Online and on board

I’m alive; and even more importantly, back in the land of internets.  But I’ll make it up: this post will be unnaturally long, and you can expect daily updates of the tournament for the next week.

Having survived two safaris, I’ve now settled down into our hotel in Johannesburg in preparation for – shock! – chess.  Together with my consistently entertaining roommates Gawain Jones and Tristan Stevens, I’m getting ready for the 17th Commonwealth Chess Championships, the largest and most prestigious chess event ever held on the African continent.

Basically, I’ve forgotten how to play chess.  After a month of being a backpacker in South America and a couple of months of chess-less Australian drama preceding it, it’s finally time to get reacquainted with the love of my life. I have no expectations; as sixth seed, I’ll be more than happy with a top ten finish.  But in a 700 player open, who knows?

Gawain, Tristan, myself, Argentine Grandmaster Pablo Lafuente, and three very strong Indian women players (Harika, Eesha and Minu) were invited by organiser-extraordinaire Graham Jorgensen (GJ) to join him on safari before the event.  It was, predictably, awesome.  I’d never really properly considered the idea of a modern safari before – in my head, it involved round beige-coloured hats, mosquitoes and lots of ‘Doctor Livingstone’ jokes – but I was naturally way off the mark.

Our accommodation at the two game parks was nothing short of luxury, and in the main reserve, Kruger Park, our place could only be described as a five-star mansion on the river, with nature’s most dangerous creatures just a short swim (and an electric fence) away.

As opposed to a zoo, there’s no certainty about sighting or proximity to the animals.  They roam free, unashamed, untamed through thousands of hectares of natural savannah.  The most common tragedy on the reserves is the unwitting tourist driving off the prescribed roads, creeping the car too close to an elephant or other large, car-dominating creature, or the real first prize: getting out of the auto.  As tempted as I was to road-race the larger cats or attempt to disprove the oft-quoted fact that hippos can outrun humans, I managed to keep all limbs inside our little Audi’s doors.

And apparently, we were really lucky with our sightings.  Multiple daily game drives and long-distance animal spotting reminded me of my ’Where’s Wally?’ days.  I thought my colour blindness would put me at a bit of a disadvantage, but as GJ informed me, people with colour deficiency are usually better at the spotting due to having learned to compensate with better detection of shapes and movement.

Of course, on the one occasion that I saved our lives as GJ accidentally got within three metres of backing the Audi into a huge bull elephant, yelling, “Stop stop STOP!” had less to do with enhanced spotting ability and more to do with sheer panic.

I managed to see the ‘Big Five’ – elephant, buffalo, lion, leopard and rhino – within a 24 hour period, which is apparently almost unheard of.  An epic elephant fight that nearly spilled onto our automobiles, and a giraffe poking his head down to my car window, were two of the more peculiar highlights.

But the champagne spotting was definitely coming across a pride of lions feasting on a buffalo carcass two steps from us.  It was incredibly intimidating watching them eat from literally across an imaginary table, feeling the piercing stare of Africa’s most notorious predators and trying for dear life to find something soothing in our guide’s assurance that “they’re already eating, so they’re not interested in killing us – just don’t move too much.”

I have to say, I was a bit unsure of how social our little chess-safari group would be: four guys drinking beer and eating steak every night with three conservative Hindu girls, in the same house.  But it was actually really fun.  Perhaps the ice was broken a bit on the first night when I cooked my special chicken curry for the house, but far spicier than always; the girls seemed to gain great amusement from watching GJ and I sweat from our nose.

Gawain and I were put to work and made to earn our keep after the safari, giving lectures and simuls to the local JoBurg clubs.  Overall I managed to sore 51 from the 53 simul games, but the real fun came in the question and answer sessions afterwards.  Most of the locals here have never had the chance to see a grandmaster, let alone play or talk to one, and while I felt bad that they were stuck with a second-rate master such as myself, I happily obliged, vividly remembering how excited I was when I first encountered a GM.
(It was Darryl Johansen, at a tournament in Toowoomba back when I was seven.  Nervous as hell, I crept up to watch his game, Darryl being deep in thought.  Overcome with nerves similar to lion-watching, my grip on my water bottle tightened so much that the plastic made a loud “CRACK-CRACK!” right next to my board.  He looked up, glared at me and with a dismissive hand flick, muttered, “Oh go away, will you!”  I ran out of the hall and it wasn‘t til we actually met over the board many years later that I gained the courage to actually speak to him.)

The questions were good, the setting pretty informal and I have to say the whole chat was really fun.  Most of the questions were predictably about what life is like on the pro circuit and what steps are involved in becoming a GM, but there were some other, more unusual gems in there as well.  Probably the most conversationally provoking was, “Do you find that being a chess grandmaster ruins your love life, and makes it hard to meet girls who understand your chess?”  I’m not sure the answers Gawain and I gave were reassuring; I responded with “Well I’m single and married to chess” and Gawain added “My fiancé’s a chess player herself, so I’m not sure that counts.”

But now to the tournament.  After a predictably extended opening ceremony which included a fantastic speech by the South African Minister for Sport (written by yours truly), round one was a rather placid affair.  The evening blitz tournament, however, was far more exciting.  Gawain trumped the field with an impressive 9/9, taking me down in the process.  I was left to settle for tied third, with Indian boy wonder Sahaj Grover sneaking in second with 8.  He and I share a common love of inventing creative nicknames for Minu, but she has sworn physical violence if I detail any of them on here.  Despite being half my size, I fear she’s not to be trifled with.

More pics follow…