I got a different opinion

I was sitting at the local burger joint with Aman Hambleton and Dagur Ragnarsson, who had just picked me up at the airport. This was my 4^th time in Iceland, and once again I had the chance to enjoy the view of the beautiful landscape. Not even the fact that Hambleton was pouring his ketchup all over his fries, like a true Canadian, could ruin the mood. After 3 weeks in Eastern Europe, the only thing on my mind was Nils and the chess tournament, Reykjavik Open.

Back in business
Reykjavik Open was once again played at concert hall, Harpa, with a stunning view and a little bit of live music during the weekend. The tournament had visitors from chess enthusiast, musicians, mayors and one day around 1.000.000 kids (at least it felt like this amount) who had an event in the same building. A little schoolgirl even performed the 1^st move on board 1, where Nils was playing. She was a little nervous, probably because she realised what a great honour it was to stand that close to Nils, when I gave her the killer eyes down from board 79… I am just kidding, she was actually very cute and I am sure that Jobava was a little jealous. I enjoyed the different twist before the opening of every round and as last year the only thing I can criticise about the whole event is my lack in abilities regarding chess.

“One ticket for the elevator please. Yes I would like to stay for 9 days”

The sentence above describes my whole tournament. Not once did I manage to make a surprising result – in a good or bad way. Instead I kept on losing to the higher rated opponents and winning against the lower rated (in a very solid and confident way!). I knew that the solution probably was to take a bye and step out of the uncomfortable situation, but I was too stubborn. Luckily for me Nils was doing pretty well, and I could just focus on other things like the good company and beer.

Here you can se a commented game by Martin Lokander. The only game I am proud of. First round against Tania Sachdev: http://www.viewchess.com/cbreader/2017/5/19/Game314906.html

We are getting late!
One thing that I definitely noticed is the difference in routines when I compare Nils and me; I have come up with the 10 holy rules of Grandmaster preparation before the game:

1.                       It does matter for how long you sleep (at least 10 hours!?)
2.                       You should always complain in the morning, about not sleeping enough
3.                       You should never arrive at breakfast more than 10 minutes before closing time
4.                       Any clothing is acceptable to wear to breakfast
5.                       You cannot prep without prepping what to prep (making a list)
6.                       One hour before the meal you walk – it does not matter where
7.                       It does matter when and what you eat before the round. Burger is a NO-go
8.                       Before the round you should brush your teeth and take a shower to feel fresh
9.                       No matter result, always complain, that you did not play well enough
10.                       When dinner is done, your anger must be gone

Usually we always met with some friends for both the daily walk and the two meals. Our most common company were Gawain, Sue and Erik and we were often joined by others. The selection of restaurants was great and we tried every restaurant where our food coupons were a legit payment. Some restaurants were more surprised with the coupons than others, apparently the other chess players did not want to walk to far, and since some of the restaurants could reach the great distance of a whole kilometre, they where not used to being paid in pieces of paper with “Reykjavik Open” written on them.

I am to young for that stuff
As usual my main focus was on the side events and during Reykjavik Open they gave me plenty of chances to get my mind of chess… or at least the chess in the main tournament. It all started with Erik Blomqvist having a rather unlucky start of his Reykjavik adventure, when he lost to two lower rated opponents in a row. Since we are a very experienced group of people, we all suggested the blitz-tournament as the cure for this illness. Gawain could even assure Erik that the blitz in Dubai had been the turning point for him, when he went ahead to win it all. After I promised to buy the first beer, there was nothing more to talk about; it was also very hard to make it any worse. Additionally it has to be said, that Erik would do anything it takes to be on top of the game… but more about that later! Anyhow the blitz tournament was played and as expected Erik went on to win and I had to get another beer to forget everything about it. I had great support the first couple of rounds before the serious players had to go to bed (I need to mention that they all placed below Erik in the main tournament. Wonder why), but I need to figure out how to win on my own, when I do not have the possibility to bribe three strong players into staring at my opponent and make him uncomfortable.
A small party at a hotel room naturally followed the Harpa Blitz, but it was a short pleasure with some hand-and-brain (Hand-and brain is a chess game where you have two teams of two players: one who says a piece and one who makes a move. And I really need to mention that I won all of my games on the board in hand-and-brain… but lost all of them on time) and unknown bottled liquids imported from Japan. When the party was on its way to town, possibly the casino, Erik came up with the second brilliant idea of the night (first one was choosing me as his hand-and-brain partner):

“Maybe I should go to sleep”

Always quit, while you are ahead, and the others still had not reached the lobby.

My favourite happening during this tournament was the pub quiz. In general I really enjoy quizzes and games like Trivial Pursuit or Bezzerwizzer and to combine it with chess, some friends and some beers is just brilliant. I did not expect much of myself and that was the right thing to do since I had very limited knowledge. My partner however was a good supplement and we went on to get the highest score with 25/30 questions. They did not believe us at first, we are a very suspicious couple, so they had to tipple check our answers. Obviously we were just better and their only choice was to hand us our prize! All in all I am very happy about the fact, that I at least won something in Reykjavik. Here is one of the questions from the quiz:

“What did the 28 games Sämisch played in Busum and Linköping in 1969 have in common?”

How far are you willing to go?

Now more about what I meant, when I said Erik would do anything it takes. I had one very interesting question that I asked about 10 different players the last day of the tournament:

“How many fingers would you cut of, if you got an additional 100 elo point in strength per. finger?”

I got a lot of different answers that I find very curious. All of the Indian players and Nils answered “none” they did not think it was worth it. Gawain and Erik were instead discussing if they would settle for two or also go for the third and thereby make sure they would be the best players in the world. On the other hand (pun intended), they had also been discussing if they should go pro in the board game Bang! And skip chess, so maybe their confidence were not on top. I do not now if this says anything about willingness to sacrifice to become a better player or the faith in your ability to become better on your own, but I know that Mikhail Tall only had three fingers on one hand and was an excellent player!

As we say in Danish “The road to hell is paved with bad excuses”
The tournament got wrapped up with a nice party with free meatballs! We played some Bang! And enyoing the braindead fun of spinning a lucky wheel 20 times for the prize of 20 euro a spin. And NO we did not win anything big, maybe 4 beers if we combine the prizes… However it was a great night and my only regret was booking a flight that left 6:30 in the morning. Great job, Ellen.

I know this blog might be a little late, since the tournament was played almost a month ago, but I have been busy… I promise. There will soon follow a blog about my performance in the Nordic Championship for girls U-20. I hope you have not given up on me 😉