Toilet Police
After a pleasant evening at a superb Japanese restaurant and a few glasses of wine and good company I slept very well for the first time since arriving in Malaysia. Is wine the secret? Could well be. This morning I was feeling fresh and ready for my game. My first surprise was my opponent. Seeing the name Michael Owen I expected a jaded old white chess tourist like myself, instead I got a motivated young Indonesian kid.I was quite satisfied with my opening and after a few glasses of water needed to visit the bathroom. On my way out a pretty young lady with a sheet and pen in her hand asked me where I was going. I told her and she asked my name and board number, and noted my exit. As the round went on she seemed a bit overworked because not only are there hundreds of people playing, all leaving the hall for different reasons but with the nationalities represented, occasionally language was also an issue.
Needless to say some players expressed more than a little irritation at being interrogated especially as the time control approached.
I am not sure what this is supposed to achieve and everything (almost) is worth trying once but I hope the organisers shelve this rather absurd idea forthwith.
Round 6
I was quite happy with the opening, especially since Michael consumed oodles of time to get a bad position but on move 14 I thought better of the intended and natural Qf2 and swapped queens noticing that I get at least a pawn back. However it was not so simple and accurate calculation was required which I was too lazy to do.I did in fact see 22.Rd6, sacrificing the exchange for all his Queenside and central pawns but figured anything won at this stage. A miscalculation later I was a pawn down in a bad rook ending. I was proud of my technique in at least holding the draw until I checked it with Stockfish. Turns out I played it quite poorly. Oh well, at least he did as well.
Now for a quick snack and then the last double round for this tournament.
Toodles :-)
No comments:
Post a Comment