"Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage."
- C. S. Lewis
Saturday, April 7, 2007
It's midnight. I'm presently playing an over-the-board (OTB) chess game with Blo. To be truthful, it's sort of OTB, we're playing on the phone, calling out our moves in the funky dialect known as chess notation.
The drawback of playing this way is that it gives the turtle-esque Blo plenty of time to make his moves. The dude will, literally, take 30 to 45 minutes just to make one move. Consequently, he wears me down ... I begin to yawn ... I begin to get sleeeeeeeepy ... and then BANG, Blo checkmates me. Yes, he usually wins these late-night battles.
My theory with these games is that it's as much about chess skill as it is endurance. Right now I'm feeling pretty good, and he's been thinking about his next move for about 10 minutes now. (We're on move 13, by the way.)
Blo's about to move! I'll be right back ...
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Trackback URL: http://thinklings.org/bloo.trackback.php/3770.
Comments on "Over-the-board":
2. Bird
- 04/07/2007 2:22 am CDT
It's 2:22 a.m. We're on move 27. I just made a cool move and Blo said, "That was brilliant ... I think I'm toast."
4. Bird
- 04/07/2007 2:45 am CDT
For those who know anything about chess "points," I've got 20 points on the board, he has 17. So, by that standard, I'm winning. On the other hand, he's still got his queen on the board and with that queen he's still got a puncher's chance. 2:47 a.m.
5. stroke
- 04/07/2007 2:53 am CDT
i'm still up.. for now. consider me an audience. you've got a crowd to impress!
7. Bird
- 04/07/2007 3:02 am CDT
It's over. I beat him. He resigned on his 37th move. It was only a matter of time until checkmate, so he didn't have a chance.
Thanks for "watching," Stroke.
8. Thunderbird
- 04/07/2007 3:08 am CDT
Good job, Bird. Now go to bed or I'm going to be petered out tomorrow.
11. Inklingstar
- 04/07/2007 11:28 am CDT
I have a question - at what point do you resign? I have never resigned a game because it feels too much like giving up. Even when I have a king and a pawn and my opponent has a queen and two rooks (Heaven forbid) I still fight till the end.
12. Bird
- 04/07/2007 11:44 am CDT
Sometimes it's a lost cause. I think Blo and I are similar in that we'd rather resign then be checkmated.
I wish I could show you our game last night. Blo resigned, literally, one move before checkmate. There was no way out of it and he knew it.
13. Shrode
- 04/07/2007 12:26 pm CDT
You stayed up until 3am playing chess. 
Whoa dudes. I used to think Bird and I lived on the same planet since we both like "Star Trek" but now I'm not so sure.
When do you sleep dude? :)
Oh and for the record, every time I read a post like this it makes me more determined never to play thinklings chess. You people are in a different league! If there's ever a kindergartner level let me know... (knowing openings, chess codes etc... Whoa.) Now if you ever start thinklings checkers or trivial pursuit let me know. I'm in!
Thinklings Battleship anyone? Now we're talkin!
Of course the real reason I'm convinced of Bird's vast superiority is because he defeated a mythological creature at chess. I don't think that's ever been done before in the history of the world. 
14. Bird
- 04/07/2007 12:33 pm CDT
There's all different skill levels in there, Shrode. You should join us.
15. Thunderbird
- 04/07/2007 12:56 pm CDT
Whoa dudes. I used to think Bird and I lived on the same planet since we both like "Star Trek" but now I'm not so sure.
As you should know, Shrode, Spock was a chessmaster.
16. Inklingstar
- 04/07/2007 2:16 pm CDT
Of course, the first time we met Captain Kirk he was beating Spock in chess.
17. De
- 04/07/2007 4:34 pm CDT
"Sometimes it's a lost cause. I think Blo and I are similar in that we'd rather resign then be checkmated."
I hate it when people resign rather than finishing the game properly. It's like they don't want to give you the satisfaction of a checkmate.
More reasons to say . . . DOWN WITH BLO!!!
18. Shrode
- 04/07/2007 4:34 pm CDT
Putting my name and the phrase "skill level" is the ultimate in oxymorons. I don't even know how all the pieces move! (I think I remember mostly.) I don't remember all their names either.
If you've got a second grader category, I'll think about it.
And didn't Spock play 3 dimensional chess?
I want to play "Dom Jot"
19. Bird
- 04/07/2007 5:17 pm CDT
I hate it when people resign rather than finishing the game properly. It's like they don't want to give you the satisfaction of a checkmate.
That's part of it, the other part is that sometimes there's no point in wasting time playing a lost position. Truth be told, I don't resign that often, but Blo did have to talk me into letting him finish his checkmate on the last Thinklings Chess game we played.
20. Inklingstar
- 04/07/2007 7:11 pm CDT
Where is Quaid? The last move was over 24 hours ago. De is waiting. :)
22. blest
- 04/07/2007 7:44 pm CDT
I don't like to resign. I think it's only fair to let the other person have their moment, so to speak. But I have resigned twice now. Once because I had made so many stupid mistakes that I had no hope left and was totally frustrated. I got my opponent's permission to resign for that one. The second was because I had no pieces left but my King - and my opponent was going to (eventually) promote a pawn to a Queen and then chase me down. There was nothing I could do except prolong the game by who knows how many moves waiting to be chased down like OJ in that white Bronco. Sigh.
23. Bird
- 04/07/2007 7:52 pm CDT
Blest, thanks for the game. If I can get past Scott we'll meet again in the Eastern Conference Semi-finals. But that's a big if.
24. blest
- 04/07/2007 8:04 pm CDT
Oh we'll meet again anyway. :-) I just didn't figure we needed to open another game right now what with Easter and the tourney and all.
25. stroke
- 04/07/2007 9:01 pm CDT
shrode,
your description of your prowess sounds like mine... even though you're probably better than me and just being humble. i had to get a crash course before the original tourney and was ouster quickly... i was invited back this time by a second hand invitation... my reputation precedes me!
i'll get another refresher and maybe we can play each other in some exhibitions so we can learn. i'd like to learn and remember this time!
it could be the thinklings center for thinklings who don't chess good. OR we can figure out the whole thinklings trivia thing and start kicking some butt, i'm down with that, too!
28. Milly
- 04/07/2007 10:36 pm CDT
Shrode,
Trivial Pursuit, Battle Ship, Go Fish, Rook. Rummikub!
Bring it on!
Milly The MoonPiest is ready!
29. Maripat
- 04/08/2007 12:22 am CDT
Shrode and Stroke - If you want an even match, I'm always up for a game!
30. Shrode (Chess-a-phobic)
- 04/08/2007 5:02 pm CDT
promote a pawn to a Queen
What in the world!?!?!?! I didn't even know such a thing was possible! Dude, would I get whipped.
Stroke and Maripat, I'm tempted...
Stroke, I'm not being humble on this one. Trust me. The last time I played chess (about 7 years ago) my wife wooped me. I haven't touched it since.
31. De
- 04/08/2007 5:09 pm CDT
Quaid and I have started our tourney game.
Up until now, I've been playing ad-hoc games with people as they came up.
Now it's for real. Dang, I'm nervous . . .
33. Scott
- 04/09/2007 2:32 pm CDT
What in the world!?!?!?! I didn't even know such a thing was possible!
I can think of someone else who's a regular of the Club that found that out the hard way, so you'd be okay.
It's 12:45, we're on move 17.