If you go down to the park today…

I enjoyed the recent BBC programme The Woodpushers (h/t to my brother for pointing it out):

The programme took me back down memory lane, in 2007 when I last played chess at Washington Square Park.

The kibitzer is my son, Tom, now 21.

We had gone to New York with our close friends John and Fiona, and their children Andrew and Emma. Without staying what I was doing, I steered the walk towards Washington Square, my frequent playground when I lived in Manhattan in 1993. I feigned surprise when we happened on people playing chess in the SW corner.

I recall that John asked if I wanted to play: did I want to play? did I want to play? did I want to play? did I want to play? There was nothing in New York I would rather do than play, it was what I had been hoping to do since the moment we arranged the holiday.

So, act cool, sidle over, don't seem to interested (Tom said later I headed like a dart to the players). One of the regulars, who play tourists for money, asked me if I wanted to play?: yes; we play with clocks?; ok; we play fast chess?; ok; $5 per game?; ok. He then said, 'I'm not playing you, play him instead': something about my demeanour put him off, and I was passed to Mike, a student from California, who turned out to be their best player.

Now I can't remember when we last saw close friends, and Jane despairs of me when I say I don't recall films that we have seen together, but I do recall the three games I played with Mike. In the first, I played black, a Pirc, and slowly outplayed him. In the second, with colours reversed, we had a Philidor/Pirc structure, I castled long, and soon, as can be seen in the first picture, my rook was at f7, black squares bishops off, Q and R attacking, 2-0.

Now, the other players stopped playing, and everyone watched our third game, and the other tourists too. Our last game was a Sicilian Dragon, Yugoslav, Rc3 sacrifice ruined his pawns, and it was the fastest of his defeats: 3-0.

Mike was willing to play more, the $15 loss must have been affordable, but a bigger guy, standing behind him, told me 'you're not welcome here'. Very proud of this: to be asked to leave Washington Square Park is one of my chess career highlights. John didn't want me to, since I had done nothing wrong, but he isn't a chessplayer, didn't understand the sub culture. I was taking their pay, their livelihoods, the $5 per game was to me just fun money. Also, the tourists were watching me, so the others games had stopped, stopping everyone's earnings, and people were wondering who I was.

So I walked away.

Excited, but somewhat calmed down, I went back, and chatted to Mike, and we talked through the games. He was very nice about it, as he should be, and just as I would have been had it been in reverse. But no more games.

We haven't been back to New York since 2007 but when we do, you can be sure we will go to Ground Zero, Times Square, and ….Washington Square Park.

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