A rating of NIL is a blessing!
Submitted by
on Fri, 12/12/2008 at 6:42am.
There are certain benefits to having an elo rating of nil. Earlier this year I joined a chessclub, and after shaking the dust from my chess brain in the first couple of months, and some “sniffing out” by my club mates (who is he, is he any good?) I now am a substitute for the clubs team in the Belgian Interclub competition. A substitute with a fide rating of nil 
.
I am sure that my rating inspired my last two opponents in the interclub competition to go for an all out attack. And not only that, it probably made them dream about creating their personal immortal game. I can’t explain in any other way why twice in two weeks an opponent slams a piece into my kingside without thinking twice! The diagram below represents the first game, played the end of November against an opponent with an elo rating of 1707.
The diagrammed position arose after a quiet "mainstream" Caro-Kann and my last move with black was b7-b5, trying for some initiative on the queenside. My opponent thought for a while and then replied with Ng5. My first thought was "shoot, I completely missed something" but then saw the check on f4. You can browse through the remainder of the game, but white decided to hit the bar within 7 more moves.
Two weeks later, after a last minute call of duty, I found myself facing another opponent in the interclub competition. Like my last game, a sympathetic man of middle-age (for a chess player that is, so outside chess circles he would be called "an older gentleman" I'm afraid 
), cheerful and obviously looking forward to his game against his beginner opponent who was rated 1626 points lower than he was. I was playing white this time and after a scandinavian game - that I am not familiar with - the following position arose after my last move Ne5-c4.
When moving my knight I had not even considered a flaw in my majesty's safety, but my heart jumped up and down when he replied instantly with ... Bxh2. It took me a while to see that h2 could be covered by my bishop so no panic! We played on and I think I missed some good moves, but 13 moves later my opponent decided to call it a day, and, more important, to call for a beer.
Meanwhile I was explaining to our teamcaptain that I was lucky once again, and added what I thought the reason was. "Well", he said, "enjoy it while it lasts, because you will be rated by January 1st". Never thought it would be that bad to have a rating. And apparently rating is something that people take very seriously...
I am praying that I will still be able to enjoy this game in 2009!