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Chessville
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Thompson's Dilemma We used to have a chap called Thompson in our chess club and he took the game very seriously. He wasn’t a particularly strong player, but had dark brown eyes and a piercing stare - a bit like Tal’s - which many people thought was worth pawn and move. If you got into a conversation about openings or endgames with Thompson you could look forward to at least half an hour of serious and intense discussion. One night he came into the club and announced that he had taken up correspondence chess, a competition had just been started by his trade union. Three players, each to play a game against two other players, were required to form a team, and Thompson had persuaded a couple of his workmates to participate. They weren’t regular players, but Thompson had assured them that he would keep them right if necessary. This was in the days before email chess and moves had to be sent by post using a score card with provision for the addresses of yourself and your opponent. After writing your move on the card you popped it into a window envelope so that your opponent’s address was displayed. You then put on a stamp and posted it. Your opponent then replied by reversing the card so that your address appeared in the window. For a few weeks Thompson brought his games to the club and would sit and analyze them, showing them to anyone who expressed the slightest interest. After a time everyone kept well out of the way while Thompson analyzed his games, and it seemed to take him longer and longer each week. I discovered that Thompson’s colleagues had soon tired of postal chess and wouldn’t play any more. Rather than drop out of the competition, Thompson had taken over their games as well as his own. I suppose six games aren’t too many to handle but they seemed to be too much for Thompson. He would sit in the corner of the club room, produce a sheaf of envelopes and move pieces around the board with the appearance of a juggler trying to manipulate one object too many. This went on for several months, and then one night I was careless enough to let myself be drawn into conversation with Thompson. I felt rather like that chap in the poem about the Ancient Mariner as Thompson told me about his dilemma: “He holds him with his glittering eye... He cannot choose but hear.” It seemed that all of the games were going reasonably well, and then complications had arisen in one of them. Thompson had achieved what he considered to be a favourable position and was quietly confident of winning that particular game, but he made a serious blunder. He received the game through the post and quickly spotted a strong move. Having marked it on the score card he posted it the next day. Unfortunately he put the card into the window envelope the wrong way round and posted it to himself. The game consequently appeared on his doormat the next morning. Thompson, somewhat confused by playing more games than he could cope with, carefully played it through and made a move. He then posted it off, to his opponent this time, not realizing he had replied to his own move. Thompson’s opponent, who perhaps was also new to postal chess, received the game, played it through and made a move, unaware that he was now playing as White in a game he had started as Black. The game went on for a while until Thompson’s opponent suddenly realized that he had changed colours. With his next move he enclosed a note to Thompson saying, “Hey, wasn’t I playing as Black when we started this game?” Thompson, after some investigation, saw what had happened and wrote to explain to his opponent. At the same time he proposed that as the game now appeared to be level they should continue as it was - to avoid complications! (Thompson had presumably neutralized his own strategy.) The opponent agreed and thus the game continued until the date for adjudication was reached. Thompson was now feeling very aggrieved as he was material down with a very poor position. He was reluctant to resign and so had sent the game for adjudication with a letter of explanation which went something along the lines of:
Somehow I managed to keep a straight face while Thompson was telling me his tale of woe but I must confess to breaking down several times as I was telling it to my friend on the way home. We never did find out what the result of the adjudication was - Thompson never said. Rumor had it that the adjudicator defaulted both players on the grounds of an impossible and insoluble position, then retired from chess, a broken man. Needless to say, Thompson’s dilemma has entered into the folklore of our club, and if anyone thinks the atmosphere is getting too serious he has only to mention Thompson’s postal game to cause instant merriment. I still burst out laughing about it sometimes at home, much to the disgust of my wife who thinks chess is a silly game. So before you send off your postal chess moves, always make sure that you are still playing the colour that you started with. And if your opponent is called Thompson, double check (usually a good move anyway.)
(With apologies to all correspondence chess
players called Thompson.)
Copyright R. Canter, 2001 This story was first published in Correspondence Chess No 135, the journal of the British Correspondence Chess Association. It is reproduced here with the kind permission of the BCCA.
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