It's Not Checkers

So, on the New York Times' website, the front and center story is about chess players. Specifically chess players who may or may note be cheating by having outside assistance hidden away in their private bathrooms. Now, I think that the Chess Boxing folks have it right, and we should just have these geeks fight it out. But, I have to say that I admire what's going on. Basically, Player A is killing Player B, but Player A takes a lot of bathroom breaks (which I guess is allowed, since Chess is really boring and players take forever to move). So, Player B protests. Tournament officials decide to lock both private bathrooms, and say that any player can take as many breaks as they want, but need to have a tournament official accompany them into a shared bathroom. Player A thinks that this is bogus, so he forfeits a game in protest, since he was up by 2 games anyway. Controversy ensues.

Now, I can see why Player A isn't fond of this. While I happen to enjoy having people listen to me give birth to little brown children on the toilet, many people get nervous when there's someone else in the bathroom with them. And in fairness, most people think that Player B's protest is just gamesmanship, and not a legitimate gripe. So, Player A's response to just give away a point (and, I'm assuming, proceeding to beat the crap out of Player B anyway) is pretty awesome.

The reason that I'm writing about this is because I have to admit that I've pulled this sort of stunt before. Tennis match back in high school. I was up comfortable against a guy who wasn't very good, but was sort of a punk. I thought that he was cheating me by calling some of my good shots out, but I was in control of the match. So, he was serving, and I called one of his serves out, and he starts moaning about it. So, I give him a replay, proceed to catch his next serve (which was in) with my hand, throw it back to him, and give him the point. Let's just say that you're not supposed to be able to catch a first serve that a guy hits with your hand. It's pretty much me telling him that he hits like a girl, and that I didn't even need a racquet to return it. Then I smashed a couple shots to break his serve, and ended the match soon thereafter. In looking back, it's sort of funny, but it wasn't the most sporting thing in the world to do. So, if anyone from Colonie HS in Albany remembers getting beat by a big Asian dude who was a punk during the match, I'd like to apologize. Of course, if we would have gone to Tennis Boxing, I would have owned him. Tennis players are generally sissies.

-Chairman