Comments on: They Shoot Horses… Don’t They?

By: Greg Braylovskiy

Greg Braylovskiy — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 15:14:25 +0000

Yep, switching is tricky – I had the same problem in my game with Milman in 2005. Btw, I was very confident/hopeful that Dave would play 41. Ne4, which looks really good in time pressure… consolidating and attacking weak f6 square at the same time… but loses immediately to 41… Bb5. Also, talking about faulty chronology… everybody who commented on our match has the games finishing in the board order (4,3,2,1), when in fact it was(4,3,1,2). Not that it makes much difference.

By: David Vigorito

David Vigorito — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 13:45:28 +0000

the disconnection did occur after the blunder indeed. for me the real “cause” of the blunder was me switching from the real board to the computer screen. this was my first game in the USCL and it was very disorienting to switch from a board and pieces to an unfamiliar computer screen with just a couple of minutes. I basically froze, and later I was told I actually thought myself down to 8 seconds before producing the blunder. At least it wasn’t losing!

By: Greg Shahade

Greg Shahade — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 15:31:20 +0000

Gregory is correct about the timing of the disconnection, it happened after Qc3.

By: Mark La Rocca

Mark La Rocca — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 12:25:19 +0000

I apologize for the innaccuracy. In the excitement of Jorge’s game and Dave’s disconnect, I just assumed that the reason for Dave’s blunder was after the disconnect. But, I still think we need a better way to recover from these every match occurrences.

By: Ilya Krasik

Ilya Krasik — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 05:11:38 +0000

I am not sure Greg is correct about the move at which the disconnection happened. I do remember, Dave panicking a bit because he had just lost two minutes on his clock when the play resumed and was under 1 min, instead of having almost 3. I wanted to tell him in my best Bob Marley impersonation, “it will be ol rite mun”, but I realized it’s not gonna really help so I went to look for Matt instead In general, I’ve been involved in many games where such disconnections occurred, often multiple times during a single game, and even though you know they will fix things and make it right it still kind of plays tricks with your confidence and concentration. I agree with Mark that Dave played very well and should have won the game.

By: Greg Braylovskiy

Greg Braylovskiy — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 04:41:57 +0000

Since you’re making such a big deal of the disconnection in my game – just want to correct you: it occurred after white’s 42nd move in a drawn position, so had no effect on the end result. It’s true that Dave was winning before, simplest of all with 38. Bd3. Also, I had many possible improvements, for example 29… Bd4 or 34… Ned3.