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English Chronicles 2025 26printed 101 · PDF 107
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printed 101 · PDF 107
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I saw your game too; you played a terrible opening, ha-ha. If you want to
get better at chess, you can come over to my house tomorrow,” he said. I
thought famous people didn’t make these offers, but why wouldn’t I agree?
The next day, I found myself playing chess with him.
“Now, yes, your opening was painful to watch but here’s the thing. ” he
said, “After looking at your game, I peeked at the game between the people
to the left of you for some 10 seconds and then I was going to check on the
game of those on your back when the corner of my eye caught something.
You had your opponent in check. And after I had analyzed the game of the
entire row, and was going back, I saw your game once again. Then I saw it:
a draw, but you HAD won if you had played just one more move.” “Yeah,
I'm pretty good at ch-” I couldn’t complete my sentence. “You're amazing!
Whatever your name is, but you are,” Ralph continued. “Did you not
realize that you took half the time on the clock as your opponent, and then
you led him to a draw without even opening with E4 or D4, the Chesser’s
jewels? Do you even know who your opponent was? Your opponent has an
ELO rating of around 2400. “Oh wow, I had no clue of that up un-” I tried
to add on, but I was interrupted again. “Do you seriously not know about
him? He was the grandmaster who refused to play against me.
Listen, do you want to be my teammate for all my dual competitions?” He
asked me as if we weren’t strangers. And I agreed, as if I didn’t just
randomly get offered team membership to the best chess player in my state.
Fast-forward to today, when I am writing this as a tribute to him, it's
Ralph’s son's birthday. Ralph himself would’ve been 46 years old today, but
cancer finally brought the King down last year, on this very day. Now let’s
go back a bit…
AC Chronicles
101