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You spring into the pub ...
... It's a beautiful clear warm autumn evening and
London Chess is coming slowly back to life for
another year. New season, new hope. No one
here yet so you order a pint and watch the darts.
The hard graft of the long Summer months must
surely bear fruit this year. Hours spent pouring
over viscous new tricks, traps and easy to play "extra-systemic"
solutions to boring mainstream theory. Some easy points await!
By the end of this season you will be Bottom Board no longer.
You put your heavy briefcase down and slide happily down your
seat. Sipping beer the distant Karaoke music washes over you
and the cares of the long working day slide away into a
daydream ...
You're on a distant planet ...
... and the darts players have lost 10 stones in weight and their
tattoos are hidden with a delicate shiny silver skin. They also
seem to have lost all trace of talent and skill as they pepper the
5 and 1 triangles in-between sips of Perrier. In your fevered
imagination you challenge one to battle. Your "round the clock"
darts skills quickly establish your superiority.
In come your chess team-mates to tear you away from the
darts committee ...
... who are desperately trying to sign you up for their new
season. You are Top Board as usual. There is a film crew here
since you are playing the Planet's Champion of a thousand
orbits, the star sized … "Captain Keeno". The Captain is exuding
extreem confidence and giving interviews while he plays you.
Groupies are filing his nails. You are fazed. In your dreamlike
state you wonder … Am I any good? How good is the Captain?
His first 4 moves stun, amaze, intrigue and fascinate you in
turn ….he's let you in for a mate in 10! ...
... He's rubbish! The other games are no better. It suddenly hits
you … nobody on the face of this beautiful shiny planet can play
chess. And he's on good money from the looks of his suit. You
take a deep breath of the crisp, beer scented Autumn-pure
oxygen and imagine all the things that you will buy, just as soon
as you discover what's on sale. So much to do, so much to win!
Take it easy you tell yourself - throw this game for now, let's
take it slow and easy! The team is going to win anyway and you
can plan your easy ascent to the top later! The Captain duly
wins and proceeds to show the news cameras the finish.
As the camera's flash and whirr ...
... and journalists scribble at one end of the pub,
you notice another news story on the video screen
at the other end. You suddenly realise that, on this
planet at least, there is something that will give you
10 times more fame, money, sex and intellectual
development, than even chess can. As you all toast your first
victory of the new season you notice a clip of the Planet's
favourite popstars getting out of their limousine, a clip of their
latest single is playing … holy Jesus it's worse than Hearsay.
These Barbershop Alien Popstars wouldn't last the day with
Nasty Nigel. You instantly begin to masterplan your career …
first single a little ditty called err … Yesterday? Full of
excitement and confidence you start to sing it to the pub and
there is a gasp as you swoop up and down the scale. They have
never heard anything like it. No wonder McCartney made a mint
back on good old Planet Earth you muse. As the ovation dies
down and the stamping and screaming for an encore reach
alarming levels you launch into Wonderwall … but you are
brought back to earth by a shower of cold beer. One of the
darts players has thrown it at you "Look at the chess nerd …
thinks he's the Karaoke King!"
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