Patzer comes from a german word meaning bungler. In chess, a patzer is a player who doesn't know what he's doing. The term is relative. To Gary Kasparov, everyone besides himself, Kramnik, and Anand are patzers. In general, most amateurs can feel confident in calling themselves patzers.
However, instead of wallowing in self-pity or feel shame for being a patzer, I say we relish in it! That's how I came up with the Patzer Challenge Match. In the chess world, we have heard about the "big" matches: Kasparov-Kramnik, Anand-Shirov (FIDE KO Championship), and Deep Fritz-Deep Junior. These are all well and good, but patzers need a match they can be proud of. I humbly opened a challenge to any member on the About.com forum to a 4-game match (could the chess world bear any longer match?) and Kelly Atkins, one of About.com's affable administrators, picked up the gauntlet.
Why a match? Actually, I've always wanted to play in a match. I feel that it will be good training (perhaps so that I can someday graduate from patzerdom) as well as fun. Playing the same opponent several times gives you a certain relationship with that opponent: you learn about his style and typical openings he plays, as well as the types of blunders he makes. Also, you can develop a rapport which would make analysis of the games afterwards more fun and enjoyable.
So on this page you can follow the match as it progresses. Hopefully, to you fellow patzers, you might find some of the games instructive, if only for the fact that you can try to avoid some of the mistakes I'm sure the competitors will make. Also, who knows where this idea will go--in a couple years we might see Patzer Challenge XVII. Well, I'm getting ahead of myself. Enjoy!
Meet the players, Kelly Atkins and Bryan Castro.
The players have agreed to a four game match with the time control of 60 minutes with a 10 second increment. Both players will have one hour on their clock and for every move they make, ten seconds will be added to their clocks. Bryan flipped a coin, and he will have the white pieces for the first game (he really did flip a coin).
| Game | Date/Time/Location | Result |
| Game 1 | Wednesday, June 6 at 7 p.m. (EDT) on FICS | bscastro-Chessdaddy, 0-1 |
| Game 2 | Thursday, June 14 at 7 p.m. (EDT) on FICS | Chessdaddy-bscastro, 0-1 |
| Game 3 | Wednesday, June 27 at 7 p.m. (EDT) on FICS | bscastro-Chessdaddy, 0-1 |
| Game 4 | Monday, July 2, 2001 | Chessdaddy-bscastro, 1/2-1/2 |
Kelly wins the match, 2.5-1.5!
The Patzer Challenge Match was all I had hoped it to be and more: instructional, fun, and competitive. After each game, several other players offered their comments and analysis as we went over the games. I was surprised at the success of the match and I feel that other players benefited and enjoyed the event.
I would like to thank Kelly, who was a fierce opponent and helpful partner in this venture. I would also like to thank those who stopped in and checked out the games and helped with post-mortem analysis. I learned a lot about myself as a player, and I hope to grow from this experience. Finally, I hope other players will try to find training partners or friends to play matches with, I am confident that you will enjoy and learn much from the experience.
Thanks for visiting Patzer Challenge, please sign my guestbook.
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