How to win before you've made a move

Anon v P Banks

I sat down for this game and waited. After about 15 minutes my opponent arrived and we shook hands. He sat down and filled in the headings on his scoresheet and asked me my grade. As is my habit, I said I'd tell him after the game. The conversation continued

"What's your grade"
"I said I'd tell you after the game"
"Why won't you tell me?"
"Because it might affect how you play against me"
"I want to know NOW" He said this very forcefully, so obviously my reply was:
"Well I'm not going to tell you"

At this he jumped up and stormed off. He must have looked me up, because he came back a few minutes later and ostentatiously wrote my grade on the scoresheet. By now he had used up about 25 minutes on his clock and was very agitated. Game over!

He played very rapid and forceful chess, slamming the pieces down and was highly excited. He had a habit of rapidly rubbing his hands on his thighs just before each move which was rather curious. He conjured up threats all over the board and was clearly quite a strong player (for the League I was playing in).

The obvious and easy counter to all this was to sit with Buddha-like stillness, and just gently slide my pieces into position while maintaining a little smirk. I played very solid (yes I can do it folks!) but not totally passive moves and just waited for the mistake. The more I thwarted his plans, the more agitated he became, and the error duly arrived. I won the exchange and a couple of pawns in a little sequence (combination would be too grand a word). We eventually arrived at the position shown.

At this point he had half an hour left on his clock. The position is completely lost for White (I was Black). One simple way to win would be to push the d-pawn and make him sac his bishop for two pawns, leaving me a clear rook up. There is nothing he can do to stop this. He sat for 15 minutes looking at the position, then picked up his scoresheet and walked briskly out of the room without saying a word. I had to wait for his flag to fall. Afterwards, one of his team-mates said "Take no notice, he takes things very personally".