a beer glass clinking emoticon, Carl, please ]

I need to spend a little less time here and spend more on more on drinking said stuff to be honest

[Paul McKeown]

Anyone for a Scotch Opening?

[Simon Spivack]

Drunken Knights stalwart Paddy O'Henry famously decanted: "give me liberty, or give me a pint!" He was near Temple Bar at the time.

[Paul McKeown]

Drunken Knights stalwart Paddy O'Henry

Can't make up my mind whether that name is real, or some sort of Milesian slur

Temple Bar

Don't think I've drunk in that particular establishment, where can I find it?

[Simon Spivack]

It's a jest at the expense of our American cousins. Surely someone can guess how I came up with it.

[carstenpedersen]

"Give me liberty or give me death"

Patrick Henry kicking off the American War of Independence.

Personally, I prefer to have liberty AND a pint. In particular the liberty to choose if I want to have a pint or not.