Battle Chess!

One of the guys who used to come into the pub was a guy called Willie Work. No, really, that was his name. He was what you would affably call ‘a drunken eejit’. A really friendly chap who would speak to anybody (and everybody!) and wouldn’t say a bad word about anybody. He moved away from the area (in fact about as far away as you can on mainland Britain) 2 or 3 years ago now, and I haven’t heard from him since. But, there you go…

Willie used to come into the pub in the afternoons when it was quiet, and he was daft for playing draughts (or checkers as it’s known in the US). He was really quite good at it, and his boasts often filled the room. After yet another trouncing by him, I declared that “draughts is a kid’s game” and that we should play something more high-brow – Chess!

I was working so we set the board up across the bar-top, and away we went. The game started closely, until I made a rash move to spring a surprise on Willie and he countered with a fine fork on my King and Queen with his Knight. Blast! I had to forfeit my Queen and was now staring defeat in the face. What could I do? I decided to just wait my time, and capitalise on Willie's inevitable mistake……

….And it never arrived. He had the game sewn up and I seriously considered conceding.

By now, the bar was quite busy and a keen interest in the outcome of the game had kindled.

Seizing my chance to serve some thirsty customers, while still thinking about my predicament, I pour a pint for The Professor and go to hand it to him and, not looking properly, proceed to hit the side of the chess-board with the pint glass, knocking the (now rapidly emptying) glass out of my hand and all over the chess board, pieces flying everywhere, and foaming lager dripping all over the place. Cue uproar.

The look on Willie's face as he saw victory cruelly snatched from his grasp was hilarious, for most of us anyway! He just stared, open-mouthed for a few seconds, then erupted....

“What have you done? You’ve ruined it! I was on the point of winning that game! You cheating bar-steward!”.

“I’m sorry Willie; it was just one of those things! I didn’t mean to do it!” I weakly offered.

Of course, we could never remember exactly how the pieces were positioned so we couldn’t reassemble the board and carry on. Thankfully. Willie managed to calm down after I offered to buy him a pint, and soon after he managed to see the funny side of it all.

It only took Willie a few days further to gain revenge. I’d like to say that I let him win out of sympathy, but I can’t as it would be a lie. Fair and square, as they say.

After that, every time Willie got into a good position during a game he was kindly reminded to memorise the position ‘just in case anything should happen’!