03 ‘Let the heartaches begin, I can’t help it, I can’t win’, (words of song). 

“We are all strong enough to bear the misfortunes of others”.

“In the misfortune of our best friends, we always find something which is not displeasing to us”.

“I am just going outside and may be some time”

(last words – Scott’s Last Expedition).

04 “I think I should speak to you stranger,

Your problem is clear now to me,

Your think that the whole world’s against you,

And you tell everyone that you see,

Just suffer in silence - speak no bitter words,

The world offers no sympathy,

Though trouble surrounds you and you long to be heard,

Just suffer in silence like me.

I’ll give you a lesson in living,

And I hope it stays with you awhile,

Your the reason for all of your sorrows,

So, just suffer in silence and smile,

Just suffer in silence - speak no bitter words,

The world offers no sympathy,

Though troubles surround you and you long to be heard,

Just suffer in silence like Me!”

(Willie Nelson).

05 “For when the One Great Scorer comes to mark against your name,

He writes – not that you won or lost – but how you played the Game”. 

Exeter Chess Club: Excuses for losing

Excuses for losing: Dan Scoones wrote: Here is my off-the-cuff top ten list:

1.     Dog ate score sheet.

2.     Dead batteries in hidden transmitter. 

3.     Went outside for fresh air, forgot about tournament. 

4.     Disturbed by own reflection in opponent’s sunglasses. 

5.     Still despondent over 1964 death of Fred Reinfeld. 

6.     Inexplicably confused ECO A29 line 13 note 87c with ECO A13 line note 87c; lost queen. 

7.     Unlucky pairing with historical nemesis G. Kasparov. 

8.     During play, pondered both sides of ICC controversy; lost on time. 

9.     Studied book *How to Beat Bobby Fischer*; was unprepared for other opponents. 

10.                        After making move, accidentally punched opponent instead of clock.

Reasons Why You Lose at Chess

by Bill Wall

Here is a list of reasons why people lose at chess…….

backward pawns

bad bishop or bad bishops (locked in)

bad move in a bad position

back rank mate was overlooked

beans for breakfast

boss came in while you were playing on the Internet at work

castled into it

check was overlooked

checkmate threat was overlooked

counterplay was overlooked

created holes

developed my pieces too slowly or not at all

diarrhea during the end game

doubled pawns

endgame technique is weak

en passant move was forgotten

exposed king

faulty exchange

got too fancy

greed

hallucinated or ghost affect

heart attack or stroke

hypnotized by opponent

long diagonal threat was overlooked

mishandled pieces

missed opportunity

neglect of center

noise

opening preparation poor

opponent had no bra

opposition of kings by my opponent

poison pawn or piece was grabbed

positional errors

removed a defender and dropped a piece

sacrifice overlooked

stopped analysis one move short

tactical error; faulty tactics

tempo loss

time pressure                   

transposed opening moves

tried for too much

uncoordinated pieces

underestimated my opponent

unjustified attack

weakened castled King’s position

wrong rook

Giveaway, Losing, Take-All Chess

Also known as: Suicide Chess, Losing Chess, Killer Chess or Take-all Chess. 

This game is one of the most popular chess variants, and probably of great antiquity.   This was one of the chess variants, I used to play a lot as a child, after or before more serious ‘real chess games’ in the chess club I was a member of.    There are claims that many opening moves for white have a forced win for black.  Usually, this is for the variant where a stalemate is a win.   If you know more about this, please tell me!   There are several different variants of rules, and I recall disputes on whether stalemate is a win for the stalemated player or a draw.   Below, we give one set of rules, and mention the variations after that.   The game is, among other places, mentioned in Pritchards Encyclopedia of Chess Variants, under the name Losing Chess. 

See also……. 

• Stan Goldovski's Losing Chess pages.   Link. 
• Strategy for Losing Chess.   Link to page discussing a strategy for a variant of this game.  
• Räuberschach.   Play Giveaway Chess on 6 by 6 board against the computer online.  
• Crazy Chess.   Shareware program playing Giveaway or Losing Chess.   Description by programs author Aleksey Bartashnikov.  
• Andrzej's Suicide Chess page. 
• Fics top 1000 suiciders. 
• Suicide-chess problems.  
• Lenny Taelman's Suicide Chess page.  
• Losing Chess page (in French).  

Rules

The rules below are those commonly used for Suicide Chess. 

• The opening setup is as in normal chess.   All pieces move as in normal chess (but see below for the KI).  
• Capturing is compulsory.   The KI plays no special role in the game, and can be taken as any other piece.   There is no check or checkmate.  
• When a player can capture, but has different choices to capture a piece, he may choose which piece to capture.  
• In the case of stalemate, whichever player has fewer pieces left wins.   If both have the same number, the game is drawn.   The type of pieces makes no difference.  
• Castling is not allowed.  
• PAs may also promote to KIs.  

An alternate version of Suicide Chess……. 

• As above except:
• A player that is stalemated (cannot move) wins the game. 
•  

Variants - Other Variants - Variant One

• As in the standard Suicide Chess rules, except:
• PAs promote only to QUs and stalemate is a draw.

Variant Two

• As in the standard Suicide Chess rules, except:
• The KI can be checked, and mated.   A player may not put his KI in +CH, must escape +CH, and this has priority over capturing.   A player wins when he is checkmated or has only his KI left.   Stalemate is a draw.

Variant Three

• As in Variant Two except:
• The player checkmating wins instead of losing.

Other possible rule variations:

·         Stalemate is a draw.

·         The player that loses his KI first wins the game.

AISE rules

In AISE, this variant is known as Losing Chess, or as ‘Vinciperdi’.   The following is based on text by Andrea Mori integrated by Alessandro Castelli.   This variant was one of the two played in AISE since its founding (the other is Italian Progressive Chess).  Well suited for over-the-board regular and blitz games, it is possibly the most popular variant among general chessplayers.   The rules of this variant are specified above in the standard rules for Suicide Chess, with the following exceptions:

• The game is won by the player who remains without chessmen on the board.   If a player is stalemated (some chessmen on the board but no legal moves available) the game is a draw. 

Another variant

Anders Ebenfelt wrote about the variant of this game, that he played as child:  All rules, as described in the main variant above are valid, with the following exceptions.   When stalemate, the stalemated player does not move but the opponent can if he wish to play for win go on moving and do as many moves he wants to do.   If the stalemate then disappears, both players move again as usual.  So, if white for example has a pawn on H02 and nothing more and black a PA on H03, PA on A07 and ROs on A08 and H08 black can win by moving: 1.-,Rh4 2.-, a5. 3.-, a4 4.- Ra5 5.-,a3 6.-,a2 7.-,a1=R 8.-,Rg1 9.-,Rg3 10.hxg3,h2 11.gxh4,Rg5 12.hxg5,h1=Q 13.g6,Qh7 14.gxh7 and black has won.  This variant has the advantage that there is often dangerous to let the opponent take all pieces but one if the one left is a PA which can be blocked.   The game will then be more complicated, or sophisticated (the strategy is not only to throw away pieces).  When we played like this, also we permitted promotion to all pieces, even KI.  

A variant from the Free Internet Chess Server

On the Free Internet Chess Server, or FICS (telnet), Suicide chess was implemented.  The rules of this variant are specified above in the standard rules for Suicide Chess. 

Another variant

A variant, where one wins when the KI is checkmated, is played on the Internet Chess Club. 

Comments

In international (i.e. non-AISE) events sometimes a game is won by the player who remains without legal moves.   Thus, a stalemate is a win for the stalemated player.   The compulsory captures make long range pieces (in particular the BSs, as practice shows) rather weak.  Some care must be taken in the opening in developing the pieces.   For instance after 1. D03?? black has a forced win (this is an exercise for the interested reader).   Lack of checks and the possible absence of KIs give to the endgames a characteristic flavour.  

The best players

• Roberto Magari (Firenze, 1934 - Siena 1994) seven times AISE champion!  
• Aldo Kustrin (Italy): three times AISE champion.  
• Peter Wood (England): Olympic champion. 

Sample game 

Written by Hans Bodlaender, using texts of Andrea Mori, Alessandro Castelli, and Anders Ebenfelt.   Rules, as used in AISE, were described above.  Thanks to Michael Fischer for drawing my attention to this popular variant.   Thanks to Tim Mann for information on the variant played on the Free Internet Chess Server.   Ross Crawform wrote me about Suicide Chess.  

            David Howe modified the rule groupings to match the more commonly played suicide chess rules.   Based on input from Lenny Taelman.