I was in a chess club as a kid. Loved it, great people.
I went to a competition once.
There was so much noise, so many people. Scheduling to consider and I didn’t like the food so i was very hungry.
This was more then a decade ago. But there was this one match. I think the last one of the day and i had lost all but a draw before. i felt so awefull, physically, mentally i played so awefull but this is a core memory
My opponent made a mistake. Illegal fucking move with the queen.
“Y uh, you cant… do tht. “
“Wut?”
“Y mda, ts u illegal move. “
My Opponent Looks at board, visible terror dawn on their face. “Oh” Looked me in the eye, and slowly moves the queen to a legal spot.
Did i know i was 100% supposed to call the ref and that i had just won the game. Of course i did.
Did my opponent know? (We were kids) I am pretty sure they did.
So i played a few more moves in silence and resigned the game not long after. To my mind i had already lost a while ago. I felt so sick the basic idea of feeling joy for a win was so far off i just couldn’t muster to take it.
I still love chess Anyway thank you for joining this spontaneous group therapy session. Anyone else have chess related trauma to mate?
I think I caused the trauma in my case. I wasn’t in the chess club, but I had AP European History with basically everyone in the chess club and I remember the president of said club getting hella pissed at me when I beat him while playing a game in class, because he said:
“I can’t figure out what your next move is because you fucking suck at chess!”
This might make me sound like a chess elitist, but it can’t have been much of a chess club if they couldn’t beat you because they “can’t figure out what your next move is.”
I think they were so focused on established strategies, that they weren’t thinking like someone who doesn’t know them. It’s like being a high ranked player in CS with a bunch of low rank people. You’re doing stuff typical of high level play, and they aren’t so it throws you off. Like, someone being in a position that is commonly thought to be a bad play can suddenly become good again if your opponent is treating it as being empty all the time and you catch them off-guard.
