You might be a chess geek if ...
your dog is named Fischer, Tal, Karpov, Kasparov, or Kamsky.
your vacations are at national chess opens in Las Vegas or Philadelphia.
your favorite song is "One Night in Bangkok."
your favorite movie is "Searching for Bobby Fischer."
your underwear has white and black checkboard squares and says
"It's your move" on the front.
you wear a USCF pocket protector with a USCF pen in it.
you bump into someone and say "J'adoube."
you have a picture on the wall with dogs or cats playing chess.
you have fantasies about the Polgar sisters.
you can recognize Bruce Pandolfini or Maurice Ashley in a crowd.
you only eat Pepperidge Farm's Chessmen cookies.
you stay up all night playing chess on the Internet Zone or
Internet Chess Server.
you have the 1996 International Chess Calendar hanging up in your room.
you can multiply 8 x 8 faster than 7 x 7
you have a bumper sticker on your car and your window at home
that says "Chessplayers make better mates"
you own one of Wall's "Chess Miniatures" books (and a bad chess geek
if you have a loss in one of his books)
you go to a restaurant with a checkerboard square and use it along with
salt shakers, pepper shakers, other items to play chess on it
you have had the bomb squad out because you left your chess
clock running in a bag at the airport or federal building
you go to a library or bookstore and head directly for the
games/chess section
you own more chess clocks than watches
you think the "olympics" is every two years
you get surprised or scared for one second when the cashier
says "check."
you know the position and all the words HAL 6000 says during its
chess match in 2001, A SPACE ODYSSEY.
you call anyone you meet that you don't like "patzers" or "fish."
you know what BCO, ECO, ECE, MCO, FIDE, PCA, USCF, GM, IM, and FM mean.
you see a chess scene in the movies or on TV and tell everyone,
"Look, the board is set up wrong" when you see the black square to
the right.
you own more chess books than all other books or magazines combined.
you look for a chess club in every city you visit.
you wear a tie, tie clip, and cuffs with chess pieces on it.
you ask a girl if she plays chess on your first date (if you get a date).
you end your letters and email with "P.S. 1.e4" hoping to provoke a game.
you have over two million games in your master ChessBase database file.
you compare political struggles to the '72 World Championship between
Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky.
you decorate your child's nursery with black and white squares "just in case."
you drop everything and quickly spin around when someone says, "Hi Bobby!"
you go up to girls and say "I want to mate you."
you call your home your castle which has black and white tiled floors.
you download one chess game for the Internet and convert it to
ASCII, PGN, ChessBase, NICbase, and ChessAssistant format before
looking at the game to see if you really want it.
your chess geek code looks like this: USCF=2203, ID=10210828, MEM=REG,
EXP=0297, ELO=2250, PCA=2247, WBCA=2211, IECC=2282, IECG=2309,
ICCF=2297, QUICK=2218, COR=2233, FM, NTD
(interpreted: US Chess Federation rating is 2302, identification
number is ..., regular member, expires in February 1997, Elo
or FIDE or world chess federation rating is 2250, Professional
Chess Assocation is 2247, World Blitz Chess Association is 2211.
International Email Chess Club rating is 2282, International Email
Chess Group rating is 2309, International Correspondence Chess
Association ios 2297, Quick Chess is 2218, Correspondence Chess
rating is 2233, FIDE Master, National Tournament Director.
you look at this page and correct me for saying HAL 6000 instead
of HAL 9000 as it should be.
you know where Kasparov went wrong in game 2 and game 6 of his
match with Deep Blue and you didn't miss the Larry King Live
show with Kasparov re-challenging Deep Blue.
