2003-03-23 - 11:23 p.m.

Plush Guardians

Today I went to another little chess tournament about a half mile from my house. These small local tournaments have been doing quite well recently, but from my point of view, it was an unmitigated disaster. I played three games and lost them all. In one of them I was simply outplayed, but in the other two I just disintegrated in time pressure, something that has been happening a lot recently. I'm convinced that I either have some sort of mental problem, or blood sugar is playing hob with my brains. Lovely.

Anyway, among the people at the tournament today was a girl named Amber. My guess is that she's about sixteen. Recently she's been dressing to impress with ripped jeans and belly shirts. Today she was going for the "Stewardess on a coffee break" look with an untucked while blouse and a black mini-skirt. Okay, a fashion critic I'm not. In spite of these affectations, Amber has become quite a strong player and her chess rating has jumped up a lot in the last year.

One of Amber's trademarks is that she brings stuffed animals with her to tournaments, and she sits them by her board as she plays. Often she brings enough beanie babies so that all her friends can have a little plush chess guardian by their boards. Her boyfriend had a sea-green bear in a clown outfit by his elbow. Another friend had a little stuffed moose watching him play.

There was a somewhat larger fuzzy bear sitting by Amber's board. While playing the first round I noticed that the bear's head was tilted so it appeared to be regarding the board with a quizzical look. He seemed to be saying: "Mr. Bear doesn't understand this position at all!"