The winner is the one who makes the second last mistake

Provincial chess title makes its first trip to Labrador
Published on September 13th, 2010
Jenny McCarthy

Morgon Mills began learning to play chess when he was four years old. 21 Years later, he is still playing and this month he brought home a provincial title. Mr. Mills was one of ten chess players who competed at this year’s provincial championship on Labour Day weekend. It was his first provincial tournament.

Mr. Mills played a total of five games over the three-day tournament, winning four and drawing one.

He said he was one of three top ranked players at the tournament. He played one of the top ranked players and won after more than 90 moves—one of the longest games he said he’s ever played. In the next round he had a draw against the defending champion. It was only the next day as he watched the third ranked individual win against the defending champion that he knew he had a good chance of winning.

“At that point, as long as I didn’t lose, I knew no one could catch me,” he said.

He said in chess you never know what can happen and you have to always be careful and maintain focus.

“There’s kind of a proverb in chess,” he said. “The winner is the one who makes the second last mistake.”

No one did catch him in the next two games and he won first prize and took the chess trophy home.

Morgon calls chess his sport. He said people often don’t realize how competitive it is.

“A lot of people who don’t play chess don’t realize how intense it actually is,” he said.

A chess game, on average, takes about five hours to play.

“It’s a lot like a sports game—everybody is aiming to win and you get the adrenaline going.”

Here is the full article.