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Diary of an Open
Friday, April 17, 2015
This is quite an incredibly frank and funny description of the life of a chess professional. It was posted once and then pulled and has just reappeared. It may be pulled again. My advice – copy it into one of your word processing programs and save it on your hard drive! My backup, as an MS Word document, is 19 pages long.
http://chess-news.ru/en/node/18643
It is by GM Murtas Kazhgaleyev from Kazakhstan. He played for Kazakhstan in four Olympiads. He was born in November, 1973 and is 41 years of age.
The Open in question is the Australian Open in Sydney in January of 2015. But this is not just a description of the tournament but a sort of on-the-road type odyssey.
Some quotes:
At length, we checked in to the hotel, and started looking around, to realise to what extent a hole in the middle of nowhere we found ourselves in. Roads, a deserted industrial area and a few small restaurants is all that will surround us for the next ten days. The supermarket had closed before we could get there so we had dinner in a Chinese restaurant. Our mood was dark and sleepy. And the next day we had another round, so we kept off the booze.
_________
Many of my peers hate double-rounds; when you have to play two games a day. But personally I love them, and regret there are so few of them. My favorite tournament in France is a three-day event that includes seven rounds. I played there three times and won each time - perhaps by accident. But the fact is, I like to play non-stop. There is no time to get bored or to reflect on life. You play and then play some more. After all, the best entertainment during a tournament is to play chess.
Tomorrow also is a double round. No sex! Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. And try not to think of anything. It is safe to say that open tournaments aren’t compatible with sex…
________
I had been sucked into the tournament swamp. My luck in the openings had disappeared with the first defeat, and less infamous rivals weren’t inferior in any of the aspect of the game. Moreover – they were showing superior opening preparation, accuracy and speed. I had to grin, bear with it and wait for better times to come.
For lunch, we had discovered a wonderful Thai restaurant. Excellent cuisine and reasonable prices. However, for dinner that evening, the Indian restaurant turned out to be a disaster. I was saved by the cheese and red wine awaiting in my room. Debilitating games, monotony and lack of communication with the human race, were getting me depressed. My soul demanded a vacation. I needed a breath of fresh air. And then, out of the blue, an unexpected encounter...
_________
The last round is often played in the morning - the organizers save on hotel expenses, and many amateurs hurry home. For the professional the situation is not very pleasant, but his opinion matters little. You will agree that it isn’t very logical to start each game in the afternoon, and then on the most important day - in the morning. Wouldn’t it be better then to play in the morning everyday? I'm not complaining, quite the contrary, I'm an early bird, and in the morning I often play better than many of my rivals. They struggle.
_________
For a whole month I had carried around my white suit in a large suitcase, but never put it on - the heat and the Australian habit of dressing in shorts and sandals didn’t permit it.
I took Vasya’s advice and appeared at the scene of the crime dressed for the occasion. The game quickly went according to the best scenario - neither my opponent nor I knew the intricacies of the opening variation. The position was precarious, I strained my mind to the full extent – at some point you could even see smoke steaming out of my ears. Zhao was also sweating blood. For 2.5 hours, a tough balanced fight ensued, but the white suit and the Chinese player's tired look gave me extra strength. I soon obtained a minimal advantage, and my opponent started to slip into time trouble. Then, after a long period in which I could not make the slightest progress, I set the last trap. Finding the right defence wasn’t easy, and with his time running out, Zhao made a mistake, giving me the greater chance of a full point. The game moved into the endgame, the position remained difficult, somewhere I miscalculated, but was lucky – I did not lose my advantage.
The game lasted for more than five hours, the last mistake was my opponent's, his knight was lost, and the game was soon over. The future doctor congratulated me on my victory, and we went off to analyze the game. I was happy.
_______
A lot more like this – quite an enjoyable read – not for anyone under eighteen though.
Friday, April 17, 2015
This is quite an incredibly frank and funny description of the life of a chess professional. It was posted once and then pulled and has just reappeared. It may be pulled again. My advice – copy it into one of your word processing programs and save it on your hard drive! My backup, as an MS Word document, is 19 pages long.
http://chess-news.ru/en/node/18643
It is by GM Murtas Kazhgaleyev from Kazakhstan. He played for Kazakhstan in four Olympiads. He was born in November, 1973 and is 41 years of age.
The Open in question is the Australian Open in Sydney in January of 2015. But this is not just a description of the tournament but a sort of on-the-road type odyssey.
Some quotes:
At length, we checked in to the hotel, and started looking around, to realise to what extent a hole in the middle of nowhere we found ourselves in. Roads, a deserted industrial area and a few small restaurants is all that will surround us for the next ten days. The supermarket had closed before we could get there so we had dinner in a Chinese restaurant. Our mood was dark and sleepy. And the next day we had another round, so we kept off the booze.
_________
Many of my peers hate double-rounds; when you have to play two games a day. But personally I love them, and regret there are so few of them. My favorite tournament in France is a three-day event that includes seven rounds. I played there three times and won each time - perhaps by accident. But the fact is, I like to play non-stop. There is no time to get bored or to reflect on life. You play and then play some more. After all, the best entertainment during a tournament is to play chess.
Tomorrow also is a double round. No sex! Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. And try not to think of anything. It is safe to say that open tournaments aren’t compatible with sex…
________
I had been sucked into the tournament swamp. My luck in the openings had disappeared with the first defeat, and less infamous rivals weren’t inferior in any of the aspect of the game. Moreover – they were showing superior opening preparation, accuracy and speed. I had to grin, bear with it and wait for better times to come.
For lunch, we had discovered a wonderful Thai restaurant. Excellent cuisine and reasonable prices. However, for dinner that evening, the Indian restaurant turned out to be a disaster. I was saved by the cheese and red wine awaiting in my room. Debilitating games, monotony and lack of communication with the human race, were getting me depressed. My soul demanded a vacation. I needed a breath of fresh air. And then, out of the blue, an unexpected encounter...
_________
The last round is often played in the morning - the organizers save on hotel expenses, and many amateurs hurry home. For the professional the situation is not very pleasant, but his opinion matters little. You will agree that it isn’t very logical to start each game in the afternoon, and then on the most important day - in the morning. Wouldn’t it be better then to play in the morning everyday? I'm not complaining, quite the contrary, I'm an early bird, and in the morning I often play better than many of my rivals. They struggle.
_________
For a whole month I had carried around my white suit in a large suitcase, but never put it on - the heat and the Australian habit of dressing in shorts and sandals didn’t permit it.
I took Vasya’s advice and appeared at the scene of the crime dressed for the occasion. The game quickly went according to the best scenario - neither my opponent nor I knew the intricacies of the opening variation. The position was precarious, I strained my mind to the full extent – at some point you could even see smoke steaming out of my ears. Zhao was also sweating blood. For 2.5 hours, a tough balanced fight ensued, but the white suit and the Chinese player's tired look gave me extra strength. I soon obtained a minimal advantage, and my opponent started to slip into time trouble. Then, after a long period in which I could not make the slightest progress, I set the last trap. Finding the right defence wasn’t easy, and with his time running out, Zhao made a mistake, giving me the greater chance of a full point. The game moved into the endgame, the position remained difficult, somewhere I miscalculated, but was lucky – I did not lose my advantage.
The game lasted for more than five hours, the last mistake was my opponent's, his knight was lost, and the game was soon over. The future doctor congratulated me on my victory, and we went off to analyze the game. I was happy.
_______
A lot more like this – quite an enjoyable read – not for anyone under eighteen though.