Sunday, April 12, 2009

A sudden sound and a strange subsequent silence

Here's an odd thing. A couple of weeks ago I was reading a thread on the English Chess Forum in which the following story, from the most recent 4NCL weekend, was recounted in the opening post:
a Grandmaster's mobile rang, but ownership of the phone was claimed by someone else, who wasn't playing, so nothing happened.
Being keen on keeping the readers of this blog properly informed, and more importantly being a nosey sort of individual, I was keen to find out who the Grandmaster concerned actually was, and who made the claim of ownership that conveniently (and not necessarily correctly) got him or her off the hook.

So I asked - and nobody said. I asked again - and nobody said. Which is odd, because several of the contributors to a very long thread must have been present during the event.

The silence intrigues me almost as much as the original story. Why, I wonder, the Omerta? What actually happened at the 4NCL?

So, should anybody reading this actually know who was involved, and what actually happened? No speculation please and no anonymous contributions. No more than you actually know. But at the very least, it would be interesting to find out the answer to the question "who?".

5 comments:

ejh said...

Nothing? Well, la-di-da.

Anonymous said...

Can I break this deafening silence by asking if anyone found the culprit at the Eastman Plate final on Thursday? Bloody mobile beeping every five minutes, no one claiming responsibility, driving me nuts, and obviously being the chief cause of our humiliating capitulation?

Adam B.

Anonymous said...

Well since apparently a draw was offered rapidly afterwards, you can presumably narrow it down to draws involving at least one grandmaster with the last move being made by a grandmaster. Probably in a position where a draw offer could be considered mildly surprising.

Richard

ejh said...

I may yet be forced to the desperate measure of researching it myself rather than asking other people...

ejh said...

...not that that would tell me who claimed ownership, mind...