Stalemate

Dave: 6
Chessica: 31
Stalemate: 1

I fought Chessica to a tie game this morning, a stalemate. And even then, it was because we'd gone 70-something moves, and I think we could've gone another 100 moves. I had my King and a Rook, she had her King and a Bishop -- purely on points, I had the edge on her, which felt like a victory, given that Chessica had me on the ropes in the middle game, with something like seven Pawns all trying to get promoted to Queen. She managed to promote two to Queen, but I wasted both of them, and them methodically took down the other five Pawns until that endgame scenario, where we then fought across the board awhile, before I aced her Bishop with my Rook, and she aced my Rook with her King, leaving us King-to-King, which is a stalemate.

So, playing for a tie after a game I should've lost actually felt like a victory, and was pretty satisfying, given where I was in the middle game. Playing against a computer (which doesn't make mistakes), it's nice to be able to get around it and force the tie.

I'm strongest in the middle game, so I was pleased that I managed to play a solid endgame against overwhelming odds.

I checked Chessica's levels out, and I'm playing at Level 15, which sounds swell, although Chessica has something like 136 levels of play available, capable of beating 99% of chess players, like a rating of 2000. So, I've got a long, long way to go. When I first played Chessica at Level 1, I smoked it in like three moves, so Level 1 is for pikers; after that win, I cranked it up to 15 and that's where it's been since then. I won't up the level until I can up my wins enough to where I can consistently beat Chessica, so with the 5:1 ratio still holding, it'll be awhile, though today's stalemate was a promising development in our ongoing contention.

I'll fight to the bitter end, rather than taking a dive, even against a superior adversary -- "surrender" is a four-letter word to me. It always bugs me when I read matches where the other player resigns because they lose a key piece. Those wusses who resign because somebody nabbed their Queen? C'mon, deal with it. You fight until either you're dead, or the opponent's wasted. Win or die. Don't give me that resignation stuff. I think it's something to do with playing for points at the tournament level, like these guys don't want to lose points by fighting on or something like that. It has to be something like that, but if I'm beaten, I want to be actually defeated, rather than raising the white flag and saying "You win!"

But then, I'm from Rohan. Surrender is just so Gondorian, all milk-livered and whey-faced.

Bored, yet?

To quote Vizzini from A Princess Bride: "Wait til' I get going!"