Chess

I love playing chess. The older I get, the better I seem to be at it. I suppose I am a late-starter having played in my first ever tournament only a few years ago in my mid-forties. At that time I also narrowly missed getting a draw against a Grandmaster in an outdoor simultaneous exhibition in the very attractive surroundings of Olomouc town square.

However, in my formative teenage years I merely dabbled with the game, as I would with Ludo or Snakes and Ladders, but never seemed to do anything with it. It was just another board game. That was until I played a match with my friend, Steve, which must surely rank as one of the unknown classic matches of all time.

One evening in the pub (when I was about 20), we somehow got onto the subject of chess. Soon, the alcohol was talking and the gauntlet was inevitably thrown down by myself. We would have a chess match back at his home – a best of five games challenge. For such a serious contest, our preparation was somewhat lacking, and by the time we had arrived there, set up the board, and cracked open another can of beer in order to stimulate the thinking processes, we were both very tired and well on the way to being quite drunk. However, here I was playing an ex-school team member, no less, and I was a complete novice.

I calculated that Steve had probably had more to drink than myself. With every swig of beer that he had I sensed weakness. The smell of victory seemed to waft on the night breeze through the open window. This was surely my chance for glory. His scalp was for the taking. I rose to the occasion and took full advantage of Steve’s condition (by now he was dozing on and off), and surged into a two-nil lead. One more win and I would be the undisputed champion. I was home and dry; or so I thought...

It was then that Steve began to sense the urgency of his grave situation and woke up. Somewhere, in the deeper recesses of his pride, socks were pulled up and skates were put on as he roused himself to sobriety, whilst at the same time I began to flounder. My sharp edge was now blunted by the need for my brain to close down. It was well past midnight and the lure of sleep was proving too strong for any more concentration. In no time at all, Steve had pulled it back to two games all. We could have done the gentlemanly thing and agreed a draw; but we were young, we were stubborn, and there just had to be a winner. We blundered on, deep into the early morning hours. The call of sleep lured us into silent slumbers, and we were both reduced to waking each other up in order to make a move. Confusion set in when we both fell asleep at the same time. One of us would wake up, wake the other one up, then we would debate as to whose move it was, and then one of us would fall asleep again whilst waiting for the other one to make a move, which in due time they did, and then promptly fell asleep once more. The process was repeated again more than a few times...

I swear to this day that Steve had two or maybe even three moves in a row. I was convinced that I’d been robbed of a certain victory. Well, by now you’ve probably guessed the outcome of this match...