Losing Cool

One time at a chess tournament the guy I was playing wasn’t very good so during the times when I was waiting for my opponent to move I paid a lot of attention to other matches going on.

The most interesting match of the round was going on right next to me.

My friend Al, a very good player, was playing someone who also was very good. Their game was going slowly. The opening had progressed with almost no exchanges and the mid-game had evolved into a complex struggle for control of the center.

Time ticked away as Al and his opponent carefully considered every move.

In tournament chess, players typically get two hours to make their first 40 moves. (Each player is timed independently. Their clock only runs when it is their turn.)

Al and his opponent were both taking their time, but Al was taking more time. As my own game dragged through a routine mid-game and end-game, the match next to me remained mired in a complex mid-game as my friend Al’s clock edged closer to the two hour mark.

I actually slowed down my play so I could continue to watch the match next to me. I was not in time trouble, so I just pretended to be thinking carefully about my moves.

When the two hour mark came around for my friend Al, the flag on his clock—those were the days of mechanical clocks—tipped up, worked past the warning period and fell as he continued to think carefully about a move.

Although the position on the board was evenly matched, my friend Al had lost “on time.” His two hour allotment of time had run out before he reached his 40th move. Al lost. He and his opponent stood up, stopped their clocks and shook hands. But after talking a bit, they agreed—just for fun—to finish playing out the game without the clocks, just to see how the mid-game would work out itself.

That was the first time I ever saw anyone lose a chess match “on time.”

It’s difficult to describe the shock I felt watching Al’s flag fall. I quickly finished up my game. I won, and went outside to get some air. I never even bothered to ask Al who won his game when they played out the position.

When I did talk to Al later, I asked him what the heck he’d been thinking of. I said, “There are lots of ways to get moves out when you’re in time trouble. You can concentrate on advancing pawns. Or you can do even exchanges to simplify the board. Why did you let yourself lose on time?”

Al took a breath and just kind of shrugged. “The position was so beautiful,” he said, “that I didn’t want to spoil it with, you know, techniques. Everything was so complicated and pure that I thought it was better to just let things run their course, and lose, rather than to muddy up the beauty of the game with trivial moves just to get out from under time trouble.”

“But you lost,” I said.

“Yeah,” Al said. “One game. But I got to play it out. It was worth it.”

I’ve always remembered that tournament. I have almost no memory at all of how I did in my other matches. But I remember the match I played sitting next to Al. And I remember his game and our talk about his game. I think about it often. And not just when I’m thinking about chess or games in general.



*

“Southern Cross,” by CSN


Got out of town on a boat
to the southern islands,
sailing a reach
before a following sea.
She was making for the trades
on the outside
on the downhill run
to Papeete.

Off the wind on this heading
lie the Marquesas.
We got eighty feet of the waterline
nicely making waves.
In a noisy bar in Avalon
I tried to call you.
But on a midnight watch I realized
why twice you ran away.


Think about—
Think about how many times
I have fallen.
Spirits are using me,
larger voices calling.
What heaven brought you and me
cannot be forgotten.

I have been around—
I have been around the world
looking—
looking for a woman-girl
who knows it will—
who knows love can endure.

And you know it will—
And you know it will.


When you see the Southern Cross
for the first time
you understand now
why you came this way.
Cause the truth you might be running from
is so small
but it’s as big as the promise,
the promise of a coming day.

So I’m sailing for tomorrow,
my dreams are a-dying.
My love is an anchor tied to you,
tied with a silver chain.
I have my ship
and all her flags are a-flying.
She is all that I have left
and MUSIC is her name.


Think about—
Think about how many times
I have fallen.
Spirits are using me,
larger voices calling.
What heaven brought you and me
cannot be forgotten.

I have been around—
I have been around the world,
looking—
looking for that woman-girl
who knows it will—
who knows love can endure.

And you know it will—
And you know it will.


So we cheated and we lied
and we tested.
We never failed to fail,
it was the easiest thing to do.
You will survive being vested.
Somebody fine
will come along
make me forget about loving you

at the Southern Cross . . .