It's not that clever, but when I'm winning a casual game I like to say, in my best bad guy voice, "Everything is proceeding exactly as I have foreseen."  For some reason, song lyrics and movies lines seem to spring to mind while I play, and if they're relevant I'll say them aloud (like the one above).

Quote:


The other day I bought a 2nd hand chessbook, and inside was a couple of pages from an old Swedish newspaper (1950-60s) with a 2 page story about 'the first great chesstournament - London 1851', just below the headline it says in bold

Den tyske doktorn Adolf Anderssen segrade men beskylldes av en besviken medtävlare för att ha spelat dåligt

or in english: The german doctor Adolf Anderssen won but was accused by a disappointed competitior of having played badly

Apparantly the need to diminish the opponent's effort has always been greater than the vanity of the own ego. - As losing to a bad player is hardly flattering... 

Another common loser reaction is something like: 'If you'd resigned when you were supposed to, I wouldn't have lost!' 

Yes that's a really good one, but I find it difficult to believe. If the game truly does exist it would be nice to know how Kholmov continued. Maybe at this point the desperate 4. ...Ktxe5 is the best chance...

True story from an Open Swiss:

2500+ rated GM shows up for his first round game, an unable to hide his disdain for his opponent exclaims "But your'e only 2200!!''.... To which his quick witted opponent calmly replied "Don't worry, after this game it will be higher".

That one has always stuck with me.  

Topster

Smyslov_Fan wrote on 08/11/06 at 13:13:07:


Oh my!  This is why I stick to correspondence chess...   

Even there, we're not spared the chicanery.  I had an opponent who turned down a premature draw offer only to land himself in hot water.  It was just after I had left Philadelphia to return to Canada.  He was furious that the postage rate should go up and that I was costing him money he didn't want to spend, so he submitted an illegal move and "gave" me a draw.  When I told him I thought I had a winning position and wanted to play on, he became rather rude (this is all on postcards, by the way), he told me the game was a forced draw and that was the end of our correspondence.  I told him I didn't "see" his drawing resources and played the winning move (which he might not have seen), I never heard from him again.

Then there was the other opponent who was upset that the American Postal Chess Tournament should let a Canadian play...

This is an interesting topic.  I hope it fills out...

Here's something from a couple of years ago that might be a bit off topic but really deserves a telling:

I arrived about 10 minutes late to an early first round to find my opponent had played 1.e4.
He was a kid (probably 11-12 years old) and I had no idea what his rating was.

Anyway, I had just spent a lot of time studying the Najdorf (about 2-3 weeks of intense study) but wasn't sure if I was willing to give it a go yet.  Also, some younger players know a lot about fashionable openings and usually have an excellent memory but don't do as well in older or "boring" defenses.   
So, I thought maybe I should play a Pirc or maybe I really ought to play solid via 1...e5.
Anyway, I sat there thinking about my first move for several minutes.  The kid had started glancing up at me from time to time, but after these few minutes he was staring right at me as if to say "Oh my god, you don't know what to play against e4? "

Then he starts breathing fairly heavy (i.e. sighing as if to say "Whatever....just hurry up and move already.")

Well, since I thought it was bothering him, I decided to spend a couple more minutes (a la Lasker) just to see how much. 
He keeps on sighing but stops staring at me, so I play 1...d6 and we get into it.

For the entire game, the kid was tapping his pencil, swallowing really loudly (what a strange habit), and of course, his perpetual sighing.  Since I had the better position I tried to not let it really bother me but the people on the board next to us kept looking over at my opponent and either rolling their eyes or giving him a stern 'that's enough of that' look.   
Kids today...

Anyway, to make a long story short, my opponent misplayed a combination and was down a piece for a pawn.  I traded off the queens and rooks which left me with connected outside passers (that was fun) and absolutely no problems.   But he played it out and kept banging, tapping, and sighing the whole time.  Usually, when a game is over I ask my opponent if they want to go to the skittles room and have a postmordem, but I had no desire to spend any more time with this semi-rude little kid.
As I was waiting for the elevator this man comes up to me and asks me if I could say something about why his son had lost the game. Next to him is the aforementioned child and I'm not sure what to say.  ("Is his dad going to berate me or something?")

So, I simply said that I thought he played too quickly in the early middlegame (we had about 2 hours for the entire game but the kid was still blitzing when he was obviously 'out of book').  Also, he started his kingside attack before developing all his pieces.
At this point the man turns to his kid and starts using sign language to translate what I just said.
Now it hits me... the kid is deaf.   
He has no idea how loud he is!   
He wasn't being a "pest" at all. 

Needless to say, I was very glad that I didn't complain about his noise during the game.  That would have been an ugly little scene.

One time in a casual over the board game I had someone tell me that I was "hovering over the board, throwing them off of their game" and that "they thought I was a beginner after I lost that knight" after I won a few games against them.  Online I usually say "gg" or "thanks for the game" after the game no matter what the results are (unless they blunder a queen or fall for a checkmate in 1, in which case I would say "hate when that happens, thanks for the game though").  Occasionally I get insults/excuses such as "don't you gg me when I give you a piece" when my opponent lost a rook in an attack that doesn't quite work or "you're the most boring person I've played with" and then a paragraph of why I'm the most boring person they've played with after I won a game in something like 70 moves.

One time I sent a message calling someone "cheap" after I lost on time being up a rook and bishop in a rapid 10 game online.  My opponent just moved their rook to keep checking my king to create diversions and just moved his king around.  I still think it was an incredibly cheap way to play, although I guess maybe that's acceptable in such short time limit games.