Chess Poem 14: Cold Day For Chess (Limerick) Poem by Kim Barney

The 2016 Utah Amateur Chess Tournament was held on Saturday,17 December 2016 at the Warnock Engineering Building on the University of Utah campus.It was a four-round Swiss System tournament with a time limit of game in 70 minutes per person with a 5 second delay. My friend Hank (pictured) and I wanted to get home early, so we only played the first three games and took a half-point bye in the final round.After the first two rounds, we each had a win and a loss. In the third round I won early, so I went and watched Hank's game. When I first got there, Hank was two pawns ahead and had 47 minutes left on his clock, and his opponent had only 28. Soon Hank won another pawn and I thought he would cruise to an easy win, but his opponent, who was using a LOT of time, came up with a few surprise moves, and at the end Hank had only one pawn and a king against his opponent's lone king, and was not able to advance the pawn to the queening square, so the game was a draw.After the game the tournament director asked 'Whose clock is this? ' It belonged to Hank's opponent, who had 59 minutes left at the end of the game, whereas earlier, he had only 28 minutes! His clock was programmed incorrectly, to add increments instead of a delay. He should have lost the game on time, but the result stood.If I had been sitting on the other side of the board, where I could also watch the clock, I would have reported it to the tournament director at once.It was so cold in the playing room (and bitter cold outside) that most of us wore our coats the whole time.18 December 2016