Here's a couple of involving my least favourite opponent ... kids.

A long while back, I was playing a league match against a lad of maybe 10 years old or younger, and he was outplaying me! I'd made my move, attacking his Queen with a pawn, and then wandered off to look at the other games. When I came back, I saw my clock was ticking and his Queen was still under attack, and so I whipped it off with a florish. He burst into tears . People came over to see what was happening, and it turned out that after making my move I'd forgotten to press my clock  . So we put his Queen back and carried on. But his game went rapidly down hill after that and he lost.

In the second, this time a young girl who was sitting there with what looked like a book of French vocab, presumably doing her homework for a test the next day. Occassionally she'd look up, see that I'd moved, and make her move quickly before going back to her revision as she proceeded to wipe me off the board with a ferocious attack. Maybe the worst insults are the ones given innocently. I'm pleased to say that she's now an IM, so I don't feel so bad about it

A teammate of mine once had to play against a blind guy (very interesting to see how that is done) after his win they went on analysing. As he had made quite a nice sacrifice, he was very eager to show that off. So when the aforementioned sacrifice came up in the analysis, he yelled (or rather said loudly) out: "You didnt SEE that one coming, did you?" When he realised what he had said he went on to apologise, but his opponent hadnt even taken notice. As he explained a bit later many blind people were used to using "visual" words anyway.

GM Walter Browne, a once feared Najdorf practitioner, was notorious for showing up late for the start of his games and scrambling in his first few moves. 

In one memorable tournament in St. Maarten, Browne true to form arrived half an hour late for his game an upon rushing to his table and seeing one 1.e4, he instanltly flashed out his predicted reply 1..c5 and in the process sent all the pieces and the board flying. Needless to say this commotion created quite a stir in the tournament hall and play had to be delayed for some minutes. Further investigation revealed that some clever dickens had glued Black's c pawn to c7.

My only question is, was this home preparation on White's part or was it an over the board novelty.   

Toppy

In one blitz tournament I participated in I witnessed a particularly intense time scramble, where in the melee White who was a queen up and winning easily, promoted a pawn only to mistakenly put on a black queen, his opponent quick to exploit this unexpected gift later mated him with it. 

True story

Tops

Time to rehabilitate this thread with some more humor 

Upon visiting a primary school chess tournament in my country I noticed two kids in particular, heads cradled in hands and both deep in concentration. Greatly impressed by this and assured that the future of chess was in safe hands I examined the Board only to find that both Kings had been exchanged!!   

The result?....Draw agreed of course

Toppy

Smyslov_Fan wrote on 08/23/06 at 07:20:35:


I wish there was! but unfortunately no. My theory is that such players play on with the hope that you would blunder later on, thus allowing them a 2nd chance. Or if they have gained time on you, they play on so that your flag would drop 1st thus they win the game instead despite being in a hopeless posn! (experiences at Yahoo hv at least proven the 2nd point!) 

I played a higher rated player on Yahoo once, 25 mins control. I gave the guy the initiative after some mistake somewhere, but somehow managed to put up a strong, stout defense which usually really isnt in my nature to do so. Seeing no way to break it down, he saced a piece wrongly & that gave me back the initiative & a winning endgame posn. Unfortunately in trying to avoid his attempted perpetuals & being short of time (I had 1 min to his 5 mins) I blundered & lost 2 pawns w/o compensation & the game due to the flag drop. Maybe I should have just settled for the perpetual or draw by repetition instead of trying to escape & push for the win! Oh! the benefit of hindsight!

MNb wrote on 08/11/06 at 13:27:16:


This is easily the best one I've seen so far...I am now just waiting for the right time and place to employ it!

I don't think that I've ever had such an imaginative comment sent my way.  After a recent game though, I offered to look over the position with my opponent, who was rated a bit less than I.  Unexpectedly, his knowledge of the line was quite deep, and I expressed amazement that the line was known to theory, since it turned out so badly for White.  He quickly explained how things went wrong for him:

"Oh, well, this move isn't book, it's better to play like this.  I just thought that you'd grab the pawn."

Well, I may be a patzer but the taking the pawn was *very* obviously wrong...in fact, I could calculate the resulting lines all the way to mate!  So I'd count this as an insult, but perhaps less intentional or more subtle than your typical blitz banter...

How very confusciating