Reykjavik Part 2 - Meeting Bobby Fischer!

My last blog post was a big pictorial report on my Icelandic trip. Here's part two dedicated to our chess legend Bobby Fischer!

Fischer passed away in January 2008 at the age of 64 - the connection between the 64 squares of a chess board and him seems so deep rooted! I remember when I read about his demise, I was very sad at not having got a chance to have a glimpse of the God of Chess in person!

The eleventh world champion would have turned 75 on 9th March 2018. This is when we had a rest day at our tournament, Gamma Reykjavik Open: Bobby Fischer Memorial and I was out exploring Iceland!I had already finished seeing some beautiful places and the last part of my journey was 'in search of Bobby Fischer'!

We arrived at the Cemetery of Laugardalur Church, Selfoss. Before this trip, I had never visited any cemetery. It just gives a sad feeling to be in a graveyard or anywhere which reminds of someone who is no longer with us. But I was myself surprised how happy I felt the moment I stepped into this cemetery. Probably in the hearts of chess players, our hero Fischer still lives through his games and being there I just felt like finally I met Fischer, that too on his 75th birthday! It was an amazing feeling! Fischer was the reason I wanted to be in Iceland and everything now seemed like a dream come true!

Our final destination was a place you must visit if you love Bobby Fischer - the Bobby Fischer Center, which is very close to the cemetery at Laugardalur. It is a memorabilia of Fischer and I believe it also constitutes the Selfoss Chess Club. The entry fee is 1000 ISK. The place was very quiet and in fact the Center was closed when we arrived.  The shop below gave a phone number and my friend Oli made a call to the owner and soon the center was opened!

In front of the Fischer Center, there is a giant chess board, something which always excites me!

The entrance to the Center and as soon as you enter you see Fischer everywhere!!

Chess got unprecedented popularity in 1972 during the Fischer- Spassky match in Reykjavik. Here you can see the replica of a chess board used during the match!

I found many interesting cartoons related to the match which were eye catchers!

Basically you just feel yourself transported to 1972 amidst Fischer and Spassky! There are a lot of books and souvenirs on sale and my friend Oli gifted me the book that I am holding "The Enigma of the Lewis Chessmen- The Icelandic Theory"!

I think we have all seen this magnificent game between Byrne and Fischer where 13 year old Fischer beautifully sacrifices a queen and wins in style! The scoresheet of this game can also be taken as a souvenir!

A T-shirt souvenir with Fischer's famous words: "I do not believe in psychology, I believe in good moves!"

When I talk of Fischer, I must also admit that I deeply respect Spassky too! He has always supported Fischer even though he lost the match to him! I hope that someday I get to meet him!

9th March 2018 was really memorable for me.. the feeling of having met the legend no one in the chess world can ever forget!

Beautiful Reykjavik, Iceland!

Every chess lover is familiar with Reykjavik, Iceland! The reason: the Bobby Fischer- Boris Spassky World Championship match of 1972, which brought chess to the notice of the whole world like never before! I always dreamt of playing in the Reykjavik Open for the same reason - I wanted to visit the country which loved the chess legend Fischer! Finally this year my dream came true! I made it to my dream destination when the international chess event was dedicated to the chess king (as the late Fischer would have turned 75 during the event!)and named "Gamma Reykjavik Open 2018- Bobby Fischer Memorial". The tournament was conducted at Harpa, which is a beautiful concert hall and a conference centre, from 6th to 14th March, 2018.












    A look from the flight really made me feel that I was in my dream Ice-land!!

In the above picture, I am with my elder sister WFM Swati Mohota, who is a chess teacher in a reputed school in our city Kolkata. 'Didi' (for foreigners- this is how people call an elder sister in our national language Hindi) loves globetrotting and visiting new countries and Iceland was really our dream. Finally it came true and luckily we made it together! Don't be misguided by the picture and the country's name, Iceland is not all ice!

Iceland gives a feeling of being close to the chess king Fischer! Here I am admiring his photo at the tournament hall at...

...Harpa, very difficult to capture in a camera, it is a beautiful and unique piece of architecture!

You can hardly recognise me in the picture above as I am so well covered to protect myself from the wind! I would enjoy the wind immensely for 10-15 minutes but then would freeze, with red face and hands!!

...It was much easier to recognise my face inside the tourney hall...

...or anywhere else inside Harpa!

Just outside the tournament hall you could feel yourself being transported to the 1972 match, with pictures of Fischer and Spassky everywhere around! In the above picture my sister Swati is attempting a hand shake with Bobby!

The walls were also decorated with big pictures of chess legends and my favorite definitely is Judit Polgar, I became her fan even more after I met her in Zurich 2016 as I realised that she is not only a great player but an amazing human being as well! I liked her views on life! A good human being makes a greater impression on me than just a great chess player! I was also happy to see my good friend Harika's photo among the elites, I have seen how she has dedicated her full life for chess and reached the top spot where she is today!

The outside view from the glass walls of Harpa!

There are a lot of things I liked about this tournament (beautiful city- Reykjavik- and awesome Harpa and its surroundings) but most important for me was the spacious tournament hall! Three wonder kids were playing there and I was simply in love with all of them - Nihal Sarin, Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu (both from India) and Nodirbek Abdusattorov (Uzbekistan) - I could keep standing near their boards for a long time watching them play without disturbing them. I really did not care who the top seeds were, for me these three kids were the top seeds and I wanted to enjoy their games and learn from them as much as possible! I also admired their opponents who would manage to cross the 'hurdle' which these kids were - although I do admire these kids so much, it is not easy psychologically to play against them - the kids are world famous which means every move is being watched,discussed and criticized by one and all. Moreover, the kids are tiny tots to look at but they play brilliantly, make their moves, walk the full tournament hall, keep coming on and off at the board and do most of their calculations blindfolded! When experienced Grandmasters hold their heads to sink deep in the position, these kids play chess so effortlessly, as if it is really child's play! I observed that Abdusattorov got up less from his board and what was eye catching was that he keeps moving a pawn in his hand while thinking- just like Boris Gelfand!   The water bottle shown in the picture above- Icelandic Glacial-are the free bottles provided to all  the players by the organisers.

With one of my super favorites, Nihal Sarin! The first time I saw Nihal was in mid 2015 when he was 2100+. He was playing immensely well in a tournament and his game against an International Master was being played next to my board. I was watching his game very keenly. It was an intense fight and his opponent's flag fell. Result was written in Nihal's favour. After the game Nihal's opponent told him (perhaps, a little fondly but actually I did not like someone telling like this to a eleven year old boy) that he lost on purpose on time because Nihal was a kid and that the game was a draw and even showed some draw in analysis. I witnessed till here. Later I got to know that when Nihal went and told this incident to his mother, she told him to go to the arbiter and change the result and make it a draw!! It was an important tournament and that half point could mean a lot for a kid with rating 2100+, but that brave decision really won my heart that day! With such principled family, this boy will go far I thought. Since that day I am Nihal's secret admirer! In this Reykjavik trip, he was there with me and a few other friends (we were seven of us) during the long flight journey and I realised what made Nihal an amazing chess player...this little genius cannot sit without chess for even 5 minutes! All he loves to do is discuss, analyse and play chess! We had a long journey Reykjavik-Copenhagen-Moscow-Delhi and then back to our respective cities and so I got to be with Nihal for around 40 hours. I did not see Nihal sitting without chess at all. He would quickly go to any one who had laptop or phone with a chess board open and start discussing some moves. If nothing else, he would start blindfold discussion! His mind never gets tired of chess! With such passion, what he has achieved till now is just the beginning!

People admire champions. I admire the ones who are behind the upbringing of champions! It was a big moment for me to meet Henrik Carlsen, father of world champion Magnus Carlsen. The senior Carlsen was playing in the tournament (I later learnt that he is a regular at the Reykjavik Open) and one fine day I decided that I must go up to him and speak to him before the game begins - I had so many questions to ask! It is funny - if you leave me next to Magnus Carlsen, I will stand like a dumb person, not knowing what to speak. However, when I walked up to Carlsen's dad I had so much to ask- "How does it feel that your son became world champ in a sport you love? How were the initial years, was his childhood different from other kids?" etc etc. I could actually speak to him for hours but the game was to start and I spoke around 2-3 minutes, wished him luck and felt very happy within!

Ok, now let me take you outside the tournament hall.

Just outside Harpa. Why are my hands always near my ears? ..Is it for not hearing anything bad as told by Mahatma Gandhi? ..Not really!! It was very windy there and my two caps and jacket's hood were not sufficient to cover my ears! So if you go to Reykjavik, go prepared with a really good cap!

A beautiful structure close to Harpa, although I do not know its name or significance.

Are you able to spot Harpa far behind in this picture? It was a short walk from here.

A view of the street we loved to walk to enjoy the wind!

My sister loves to see different churches, so a visit to a church close to the tournament hall was one of the first things we did!

Window shopping! Some of my friends had told me that Iceland is the most expensive country they have visited! I would wonder "how expensive and what exactly is expensive?". I got the answer after going there! Everything wonderful comes at a price and Iceland is no different! It indeed is the costliest country I have visited! Let me compare with my city Kolkata. I buy eggs at Indian Rupees 54 a dozen and when the shopkeeper tells me the price has gone up to Rs.60 a dozen, I make a note in my mind,  price rise! In Iceland I would buy eggs at Rupees 400 a dozen at the cheapest shop, almost nearly seven times the rate I pay in my country. Of course Rs.400 is not that big a deal but am talking only about eggs now. At the airport we spotted a nice woolen hat. We looked at the price- it was approximately Rs.11,000 (for foreigners- approximately 130 Euros)!! In the very initial years of my service life, this would be my month's salary! Of course that was much more than a decade ago but what I mean is that this amount for a hat is too much by Indian standards.
Here, I would add a note on currency. In Iceland they use Icelandic Krona but you might not need cash at all. Cards are accepted almost everywhere except for public buses (Company named Straeto) where you have to pay exact change as the drivers do not carry cash and cards are not accepted! The local passengers use seasonal tickets so if you need to pay for one way travel, you need to have exact change. The bus ticket in the bus we took to the tournament hall (around 15 minutes drive) was 460 Krona per person one way, which was approximately Rs.300. The minimum bus fare in my city is Rs.6, so this was 50 times more!

Even though Iceland has the disadvantage of being expensive for tourists, it is by far the best country I have visited! (I have visited almost 30 countries). If you can afford it, you must visit Iceland - it is worth every penny spent!

For me songs are awesome if they have good lyrics and a country is beautiful if it has wonderful people! Extremely thankful to Oli and Gudrun  who made our stay in Iceland extremely memorable and did so much for us that at times I would look at them and think are they real or am I just dreaming!! They did for didi and me what I wouldn't even expect my closest relatives to do! If I meet more such people in life, I will definitely start believing that the world is full of wonderful people and my outlook towards life will become even more positive than today! 

With Dora and Micro, our wonderful friends, I still miss them! I learnt that in Iceland there are no stray cats and dogs, only pets exist. 

With Icelandic horses!

Now I will take you around to a few places we visited on the rest day of the tournament.

On the day of sight seeing, my sister Swati was  eager to find snow somewhere to play with. The snow had mostly become ice everywhere but here she found some snow and was very happy!

The view outside during journey! Simply beautiful!

Geysir was in our list of 'to visit' places and we made it there! Click here to watch this awesome video captured by me which will definitely make you want to visit Iceland! Mindblowing, isn't it ?

This one contains some details of Geysir.

Didi rightly said that geysir gives the feeling of a dream sequence in our Hindi movies (whenever Indian movies show someone dreaming, they use smoke effect to let the public know that it is a dream). For us, being there watching Geysir itself seemed like a dream! Overall Iceland experience was indeed a dream come true! Do not forget to notice the lot of tourists who had gathered to see the beautiful sight!

Another very beautiful destination was Gullfoss Waterfall! You will notice that I had become red due to the cold. Most difficult thing was to take photographs. To take a picture one had to open the gloves and the wind would start its job of freezing you!! Didi and I both enjoy cold but the hands were actually pricking after 1-2 minutes. We did enjoy the experience of gloves on, gloves off!!

Gullfoss Waterfall is awesome, right?

If you go to Gullfoss and if you are a fish lover, do try this sandwich, it was yummy! This was the best tuna fish I ever tasted! This brings me to another important point - Iceland is  very famous for fish! (But I was told that the tuna fish is imported). Do try it!

We dropped by to peep into a hot water swimming pool..here I am at the top of the pool...

...this picture will give a better view. We saw the people enjoying in the hot pool and then they would run  to the cold water! This reminds me, hot water pool is a very common and interesting thing in Iceland which one must try! My sister had this interesting question as to why people need hot pool when there is bath tub at home? We were told that the idea of hot water pool is to keep the body warm and to keep the face up above water so that it gets fresh air! This is how it is different from a bath tub!
Speaking of water, any tap water in Iceland is drinkable, so you never need to buy a bottle of water! The Icelandic water is good to drink and also good for the skin and hair and everything else!

Iceland has surplus of electricity production- mostly from renewable sources- and so people do not have to worry about electricity at all. Aluminium and fishing industry are the important industries in Iceland.

I found this written at the airport! It is very interesting that genealogy, or family history, has a very special place in Iceland. It is the study of families and the study of their lineages. Basically there is an online database for people of Iceland. they can sign in and search how they are related to another person - they could be related through forefathers, 10 generations back or so. It is amazing that such a wonderful record of facts is maintained online!

Are you looking for inspiration to visit Iceland? Look no further!!

On a personal note and a little off topic, I saw the hardcopy of my DVD, "Strengthen your chess foundation" for the first time in Reykjavik, after a year of its release! Why, you might wonder! Well, I have soft copy in my computer and I gifted the few DVDs I received in packed condition, so never got a chance to open the pack and look inside. In Reykjavik after gifting it to a friend, I opened my DVD cover and installed it for him and before I installed it, I was like "Wow, this is how my DVD looks like!"

                                        IM Nisha Mohota- IM John Bartholomew, White to play.


Being a chess player, it is impossible not to include any chess trivia from a full tournament! This was my seventh round game. I was white against John Bartholomew of the US. This was the critical 40th move, but as you can all spot, it is very easy now for white to bring home the full point. I played 40.Rh7! and soon won the game. Black is losing everything.

Iceland is beautiful and the people beautiful at heart add to our joy! I hope you all enjoyed this journey to Iceland with me. I have beautiful memories of my trip and so I wanted to share it with all.Part 2 of this article (which will be very close to my heart) will be published soon.


P.S.- I know this blog post has been long, but if you truly love something, don't you have tons to speak about it?