My first stalemate PDF Print E-mail
Written by Sciurus   
Saturday, 01 March 2008

It is quite unbelievable that it took me more than 2 years to end a game with stalemate.

pirate stalemate
Photo "Stalemate" by redheaded pirate
I read about it and saw a bunch of endgame problems involving stalemate. But I never experienced it myself. Luckily enough, I was on the "winning" side of it. I was playing blitz at the Internet Chess Club (ICC) and had a rather nice game until I made one of my usual blunders. This got me into a totally lost endgame. Normally, I would have resigned right away and thanked my opponent for the game. However, I was so upset that I decided to wait and see if this guy messes up, too. After all, I am not playing against chess masters but more patzers like myself. After a couple of moves, my king had lost all his men and it got pretty lonely on the board. As my mouse pointer hovered over the resign button, I remembered that there is still the chance of stalemate and started moving my king into the corner. And I got lucky. This is one of the moments where I am very hesitant to thank my opponent for the game - I really mean it without any sarcasm, but who knows how it will be perceived on the other side? Anyway, my first (half-) point in a blitz game since a long time! Click here to see the game (Around move 35 you can see the main reason for my blitz rating hitting an all-time low in the triple digits...).

Comments (6)Add Comment
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written by acme, March 04, 2008
Criminy - I find myself on the "losing" end of stalemates far too often.
Definitely need to work on the focus over here!
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written by Chess Teaching, March 06, 2008
I think that the fact that you remembered that there is still a chance of stalemate and started to move your king into the corner makes it more than a lucky draw.
You made a plan, played the moves that fit within the plan and succeeded.
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written by chessloser, March 11, 2008
wow, a real no kidding stalemate. i can't tell if that is super awesome or not. on one hand, it means you guys were evenly matched, almost a "perfect game" so that is great. on the other hand, it would be, for me, frustrating. congratulations?
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written by chessloser, March 11, 2008
also, it's awesome that you got it. i've tried to get a stalemate and only ended up losing extra badly, so that is a testament to your chess prowess...
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written by Sciurus, March 13, 2008
Chessloser-
well, if you look at the game you will see that I totally messed it up and got lucky in the end, so certainly no "perfect game" here, not even in my standards.

But hey, you are right that it is cool that I got the stalemate. May be I just give up to easy and should play on more instead of resigning. On the other hand, I don't enjoy defending much. But I guess with a bad attitude like that my rating will never rise...
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written by likesforests, March 14, 2008
Good job. Apparently, your opponent forgot he had an extra knight. smilies/wink.gif

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Last Updated ( Saturday, 01 March 2008 )
 
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