Mumbai
I was having a little whine about morning rounds in Bhopal as we were leaving for the airport, for our flight to Mumbai, and Suat Atilik said to me “stop complaining, everything here was wonderful, in a few days you will miss it. Bhopal Bhopal” I laughed it off as just another one of his crazy statements. (a disturbing number of which turn out to be correct)
Within 48 hours I had to swallow my laughter as he turned out to be correct. This tournament is much stronger, has only one game per day and all the games start in the afternoon. Also, the hotel is more modern, shower instead of a bucket. The flipside is that the venue requires transport, in an old bus, through the traffic in Mumbai. While this is regular, the return journey requires waiting around until enough players have finished to fill it. This chews up several hours every day.
The worst is the venue. After the spacious, airy, hall in Bhopal, we are playing in the 3rd basement level of a prestigious, basically a converted carpark. The air is stuffy and anyone with a mild case of claustrophobia can suffer some anxiety. Am such a person.
The worst part is the seating arrangements. The boards are so close together that the scoresheets don’t fit between the boards so the inventive ones fold them in half and others have them on their lap. The chairs are tiny and there is little room under the low table to put one’s legs. This somehow escaped someones attention of an otherwise well-organised event, but since all the wiring for the DGT boards is in place, it is impossible to do anything now.
For next year a much larger venue has been booked, hopefully above ground. Nothing to do now but try to survive another six rounds without any more disasters like in round 1.
Ville Parle
Is the name of the suburb, next to the airport, where our hotel, the Hotel Avion is located. The picture below is the only example of two L spelling I could find. The other spelling has been a constant source of amusement for me. Sorry Jackie, Hughston, but small things amuse small minds 🙂
The local railway station.
On many street corners, various people are honoured. Often not translated into English unfortunately.
Tuk-tuks crossing in random directions. Traffic lights and zebra crossings are largely decorational in most of India.
A view from the rail overpass. Fruit here is widely available but with Australian prices.
Round 1.
I really lost it before this game even started when I saw the seating conditions. Things got worse when the first leg cramps arrived and I had to basically play standing up. Still nothing serious until move 14. My plan was to go back to f3 (14.Nf3) and force through d4&e5. Suddenly I thought, why not just take the pawn back first. Two moves later white is probably just lost.
Round 2
I had two choices, try to calm down or spit the dummy and go home. Any other tournament, where the hosts had not previously displayed such hospitality, and I would have left before the first round had even started. Here, where chessplayers are treated so well, I decided on the former option.
One old friend (who I shall not name publicly, came to the rescue with some good Indian Whisky. I was able to win my first game since round 6 in Bhopal. I cannot be too proud of this achievement though as my opponent was very cooperative.
Round 3
I am not exactly sure what is happening with my white play. The natural 10.h3 just gives white a nice advantage. Instead, after 14.d5 white is just lost. 15…c6 and all my queenside will just fall apart. I cannot even see a way to confuse the issue. Instead, my opponent tried to mate me and didn’t quite succeed. Maybe 1.a3?
Another day another game. The only place with room is board 1 on the stage but that is still many wins away…
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