In yer dreams ...

[b.nancarrow]

This is silly but last night I dreamt up "bookshelf chess" as a chess variant, based on a position where I played what appeared to be a back rank mate and then it was noted that books on the bookshelf next to the chessboard were chesspieces and could be interposed to delay the mate.

As best I could determine "bookshelf chess" had a duplicate row of each side's pieces on the lines a0-h0 and a9-h9. The duplicate pieces normally don't do anything but can be moved onto the board to block checks and become real active chesspieces at that point.

(The dream didn't consider captures but if the duplicate pieces can capture then Scholar's Mate is not mate and is actually a blunder, because there's a knight on g9.)

I wonder if this dream reflects and resolves in some way the internal struggle between the priorities of book learning and practical play.

[Kevin Bonham]

Last night I dreamt I was playing some games of uncertain status against GM Ian Rogers. I played credibly in the first two games but Ian still of course beat me in fine style. In the third game I made what I thought was a principled decision then immediately realised was just a rush of blood to the head and after (I'm white) 1.d4 f5 I gave up a pawn with 2.g4 without having any idea whether this was even a gambit with the slightest merit. I tried to get an attack going but kept having to adjust my position to defend against kingside threats and was soon obviously losing ... until around move 15 when I was able to line up some heavy pieces on the now open d-file and it appeared I could actually swap queens into a reasonable endgame where I could get a rook on the seventh with full compensation for the pawn. I was analysing this for some time and drifted away from the board. When I returned Ian had restored the pieces to the starting position and it was unclear to me whether he had decided the game was a draw, decided he had won, or was just in a hurry to get to the airport.

Later in this dream I was viewing the first 15 moves of the game on an online server connected to ACT chess in some way, only the colours had reversed, white was now a prominent Tasmanian anti-pokies campaigner who was not a noted chessplayer, and white had been recorded as beating me and was receiving such comments as "onya Pat way to go great win" in the comments section of the webpage. I rather weakly protested that the game was in fact Bonham - Rogers and that it had been agreed drawn on move 15, and in evidence of this was working out many lines from Stockfish analysis showing how the evaluation had magically improved from -5 to close to zero.

[Kevin Bonham]

Another typically stupid dream with a recent Chesschat discussion twist: I dreamt that I was playing an unrated 1500s ish player with a lot of online experience in my current club champs. All is going fine in some Scandinavian (I'm white) until about move 15 when he suddenly checks me with a bishop then takes one of my rooks. No big deal, I have a pawn on c7 that I can promote to a queen immediately. Except I am in check from some other piece behind my king. I can take that piece, but if I take it with my king he checks me with a knight and wins another rook. Although I am getting a queen and a piece so shouldn't care about this, I somehow do, and decide to take with a knight instead. But now I notice my king has migrated to the b-file where it is somehow in check from his rook, suggesting my previous move must have been illegal.

While I am trying to work out what to do my opponent reaches out and starts resetting pieces to the start position, declaring that I must resign as I am over a queen (sic) down, and starts analysing the game, in particular pointing out that in the opening I am supposed to run my king out to e3 and use it to grab pawns. I tell him that although I am clearly going to lose I have the right to continue playing but he is adamant that I must resign and says he is not interested in continuing if he has to play on. I say that actually it is clear I have made an illegal move and we must reconstruct the position before my illegal move and the game continues. He is totally disinterested, he says he has no passion for chess if it has to go on like that, that is not what chess is about. OK I say, I will start your clock, and if you won't continue the game before your flag falls you can just lose on time. I also tell him that he deserves to win the game and it would be a shame if he did not convert it. This seems to increase his interest in playing on; at this point the dream drifts away into other equally silly non-chess related matters without the game ever finishing over the board, though at some later points I seem to be aware that I lost it.

[MichaelBaron]

Another typically stupid dream with a recent Chesschat discussion twist: I dreamt that I was playing an unrated 1500s ish player with a lot of online experience in my current club champs. All is going fine in some Scandinavian (I'm white) until about move 15 when he suddenly checks me with a bishop then takes one of my rooks. No big deal, I have a pawn on c7 that I can promote to a queen immediately. Except I am in check from some other piece behind my king. I can take that piece, but if I take it with my king he checks me with a knight and wins another rook. Although I am getting a queen and a piece so shouldn't care about this, I somehow do, and decide to take with a knight instead. But now I notice my king has migrated to the b-file where it is somehow in check from his rook, suggesting my previous move must have been illegal.

While I am trying to work out what to do my opponent reaches out and starts resetting pieces to the start position, declaring that I must resign as I am over a queen (sic) down, and starts analysing the game, in particular pointing out that in the opening I am supposed to run my king out to e3 and use it to grab pawns. I tell him that although I am clearly going to lose I have the right to continue playing but he is adamant that I must resign and says he is not interested in continuing if he has to play on. I say that actually it is clear I have made an illegal move and we must reconstruct the position before my illegal move and the game continues. He is totally disinterested, he says he has no passion for chess if it has to go on like that, that is not what chess is about. OK I say, I will start your clock, and if you won't continue the game before your flag falls you can just lose on time. I also tell him that he deserves to win the game and it would be a shame if he did not convert it. This seems to increase his interest in playing on; at this point the dream drifts away into other equally silly non-chess related matters without the game ever finishing over the board, though at some later points I seem to be aware that I lost it.

Such dreams are best interpreted with scoresheets provided