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Okay, I have already offered two other pictures with the same subject, so why a third one? Well, to tell the truth, I liked it and it appears to nicely capture the activity of the day. I have experienced this type of scene in New York City, and just really enjoyed going from table to table to watch the progress of the games. You will notice that the pair in the foreground are not playing with a clock. I always found this to be the most difficult way to play. Without a clock I feel pressured into making a move because of an artificial deadline, but with a clock when I see that my position is lost, I can move quickly in the hopes of running out my opponent’s clock.
A couple of posts back I noted that Portland enjoys chess and showed a large set. This image is of a normal sized set in a public area, with a rather intense game in progress. This was one of three games in the same area and was probably a five minute game (a game where each player has five minutes to make all of their moves – go beyond that limit and the game is forfeit). The pressure is not only in the game itself, but also playing in front of a number of people intently watching the moves. In this game the black pieces prevailed in a well played game, with scattered applause at the end.
I spent last week attending a conference in Portland, Oregon. The differences between that city and Baltimore would take a book to innumerate, so I will not try doing that here, but it was a great deal of fun to note them. Amongst being an exceptionally bike-friendly city, it appears to be one that enjoys chess. As one who occasionally imbibes in the challenge, I watched a number of games. One difficult way of playing is to use over sized pieces, as was the case in this particular image. Despite the fact that white has an easy win in this position, a major blunder was made that turned the tide to an eventual loss. Playing chess in a non-standard format makes things considerably more difficult and easier to miss the obvious, so it is hard to blame the player.
The light on the building behind them did not escape my notice, and I will post an image in the future that shows a little more of that interesting occurrence.
