[BrianWall-ChessList] David King on Pat Ament

[Brian Wall]

David King was a CU Boulder student with me and we played tons of blitz
together. Later in Texas I took David King's father pyschological profile test
to become an insurance agent. They suggested teacher, accountant or soft sell
instead of hard selling.

Pat had a big ego and liked to test people's courage - he could have mopped the
floor with all of us. I think he felt godlike in the Climbing World and didn't
get enough respect in the Chessworld. His stories were amazing, climbing new
peaks with the best rock climbers in the world. Pat backed down because it
would have been too easy to kill us.

I see Bill Engels all the time, also a CU student.
His bughouse partner, Paul Sharpe, is a Facebook friend.
They were invincible.

Another CU blitz buddy Tom Tuck became a lawyer,
came out of the closet and sued himself.
My brother Charles Magnus Wall just passed the bar and went to work for the New
Orleans, LA prosectutor. Out grandfather was a judge in Sioux Falls, South
Dakota. Both Tom Tuck and my brother Charles found law school easy and would
make the teachers mad by missing ALL the classes and acing the tests. Before
passing out one final legal exam, Charlie's teacher made a HUGE deal out of
thanking everyone who had the courtesy to attend class while Charlie melted
into his chair. All's well that ends well.

Brian Wall

----- Forwarded message from David King <david_k33 at yahoo.com> -----
    Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:03:03 -0700 (PDT)
    From: David King <david_k33 at yahoo.com>
Reply-To: David King <david_k33 at yahoo.com>
 Subject: Re: [BrianWallChess] Pat Ament
      To: Brian Wall <BrianWallChess3 at Taom.com>

my most vivid memory was ament pouring a coke over josh samuels' head, probably
because josh beat him too many times (ament wasn't very good, and he was a
bully).
another time ament started talking trash to this big black guy, a professor at
CU, but when the guy started getting worked up to fight, pat backed down fast.

--- On Fri, 10/30/09, Brian Wall <BrianWallChess3 at Taom.com> wrote:


From: Brian Wall <BrianWallChess3 at Taom.com>
Subject: [BrianWallChess] Pat Ament
To: BrianWallChess at Yahoogroups.com, "Brian Wall Chesslist"
<brianwall-chesslist at lists.taom.com>
Date: Friday, October 30, 2009, 12:15 PM


 





http://climbing. about.com/ b/2008/10/ 06/pat-ament- climbing- quote-of-
the-week. htm

http://en.wikipedia .org/wiki/ Pat_Ament

http://www.supertop o.com/climbing/ thread.php? topic_id= 103565&tn= 40

One amazing character in college was Pat Ament, Chessplayer, artist but most
importantly rock climber. Pat composed a mate in two where a piece could be
captured 7 ways. We also played countless Pelikan/Sveshnikov Sicilians in
college, now a big favorite with top 10 players.

Pat could do one finger pullups and climbed many rocks/moutnains for the first
time. Pat Ament wrote many books about all this and gave countless lectures all
over the world with rare climbing photgraphs.

After facing death on mountaintops countless times Pat has health problems now (
diabetes for one ) and faces surgery. Good luck old friend.

Pat had an artsitic approach to life, Chess and climbing.

Pat married late and has a child.

Some memorable quotes from Pat -

Chess friends don't compare to climbing friends,
you have to put your life in their hands.

from one of his books-
What you do in your darkest hour reaps
huge dividends when things are going better.
------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- -

We almost fought 3 times over Chess disputes. My loyal, brave brother Fred
said he would have jumped in if I got beat up too badly. Pat was 9 years older
with arms of steel, I just hated to back down. Pat thought I was insulting him
with my crazy openings like the Crab but that was just me.

I ran into Pat about 7 years ago at a Colorado Kinko's. He lives in Fruita, CO.

Good luck to the living legend.

------------------------------------------------------------------
A story I can't forget is that Pat was climbing Flagstaff Mountain with a young
friend who freaked out on a bad LSD trip. Pat tried to calm him down but
couldn't. Pat called the police to help. The police climbed on top of a rock
and the kid tried to jump off. A cop tackled him, risking his own life. When
they asked him why later, the cop said,
" I couldn't live with myself if I didn't try to help him. "
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