Where ADDICTS and TEAMSTERS differ is in the nature of the activity which absorbs the time which they consistently bring to the game. Addicts have a compulsion to play, so are involved in a vast array of competitions, and their games tend to take most of their energy. They have little time for administration. TEAMSTERS, on the other hand, are the least ambitious of the four types( hence they tend to be lower-graded) but greatly enjoy the community of CC, that is, belonging to a CC club. TEAMSTERS tend to play in the same competitions year after year, often playing against the same opponents over and over again. They play within clubs and within national boundaries, rarely venturing into the international arena. They also run the game: they are the secretaries and treasurers and competition organisers who oil the wheels of CC activity. TEAMSTERS are the people you find on committees and who enjoy being on committees. They always turn up at AGMs and nothing makes them happier than proposing, seconding and extensively debating resolutions. They love being at the centre of things and they love the organisations they create, so much so that they sometimes virtually stop playing chess altogether.
I once belonged to a tennis club in which only about 75 % of members actually played tennis. I thought this very amusing at the time but I now realise that this pattern is reflected in many clubs and societies: the human connection is more important than the hobby itself. So also in chess.
TEAMSTERS in the world of CC tend also to play in“ team” events. Most CC clubs seem to have at least one event in which people form themselves into teams with ridiculous names, such as“ Knights in shining armour” or“ Bishops in purple”, and play one another for apparently meaningful( to them) prizes and titles. Personally, I have never been able to make much sense of this kind of thing; but I do recognise it as representing a degree of homage to“ team” play and general camaraderie.
What TEAMSTERS and WARRIORS have in common is an interest in people. As well as playing CC, they are both likely also to belong to OTB clubs. Both groups tend to contribute to the CC community, for example, by submitting material to club magazines.
TEAMSTERS and WARRIORS, for slightly different reason, are also interested in getting to know their opponents and are therefore commonly the kinds of players who make full use of the messaging systems. Whereas TEAMSTERS are merely sociable in this respect, WARRIORS have another level of interest. For WARRIORS, winning at CC is all about understanding your opponents, how they approach the game, how they analyse, what openings they use and why, where their strengths are and what, if any, are their vulnerabilities and weaknesses. WARRIOR chess is all about finding the way in which you can win a game against each specific opponent. How you win against one opponent is quite different from how you win against another, your approach to each games has to be tailored to the specific task in hand. and even amuse readers with anecdotes, WARRIORS will write about how the games is played, not just what is played. Perceptive readers may already have seen that the present article is a typical WARRIOR contribution, which is as it should be: I am a WARRIOR. If my approach to CC was not in the“ WARRIOR” corner, I could not write such an article.
I recall a small success from a few years ago. After trying( and failing) to win a certain tournament several times, I finally triumphed at the third attempt. It was a single roundrobin event with 11 players and my grading placed me in the middle of the pack. So I was very gratified to win my game against the top seed who, at 2270 +, was not only 100 grading points above me but also by far the highest-graded player I had ever beaten at that time. I will call him Player X. I mention this particular game because, it so happened, I got to meet the player in question at a congress soon after the event. He wasn’ t very communicative and I had the impression that he was still quite upset about losing that CC game to me. From the little that he did say, however, I could infer that he assumed the reason he had lost was that I was playing with a stronger engine. Many players seem only to cope with losses by making assumptions of this kind: when they win, it is because they have played the better chess; when their opponent wins, it must be because he has the stronger engine. This is a childish way to look at the issue; and kidding ourselves in this fashion is actually a barrier to improvement.
Player X would be mortified to discover that I had played the whole tournament with a weaker engine than he was using; but I was using it differently. My success was down to the investment of time I put into that event, far greater than my opponents realised. Player X lost that game because he was guilty of shallow analysis at a critical moment when depth analysis was vital. If he had wanted to use the opportunity provided by our meeting to learn something about how he had lost he could have done so, by simply asking me for my opinions on the game. But he did not ask; and he left me with the impression that he preferred to cherish his own prejudices about it.
By contrast, when I lose games, I try always to learn something from the experience. So here is a confession. My very recent CC record contains more losses than usual: four, in fact. Three of those opponents, to my certain knowledge( because I troubled to find out), are far better OTB players than I am; so even in CC mode, in complex early middle-game positions where engine assessments are sometimes misleading, they made better positional judgements than I did. In the late middle game or endgame, by contrast, I can hold my own against a CC-GM; but my weakness as an OTB player reduces my effectiveness as a CC player in the early middle game. Being aware of this weakness is crucial if I am to compete effectively at a higher level.
The example of my game against Player X should tell the reader something about the approach of WARRIOR players. A postscript to that tournament, a few weeks later when I had entered another tournament in which the opposition would be far stronger, I wrote to X and told him( candidly but slightly mischievously) that I was about to invest in a
It also follows that TEAMSTERS AND WARRIORS, as active magazine contributors, actually submit very different kinds of material. Whereas TEAMSTERS will give accounts of meetings and congresses, report on competitions new engine for the new season because I had been
SCCA Magazine 133 10 Spring 2016