his position comes from the game Martin Bruedigam (2342) vs Uwe Ritter (1945), Lichtenberger Sommer, Round 1, August 16, 2014.

 

 

   Today I would like to talk about the world of "fantasy sports".  

 

   If you have been reading my newsletter for a while, you know that I love playing fantasy sports.

 

   Fantasy football is a lot of fun, but my real love is fantasy baseball.

 

   I think that there are a lot of similarities between chess and fantasy sports.

 

   Both started off as "games for nerds", and have worked to become more "mainstream".  I think that Fantasy sports has been much more successful at this.  Millions of people now play fantasy sports, and it is growing every year. 

 

   I know a fair number of chess players who are also into fantasy sports.  Paul Anderson takes off a few months each year from writing his excellent Colorado Springs Chess Newsletter, http://cschess.webs.com/, so he can focus on his fantasy football teams.  David Couture, who wrote the excellent book, Progressive Tactics: 250 Progressively Challenging Chess Tactics and I have corresponded about how well certain baseball players are doing (like David Ortiz, who is having another monster year for my fantasy baseball team).

 

   I recently read the book Fantasy Life: The Outrageous, Uplifting, and Heartbreaking World of Fantasy Sports from the Guy Who's Lived It by Matthew Berry.  It is a great book, and I highly recommend it.

 

   One thing that the fantasy world "gets" is that people love the STORIES.  This book is packed with funny stories - like a league where the loser has to get a tattoo that the winners pick.  The guy who lost two years ago had to get a Justin Bieber tattoo.  Other loser tattoos have featured care bears and unicorns.

 

   Now that is funny!

 

   With the chess world, I think too many of the stories I read are focused on analysis of the games, which can be interesting, but not the kind of thing that is likely to go "viral", like the above tattoo story.

 

   Brian Wall has been writing hilarious chess emails for over a decade, and he has told me that people rarely go over the analysis, but everyone loves the stories. https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/BrianWallChess/info 

 

   I love a good chess story. Here is a fun one that just happened this weekend...

 

   National Master Brian Wall has been playing "The Lemming" all year - 1...Na6 in response to everything.

 

   DuWayne Langseth, who is a very "positional" style player, and endgame guru, has been telling Brian for months - "if you play that **** against me, I am going to snap that Knight off with Bxh6, and then set up my pawns with XYZ, and win in the endgame".

 

   DuWayne had a perfect plan, and was talking sh*t about Brian's opening for weeks (which is the kind of thing that happens in fantasy leagues all the time).

 

   Last Friday, DuWayne and Brian got paired in a quick tournament that Shirley Herman put together at the Village Inn (similar to a Denny's for those not in Colorado), and DuWayne did exactly what he said he would (scoring a 600 point upset, since DuWayne's quick rating is only in the 1600s, and Brian is in the 2200s).  DuWayne's regular rating is over 2000, and he prefers slower time controls.

 

   I commented on facebook:

 

   You can see the Lemming roadkill game here: https://denverchess.com/Games/ViewPGN?id=5907

 

   The fantasy world is filled with people "smack talking", and then either backing it up, or failing miserably.  And I love stories like that!  

 

   With chess, it is often not just if you win or lose, but how you win or lose.  There is a fun expression here in Colorado, where you make the person "bleed their own blood", which was made popular by Brian and Jeff Baffo.  This is taken from the movie Dodgeball, and here it means when you use someone's opening against them (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sk2fXsnzirI).   Baffo for example plays 1.Nc3, which is pretty rare, so if you play 1.Nc3 against Baffo you are trying to make him bleed his own blood (which gives you the right to brag even more when the game is over!)  I tried to make Brian bleed his own blood at the Monument Open playing 1...a6! against him, which is an opening he played in all of 2013 (and I got a draw, which was cool).

 

   So I think instead of looking to poker as a role model to grow chess in popularity, I think that the chess world should be looking at the world of fantasy sports, and focus on the fun stories.   Both are a tremendous amount of fun.

 

 

   Here is the game in PGN

 

 

   P.S. The Colorado Open is this weekend in Denver!  This is the biggest tournament of the year here, which decides the state champ.  My "wing man" Francisco Baltier is coming in from Tucson to play, which should be fun! http://www.coloradochess.com/newtourn.shtml#851

 

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