Many years ago Grandmaster John Emms wrote an article for the British chess magazine Kingpin with the same title as this blog post, arguing that playing chess on his birthday was a bad idea and noting that the results on his birthday were always poor. After a recent birthday of mine, I think he might have been on to something. My birthday wish that day was to have plenty of time to play chess, and I got it. As the cliche goes, be careful what you wish for.
https://lichess.org/study/eezgtSd4
I've lost games before where I didn't make any really bad blunders, but I don't recall any where I've been blown off the board so easily and completely. I didn't play well, but I didn't really play badly either, and yet after an opening inaccuracy or two I got steamrolled. I never had the slightest chance.
Later in the afternoon I went to the local chess club's weekly meeting. They usually have an informal blitz tournament so I joined in. It was four rounds and I lost every game. This is not unusual in itself; I'm usually one of the lowest-rated players there, especially in blitz. I even lost all the skittles games beforehand and afterward. My opponents didn't appear to be challenged at all; in many of the games I lost on time and had a much worse position on the board while my opponents had more than two minutes left (the time control was 3/2). In some cases after my clock expired my opponents let me keep playing just to see what would happen, but my positions were usually so bad by that point that additional time didn't help as I was already lost.
Happy Bloody Birthday indeed. Maybe next year I'll stay home and eat cake. If they'll let me.
