If your opponent has knees, take them.

I played a game over at the Bremen Cafe yesterday evening. It started well with myself as white. I opened postmodern, playing as I felt instead of what may have seemed most appropriate. With a lot of impending changes in my life and the stress attached it was sure to have some peculiar maneuvering. Blacks response was appropriate and strong throughout the opening. Black didn't control the center for too long since it was lunch time for some stop square eating pawns.
What we hadn't realized about the evening was that it was open mic night. For those of you who have been to an open mic night during any time in your life and understand the idiosyncrasies attached to it fear not for I imagine little has changed. The first guy took the mini stage apparently straight from a hard day of ice fishing. He was an amateur guitarist. Shocking. The second "act" was another guitarist but he was different. He had been sitting with a girl I dated many years ago...and her dad. This could be quite a distraction during the game. But as fate would have it my opponent was equally distracted because he had dated her too. Not that either of us were torn from the game. Frankly it had been so long ago that no one really had anything attached and simple acknowledgements were sufficient. But the game was odd to begin with and then it became doubly odd.
I castled Queenside quickly to protect my piece proprietor and align the Alekhine annihilation machine. Black didn't have time to do the same so he began to lose the middle game. Black owned the center with a bishop and knight. White had strong posts on three corners of the board with a solidified taunting position. Unfortunately taunting was all I did for about ten moves. Then I set a plan in motion haphazardly hoping for some heroic promotion. My sight grew bleary and I missed the move that would have ended the game. Black ate the best pawn on the board because of a hasty run to the corner. From then on the endgame was a strange display of strategies from the hip that caused my eventual demise.

Some lessons were learned though:

Never knock on someones door and burst into a one man be-bop a-cappela without expecting to get tasered.

If your opponent has knees, take them.