I never played more than a few trivial games of backgammon, usually at a party where nobody brought enough beer and most of us got tired of the same old jokes to the point of looking for almost anything to do other than "conversation."

Chess was a little more interesting, and I'd played a few lunch hour games at the office, but ...

Several of the office buddies kept pressuring me to come to their chess club, so one night I decided to humor them and went, mostly as a "courtesy" visit.

It turned out that the newly crowned State Champion showed up to "play the club" that night. He started out going around the room playing against about 30 of us, and everyone seemed amazed that as the night dragged on I was the next to last one playing against him. I KNEW he had me beat by the third or fourth move, but had accidentally picked an opening response that needed a whole bunch of moves to get to a conclusion, and kept playing only out of curiosity. It would have been the courteous thing to do to resign a lot sooner of course, but I was curious to see a few more moves.

I conceded when someone figured out that the other guy still playing was a former State Champion and long term Grand Master. (Sort of "ringer.") Their game eventually ended in a draw because the management turned out the lights, with both of them agreeing that neither of them could come to a conclusion about whether either of them had sufficient piece power left to force a win.

Never could get anyone else at the office to play another game with me, despite all of my attempts to explain that it was just an accident that I quite stupidly blundered into. Only had a few later occasions when anyone else was very interested in any kinds of board games.

Someone who actually knew a little about the game told me later that my opening defensive moves had a name that was well known, and I think I looked it up and decided he probably was right. But I've forgotten what it was called.

John