Thursday, May 26, 2005

People you meet at chess tournaments

What I like most at chess tournaments is to see such a diversion of people.
People of all ages. My oldest opponent who beated me was 90, and the youngest was an 8 year old boy. Beware of such children! During the game they look totally uninterested, while drinking their lemonade, and when they move they never seem to think about it. You allways loose on time with them.
In the chess-world you get to know a lot of people. And on every tournament you see your old friends.
And if you have won from them or not, after 1 game they remain friends.
Some people have a handicap.
I play often with a blind guy, because we have allmost the same rating, and we both like the tournaments. He has his own little chess board, where he can touch the fields and pieces, and to record our moves he uses a cassette-recorder. He is a specialist with his laser-beam bishops, they seem to pop up from everywhere.
Sometimes there are hilarious situations: One time a blind guy was placed against a deaf guy........(computers have there own handicap)
I played a few years ago against somebody in a wheelchair who could not do his moves by himself (he was paralysed). I had to do the moves for him.
He won from me, so at the end I had to checkmate myself.
Sigh...
It is nice to see the really old men and women play their game. They are old-fashioned polite and so relaxed, they just play for fun. They still have their sharpness of mind, which makes me conclude that playing chess is good for us.

About the circles:
TCT
Step 1-4, completed the 7 circles
Step 5 :
circle 1 for all levels, average 88 %
circle 2 : level 15
circle 3 : level 13
circle 4 : level 11
circle 5 : level 4

4 comments:

Unknown said...

So I was right, playing chess keeps old people like me mentally fit!!

Zek said...

I think it's great when you see so many different people at a chess tournament. The young and old alike. The best is when you see a very old person and a very young person playing. There is a blind player at my club and he's about 1800 or so.

Zek said...

oh and i'll add you to my chess links!

King of the Spill said...

Notice post.

I also hate checkmating myself!