Innocents Abroad – Hoosiers in Reykjavik!

April 5, 2023 at 6:25 pm (Uncategorized)

Note: for longtime Bibliophilopolis readers & subscribers, I am using my blog for a one-off non-literary post here so that it can be shared with the Indiana State Chess Association’s website/blog. I do hope to return to writing about books and short stories someday soon, however. Don’t give up on me yet!

The Beginning

I am writing this dispatch from the center of Reykjavik, Iceland just the day after the annual Reykjavik Open has ended. This year’s event shattered the existing record for number of participants and – thanks to the help of an Indiana delegation of three (as ISCA President Lester VanMeter pointed out) – the tournament even broke the 400 mark with 401 total entries. Without us, they could only boast of 398 entries, right? 😊

The Delegation

I decided back in November 2022 to make my third trip to Iceland for this great event and, perhaps due to my incessant talking about my past experiences in Reykjavik in chess circles, my friend and chess colleague Bob Banta (fresh among the ranks of us retired folks) decided he would go also. The aforementioned Lester VanMeter hinted he might go too and eventually he became the third when he officially registered for the event. We were also unofficially counting Michael Carey (currently of Rhode Island) as an honorary member of the delegation as he is a longtime friend of Lester, who first met him in Troy, NY, when he (Lester) was a student at RPI. None of us were sporting particularly impressive FIDE ratings heading into the event and for the most part we confirmed their accuracy😊.

Lester at the Board

Bob at the, er, Bobby Fischer Center

Hey, that’s me at the board!

Mike at the “Split Rock” social protest memorial

The Preparations

How does one prepare for any tournament is a tough enough question, but a big, international event like this makes one feel like serious preparation is required. So, I played a lot of chess in early 2023 around Indy, and even played a FIDE rated event in Dallas in February as my “dress rehearsal” for Reykjavik. My results in Dallas were abominable, so I had to cling to the old show biz adage that if the dress rehearsal goes badly, the actual performance will be a success! (Chess players are great at rationalization!). Just before leaving for Iceland, though, I had two consecutive good results in local tournaments, gaining 44 USCF rating points in the process and at least getting some of my confidence back after spending most of my recent chess time sitting on my rating floor of 2000.  The first time I went to the Reykjavik Open in 2017 was also after a period of relative success in USCF events, boosting my rating to 2086 at that time – a level where I was ‘less ashamed’ to show my face at an international event (later I learned & reminded myself that nobody cares).

So, playing was my main preparation, but I’d also been reviewing my new opening ‘repertoire’ that I’ve been trying to put into place in recent months. Lastly, on the Sunday before our departure, Lester hosted an ad hoc training tournament at his house, recruiting strong – though largely inactive in recent years – master Nick Adams of Fort Wayne to join the three of us in a double round-robin of rapid games (about an hour each). This provided a final boost of practice and some additional confidence for me, and we were ready to take the plunge. A few pics from our training tournament below.

Arrival

I learned my lesson after my first trip here to give yourself some time to settle in before you have to start playing chess. In 2017, I arrived at 7:40 in the morning and then had to sit at the board less than six hours later – not the best recipe for success! As I told Lester before we left “I didn’t know what the hell I was doing that first trip!” So, this year I arrived >48 hours ahead of kickoff as did Lester, while Bob arrived >24 hours and got in a ‘Walking Food Tour’ of Reykjavik, while I spent the day on a tour of the Southern Coast of Iceland, as weather deteriorated rapidly, eventually featuring >100kph sustained winds. People in my tour group were literally being BLOWN OVER by the wind and started walking with arms interlocked at the elbows. At one point, near the town of Vik, I was swinging my backpack over my shoulder to put it on and the wind caught its broad surface and treated it like a kite, trying to tug me across the famous black sand and into the sea (which WAS angry that day, my friends. Very. Angry). I remember thinking, “And I paid to be on this tour!”

Opening Party & Playing Location

Reykjavik’s stunning Harpa Concert Hall and Conference Center (above) has in recent years taken over as the playing site for this storied tournament (which has been held since 1964 – a nearly 60 year run!). Situated right on the shore of Reykjavik’s harbor on the Sea of Greenland, it’s my favorite place of all the tournaments I’ve ever played in. With this year’s record number of entries, we were a bit more cramped than in prior years. The Indiana contingent often joked amongst ourselves about scoring well enough to stay out of the ’steerage’ section of the lower boards. The lowest boards were down a short hallway with the sea ‘just outside ‘ the wincows. A Dutch player, Eric de Winter (who I’ve gotten to know over my prior visits), was having a bad tournament and quipped to me that he kept dropping to lower and lower boards and feared by the last round he’d “be in the water!” Funny all the things we chessplayers find to keep ourselves entertained during a competition.

Below: The lowest boards of the ‘steerage’ section.

On the eve of the tournament, there was an opening party for the registered players. I was the only one of our group who attended, but ran into a few familiar faces, including FM Todd Andrews, who I didn’t recognize at first, and Craig Jones. Todd said, “Aren’t you from Indiana? I think we’ve played…” When he said his name, I remembered that we’d played in the 2005 Louisville Open.

I also met a German player, Gerd Densing, who told me of a multi-year project he’d been working on – getting autographs of players whose games are featured in the studies in the great book, “Perfect Your Chess” he’d accumulated over 250 so far and hoped to add a couple more at this tournament. Interesting idea! I didn’t stay that long at the party though as I was still jet-lagged and wanted to at least try to get some sleep before we began play the next day.

Tournament Peculiarities

After playing a lot of smaller swisses lately, I’d gotten used to ‘never’ knowing what color I would have for a particular round, in a tournament with 400 players, though, the pool of potential opponents is usually so large that having to play the same color in consecutive games is a rarity, and indeed none of the Indiana contingent got the same color twice in a row. Another feature was that the white pieces were on the same side of the board throughout the entire playing hall – the player playing white would always be facing west. I started my tournament with black while Bob and Lester started with white, meaning we would be facing opposite directions, and they were usually in my range of vision. This last factor meant that I could not employ one of my many superstitions. In tournaments where one gets to pick which side of the table to sit at, I always keep facing the same direction if I’m winning and change directions if I’m losing.

Scenic skittles area:

There was also a “Streamers Corner” section of the playing hall where chess streaming ‘celebrities’ played their games regardless of their score in the tournament. This section included some extra space for cameras, wiring, etc. Names you might recognize are Alexandra Botez, Simon Williams, Anna Cramling (pictured below being interviewed by local television), Dina Belenkaya and Eric Rosen.

The Results

Well, Mike actually led the way from our group with a last round win putting him at 4.5/9. The rest of us followed closely. I only drew the last round and finished on 4/9 and Lester and Bob each settled on 3.5/9. As for the tournament as a whole, Swedish Grandmaster Nils Grandelius finished in sole first place with an impressive 7.5/9 “finally” winning the event on his eleventh attempt. Indonesian IM Irine Sukandar won the top women’s prize (with 6/9) on tiebreaks over German WGM Sarah Papp and Indian IM Nisha Mohota.

Turkish GM Mustafa Yilmaz (L) and Grandelius (R)

Women’s winners (L-R) Papp, Sukandar, Molhota

The Games

Well, I’ve finished lightly annotating my nine games and will share them here. I will append any games or positions that Lester and Bob want to share with me from their games, although Lester told me that his games were ‘remarkable for being unremarkable’ so don’t hold your breath. The link to view my games in chessbase is Manage Your Favourite Games (chessbase.com) Or you can just view the .PDF file “printout” below: