The mark of the true chess player.

The mark of distinction that separates the true chess player from a person that merely plays chess is that the true player will do very stupid things like stay up to play speed chess on-line when he otherwise can't even keep his eyes open or his head up.

It doesn't have to be that specifically, just something of similarly stupid nature - perhaps you stayed too long at the club (by four or five hours) when you knew your wife was making your favorite dinner, or you stayed up all night at the tournament reviewing games when you should have gone to sleep. What it proves is that you have an addiction, as certain as anyone who frequents an opium den. (Do such still exist?)

True players will know from whence I write. My own preferred variety of stupid is that not only will I START playing on-line speed when I'm dead tired, but that after inevitably losing a few games I will insist on not stopping until I have won not one game, but two games in a row. As sure as day follows otis, that's what I'll do. And then I'll blog about.

Time for a little experiment.

How well can a 48 year-old man play online speed chess while blasting Deep Purple?

UPDATE: Probably not the best thing I could have done, but not awful! Up 13 points on the night. The problem stretch came with the Mark II line up. It left me flat until we got to the Machine Head era. (Yeah, you know what I'm talkin' about!) Closed it out with Perfect Strangers, and now it's time to stop, because I think I've finally got that Cardigans song out of my head.

UPDATE 2: Only an idiot would analyze a game of speed chess, and I am that idiot! The last game of the night featured an interesting piece battle. Follow the link, if you dare!