This year I have been playing a lot of chess, specially abroad. I have worked immensely on my chess in the recent years but somehow they are not reflecting in my results for quite some time and somehow I feel that good results can come any moment! So I am trying hard, very hard, putting in a lot of time, money and effort! You might be wondering why does one need to play abroad when there are so many tournaments in India? I feel it is best to avoid known faces in India who keep judging you after every game. Any tournament you play there are always some older, wiser men, who have seen you since childhood and who never fail to mention that "you are playing bad!" after every draw or loss that you make! I find it very demotivating. I am playing chess for 30 years and after giving my full life to it, I wouldn't like a passerby to judge my performance after every game! I want to play chess because I enjoy playing chess and not because I have to give my performance report to some "uncle" (in India this is how we call elderly strangers who are our dad's age)who has never invested in my chess!
After my Commonwealth tournament this year (where 'as usual' I missed medal due to last round loss!), I had intended to take a small break from tournaments and work on my chess. But that was not to be! Immediately after I was back home, I got an invitation for a closed International Masters' (IM) tournament in Metz. A player had dropped out last minute due to visa issues and they needed a last minute replacement. A closed IM tournament where I would be the 9th seed out of 10 players was very exciting! Of course, being an IM, I was not looking for a norm but I really wanted to add some rating points. I had a Schengen Visa but last minute tickets are expensive and last minute planning is tedious and so I was in two minds. Finally everything worked out properly, thanks to the 17 -year- old organiser of the Metz tournament, Alexis Cahen, who helped me with everything related to this trip! Before a foreign trip, I normally have a 1000 questions and Alexis showed the true quality of a chess player and answered all my questions patiently! He even suggested and helped with the next tournament after Metz and I am glad that I followed his suggestion! Finally it was decided that in the France leg of the trip, I would play in a closed IM tournament in Metz (4th EFE Metz International Chess Festival from 23rd to 29th July,2018) followed by a swiss open tourney in Wasselonne (22nd Open International de Wassellonne A from 2nd August to 5th August,2018).
Before I start my beautiful journey of France, I want to point out to my non-Indian readers about the difficulties faced by Indians when travelling to Europe. As there are so many Indians in all European tournaments (due to the growing popularity of chess in India), it is very easy to be ignorant about their hardships to make every trip to Europe. People living in Schengen countries do not need any entry visa to visit other Schengen countries and can travel by road to the tournament, possibly just driving in their car. So all they need to do is choose one good tournament to play and return home. On the other hand, when one travels all the way from India to Europe, covering more than 7000 kilometers, paying a huge airfare, things are not that simple! The first problem starts with visa. Arranging all the relevant papers for visa is a nightmare for me always! While some embassies are relaxed with the documents needed, others ask for details of stay 'every' night that you are in a foreign country! These embassies take a long time for the processing of the visa (sometimes 20 days) and so you need to have everything planned out including hotel reservation before your trip is confirmed. If your hotel reservation is non refundable, it adds to your worries. If you have a flexible hotel reservation, you obviously pay more! Many people get the visa for the exact duration of the trip, which means next time they plan a trip, they need to start everything all over again! Luckily for me, the French embassy had given me a two years' Schengen visa when I last applied and that is why I have been enjoying my trips with lesser problems! The next problem an Indian faces is finding a series of tournaments which go one after the other. When one spends huge money on flight fare, it is impossible to play just one tournament and come back as that single tournament becomes very expensive. So normally when I travel abroad, I look for two to three tournaments continuously, so that on an average I spend less per tournament. If the tournaments are in different Schengen countries, then of course internal travel is also a huge problem! Now probably you can understand why most Indians do well when they play abroad - when one takes so much trouble to make a foreign trip, then one obviously puts in a lot of effort to make it a success!
Collage of the wonderful people who made my trip memorable! Maurice Guesnerot, Michel Veit, Martine, Alexis Cahen, Stanislas Loiret and Camille Rolland! When you meet such wonderful people, you feel that foreign trips are worth all the trouble - they give you lifetime memories and some strangers become your friends forever!
After sorting out everything related to the trip, I was on board the Etihad flight Kolkata-Abu Dhabi- Paris. A solo trip always means excitement, fear, hope and some worries! So whenever I start a solo journey all kinds of thoughts enter my mind! There are always thoughts about how the journey will be, specially the bus and the train journey with the heavy luggage- there is always some Indian food in my suitcase, so it is never light! After a long journey, I reached Paris Charles de Gaulle airport. I had 8 hours in hand before the Ouibus would take me from CDG to Metz! When planning my trip, I had chosen the direct bus to Metz from the airport, even though it meant a long wait after my flight lands. I had a reason behind it. When I visited France in December end last year, I had a very scary experience in a metro train when some people tried to snatch my purse which had my passport! I had a narrow escape then but that had happened exactly after reaching France, when going from Paris CDG to EST in different trains and metro. This time again I was travelling alone and wanted to have a safe journey! After I got my luggage and had hours to myself, I started thinking that one should have a very good friend in all parts of the world! Imagine, 8 hours in the beautiful city of Paris and I could do nothing but kill time. A friend there, to show me around would have been so wonderful!
This is what attracted me the most at Paris airport : Incredible India ad!
One needs to take airport shuttle (it's a train which you can avail for free to go from one terminal to another at CDG) to go from the terminal 2 (where my Etihad flight landed) to terminal 3 (where I had to catch the Ouibus from). If you need to wait for hours like I had to, then you must wait in terminal 2 and not at terminal 3 which has no chairs to sit. I actually took the shuttle, went to terminal 3 much ahead of time, then realised that there was nothing there- no shops, no chairs, it was just a terminal for trains and buses, so I took the airport shuttle again and came back to terminal 2 and grabbed a good chair to spend many hours! The most difficult thing when sitting idle when alone after a flight journey is to control sleep! I was really scared that I would fall off to sleep and miss my bus! Finally I did manage to stay awake! My Ouibus was around 4pm. So a little before 3pm I left for terminal 3 and reached there well ahead of the scheduled time of my bus. I must say that I really liked Ouibus and would avail it in future too! The drivers of Ouibus seem very friendly and happy to help with a smile! A pleasant smile in a foreign country where people are happy to help you, gives a nice feeling! My driver asked me which country I came from and then said "welcome to France"! The bus had a toilet, wifi and charging point. Till the next stop 'Bercy', I was one of the two passengers in the bus (!!) but soon after the next stop, the bus was full! The journey was of 5 hours 40 minutes and midway during the journey there was a stop for around 20 minutes for refreshment. The bus was perfectly on time and I was very happy to see my good friends from Metz waiting for me at the bus stop!
In the picture above I am with my good friends cum wonderful hosts, Camille and Stanislas, who opened the door of their house for me! Stanislas is a chess coach by profession who enjoys the beauty in a chess composition and specializes in solving them while Camille is a clinical phychiatrist. Both of them play and enjoy chess and love Indian food a lot!
I really like the concept of the Metz tournament. I had played a similar tournament in Nancy, France in 2016 and loved that tournament too for the format and for the wonderful organisation but after that year they changed the format of the tournament. Let me tell you more about the Metz tourney. They have a lot of round robin events held simultaneously. Two events started two days before the other events - Group A- a closed WIM tournament and Group B- a closed IM tournament with 9 rounds in seven days. Then there was Group C to Group M - so totally thirteen separate round robin tournaments and finally Group N where they made a small swiss with the remaining players! There was a total of 149 players in the festival. Basically as I understand, the idea is this - they take all the entries and then group them in different round robins as per rating. The advantage for players is that they get to play players of similar rating- not too high and not too low. I personally prefer this format to swiss events where you have to play players 300 points up and down and prove yourself. This event where you play players 100 points up and down makes more sense to me. You do well with players of your strength, you reach the next level and basically have a steady improvement!
The tournament hall was very spacious. You can see the events- Group A and group B in progress in the picture above.
The festival was very well organised. There were a few side events. One of which was surprisingly won by me!
In the picture above, next to me is the representative of the Mayor of Metz and behind me is Philippe Nolot, president of the EFE Metz Club. I won my first tournament abroad - a mini Fide rated blitz event on 27th July in Metz! The interesting thing is that initially I had decided to just watch the blitz event as I was not sure my stamina would pull after two rounds of the round robin games (4 hours each) that day. Then I decided to play 2-3 rounds and withdraw whenever I get exhausted and then I actually went on to win it, surprising myself!
Here, I am with Alexis Cahen, the ambitious 17-years-old organiser of the Metz tourney and now a good friend! He completely defies his age with his mature behaviour! I am extremely thankful to him for all the help with this trip! He not only invited me to the Metz tourney but also helped me with the Wasselonne event and strongly recommended that I play it! I am glad that I listened to his advice as Wasselonne was a success for me!
When I was young, I used to judge people a lot and that is why I had problems making friends abroad as they were very different from me. I have matured with age and have stopped judging people and like and accept them as they are. Probably this is why I make more friends these days! In India I see people playing chess to win, to be the numero uno! In Metz and later in Wasselonne, I met people who were playing chess for many different reasons, not just for winning! Some played it to forget their life's problems temporarily, some to not get Alzeimers' with age while for some, this chess addiction would keep them away from other harmful addictions! I found this very interesting! The tournament hall was a little hot for me (the temperature was much above 30 degress) and in France people do not use fans generally, but somehow I used be be happy with everything and that helped me to play good chess! I finished 5th after my only loss in the last round with the ultimate champion, Piotr Murdzia of Poland. I gained 14 rating points although I could have finished much better, specially had I not drawn a clear edge position in round 6.
The final ranking crosstable of the IM tournament.
Two players made IM norm in the tournament- Victor Stephan of France (photo top left) and my good friend now Pierre Villegas of Monaco. In the picture above, Pierre is trying some Indian food!
Enjoying a photo-session with my favorite boy of France, 10-year-old Clement Kuhn and his sister Mathilde Kuhn. I fell in love with this talented kid when I first saw him in my last trip to France in a tournament in Vandoeuvre. The striking thing about him is not just that he plays strong chess but most importantly for me, he always keeps smiling!! His smile is captivating! I am planning to learn some French to be able to speak to him!
With Ernesto Dillenschneider, one of the arbiters of the festival. In the gap between two rounds, I had noticed that the arbiters would play non-stop blitz very enthusiastically amongst themselves!
My next destination was a 7 round tourney in Wasselonne. I had three days to relax before the tournament began.
My host Maurice was one of the organisers of the tournament. He was very kind enough to come all the way to Metz to pick me up three days before the tournament and drive me to the beautiful town Marlenheim, the place where he stayed! More about Marlenheim later. The above photo was taken by me when Maurice took me around to see the beautiful city of Strasbourg. I also met his daughter and his two lovely grandchildren in Strasbourg!
Strasbourg is beautiful, as can be seen in the picture above! The Cathedral was lovely, the streets were very lively. I was in love with it at first sight!
Maurice took me around in Strasbourg but I felt I need to come back to Strasbourg again. It is a place where I wish to spend more time, it looked beautiful!
I love to photograph the sun and the sky everywhere!
Maurice was really amazing. He saw to it that my stay becomes really memorable! The day when he was busy, he sent his friend Martine to take me around to see the vineyard and the nearby locality in the beautiful town of Marlenheim!
The two hours walk around Marlenheim with Martine was awesome! I realised that Marlenheim was all about beautiful houses, fresh surroundings, fruits, vegetables, flowers specially geranium and...
...the vineyard! Was really nice to walk through it!
There are two advantages of walking up the vineyard. You could see the town of Marlenheim from the top and secondly that was all the exercise you needed in the day! You could keep walking upwards endlessly and it was beautiful!
Hotel de Ville is not a hotel! It's a townhall.
The short trip around Marlenheim with Martine was truly memorable! Marlenheim is very peaceful, calm and quiet place with fresh air, no pollution and is a very clean town.
Everything I would need in Marlenheim and Wasselonne was very well taken care of by Maurice. His friend Michel would pick me up and drop me back home whenever Maurice was busy. Michel is a music teacher who told me that he played chess to produce beautiful games and he even showed me a beautiful game full of sacrifice played by him in an earlier tournament and later even in the Wasselonne tournament he played a beautiful game and was extremely satisfied. It is so nice to see that my favorite game gives pleasure to different people in different ways!
I stood third in Wasselonne (I could also put it as joint first as six of us tied with 5.5/7), was unbeaten and this is my best standings in a classical open tournament outside India (I once did well in Bangladesh, came 3rd , but that was more than a decade ago and Bangladesh feels same as India!). Maurice and his friend Michel were the ones because of whom I could play well - they together took care of everything else - including dropping me at Strasbourg train station on the last day. On my part, all I had to think of was playing good chess! There was nothing else to worry about!!
Wasselonne tournament A was a 7 round swiss tournament for players rated above 1700. Tournament B was for 1401-1799 level and tournament C for less than 1500 players. There were 63 players in my tournament A. What I like about the France tournaments is the lesser number of players! Many organisers brag about their tournaments getting a lot of participants but from players' point of view, more the number of players, the weaker is the tournament generally, specially if you drop points in the initial rounds. I drew round one. But then I marched strongly ahead with four straight wins and due to the lesser number of players, I started getting strong opposition very soon. From round 4 onwards, I was on the stage (the top 4 boards were played there, those games were live, not just on the internet but at a few places in the tournament venue with giant screen showing the games which the spectators could enjoy!). After the end of 5 rounds, I was the sole leader! Then in round six I drew the top seed, the young GM Bellahcene Bilel, who was the favorite of everyone there! I was close to my dream of winning an international open but with the final round draw, it still was only a shared first place, third by tie breaks!
The final top ten standings in Wasselonne tournament A. I was half bucolz less- bucolz is the sum of opponent's points. Next time I win a player, I must boost his confidence after the game and tell him to fight back strongly!!
Everyone in Wasselonne is very friendly! I normally do not miss the prize giving even if I am not getting any prize but this time it was different. My train from Strasbourg to Brussels was at 3 in the afternoon as there wasn't any later train which would go directly to Brussels (I had to take the flight from Brussels to my next tournament at Abu Dhabi the following morning). This meant that I had to leave without attending the prize giving ceremony. The organisers were very kind enough to give me my prize before I left.
I went to Brussels with the two trophies I won, one in Metz and the other in Wasselonne and with some very fond memories of France! All my good friends outside India are mostly from France and this trip added more to the list!!
I give below an interesting win by me in Wasselonne.
Mohota Nisha (2268)- Lerch Patrice (2388)
We reached this position in my 5th round game in Wasselonne after Black's 22nd move. Can you find what I played here?
I played 23.Nfxe5!? Ok, I did not have something concrete but I felt that this is the move I must go for. My central pawns will give me some compensation. Play continued 23...dxe5 24.Nxe5 Bd7 25.c4 Bf6 26.Nxd7 Bxa1 27.Nxf8 Qxf8 28.g4 Ng7 29.e5 Qd8 30.Kg2 Qh4?!. This move was uncalled for. 31.g5! Now I had some threats to trap the Queen with Re4 and Be2. Play continued 31...Qd4 32. Bd2 Re7 33.f4. We reached the following diagram.
I keep telling everyone (even in my ChessBase DVD, "Strengthen your chess foundation" I have said the same) that you must keep putting pressure on opponent and everyone crumbles under pressure. Here finally my opponent made a huge mistake in a slightly uncomfortable position. He played 33...Nf5?!. How did I finish the game?
I played 34.Bxf5! The knight was the best defender of the black king. Once it is gone, the game is over! Play continued 34...gxf5 and then came the shot 35.Rxa1! Now it's winning for me. Black cannot take 35...Qxa1 due to 36.Bc3 followed by e6 check, when the Black's king looks paralysed! I soon won the game with my two extra pawns.
A good win and a good result definitely helps in making a trip unforgettable!
P.S.- Some of the photos of Metz tournament which I have used are by Alexis Cahen.
After my Commonwealth tournament this year (where 'as usual' I missed medal due to last round loss!), I had intended to take a small break from tournaments and work on my chess. But that was not to be! Immediately after I was back home, I got an invitation for a closed International Masters' (IM) tournament in Metz. A player had dropped out last minute due to visa issues and they needed a last minute replacement. A closed IM tournament where I would be the 9th seed out of 10 players was very exciting! Of course, being an IM, I was not looking for a norm but I really wanted to add some rating points. I had a Schengen Visa but last minute tickets are expensive and last minute planning is tedious and so I was in two minds. Finally everything worked out properly, thanks to the 17 -year- old organiser of the Metz tournament, Alexis Cahen, who helped me with everything related to this trip! Before a foreign trip, I normally have a 1000 questions and Alexis showed the true quality of a chess player and answered all my questions patiently! He even suggested and helped with the next tournament after Metz and I am glad that I followed his suggestion! Finally it was decided that in the France leg of the trip, I would play in a closed IM tournament in Metz (4th EFE Metz International Chess Festival from 23rd to 29th July,2018) followed by a swiss open tourney in Wasselonne (22nd Open International de Wassellonne A from 2nd August to 5th August,2018).
Before I start my beautiful journey of France, I want to point out to my non-Indian readers about the difficulties faced by Indians when travelling to Europe. As there are so many Indians in all European tournaments (due to the growing popularity of chess in India), it is very easy to be ignorant about their hardships to make every trip to Europe. People living in Schengen countries do not need any entry visa to visit other Schengen countries and can travel by road to the tournament, possibly just driving in their car. So all they need to do is choose one good tournament to play and return home. On the other hand, when one travels all the way from India to Europe, covering more than 7000 kilometers, paying a huge airfare, things are not that simple! The first problem starts with visa. Arranging all the relevant papers for visa is a nightmare for me always! While some embassies are relaxed with the documents needed, others ask for details of stay 'every' night that you are in a foreign country! These embassies take a long time for the processing of the visa (sometimes 20 days) and so you need to have everything planned out including hotel reservation before your trip is confirmed. If your hotel reservation is non refundable, it adds to your worries. If you have a flexible hotel reservation, you obviously pay more! Many people get the visa for the exact duration of the trip, which means next time they plan a trip, they need to start everything all over again! Luckily for me, the French embassy had given me a two years' Schengen visa when I last applied and that is why I have been enjoying my trips with lesser problems! The next problem an Indian faces is finding a series of tournaments which go one after the other. When one spends huge money on flight fare, it is impossible to play just one tournament and come back as that single tournament becomes very expensive. So normally when I travel abroad, I look for two to three tournaments continuously, so that on an average I spend less per tournament. If the tournaments are in different Schengen countries, then of course internal travel is also a huge problem! Now probably you can understand why most Indians do well when they play abroad - when one takes so much trouble to make a foreign trip, then one obviously puts in a lot of effort to make it a success!
Collage of the wonderful people who made my trip memorable! Maurice Guesnerot, Michel Veit, Martine, Alexis Cahen, Stanislas Loiret and Camille Rolland! When you meet such wonderful people, you feel that foreign trips are worth all the trouble - they give you lifetime memories and some strangers become your friends forever!
After sorting out everything related to the trip, I was on board the Etihad flight Kolkata-Abu Dhabi- Paris. A solo trip always means excitement, fear, hope and some worries! So whenever I start a solo journey all kinds of thoughts enter my mind! There are always thoughts about how the journey will be, specially the bus and the train journey with the heavy luggage- there is always some Indian food in my suitcase, so it is never light! After a long journey, I reached Paris Charles de Gaulle airport. I had 8 hours in hand before the Ouibus would take me from CDG to Metz! When planning my trip, I had chosen the direct bus to Metz from the airport, even though it meant a long wait after my flight lands. I had a reason behind it. When I visited France in December end last year, I had a very scary experience in a metro train when some people tried to snatch my purse which had my passport! I had a narrow escape then but that had happened exactly after reaching France, when going from Paris CDG to EST in different trains and metro. This time again I was travelling alone and wanted to have a safe journey! After I got my luggage and had hours to myself, I started thinking that one should have a very good friend in all parts of the world! Imagine, 8 hours in the beautiful city of Paris and I could do nothing but kill time. A friend there, to show me around would have been so wonderful!
This is what attracted me the most at Paris airport : Incredible India ad!
One needs to take airport shuttle (it's a train which you can avail for free to go from one terminal to another at CDG) to go from the terminal 2 (where my Etihad flight landed) to terminal 3 (where I had to catch the Ouibus from). If you need to wait for hours like I had to, then you must wait in terminal 2 and not at terminal 3 which has no chairs to sit. I actually took the shuttle, went to terminal 3 much ahead of time, then realised that there was nothing there- no shops, no chairs, it was just a terminal for trains and buses, so I took the airport shuttle again and came back to terminal 2 and grabbed a good chair to spend many hours! The most difficult thing when sitting idle when alone after a flight journey is to control sleep! I was really scared that I would fall off to sleep and miss my bus! Finally I did manage to stay awake! My Ouibus was around 4pm. So a little before 3pm I left for terminal 3 and reached there well ahead of the scheduled time of my bus. I must say that I really liked Ouibus and would avail it in future too! The drivers of Ouibus seem very friendly and happy to help with a smile! A pleasant smile in a foreign country where people are happy to help you, gives a nice feeling! My driver asked me which country I came from and then said "welcome to France"! The bus had a toilet, wifi and charging point. Till the next stop 'Bercy', I was one of the two passengers in the bus (!!) but soon after the next stop, the bus was full! The journey was of 5 hours 40 minutes and midway during the journey there was a stop for around 20 minutes for refreshment. The bus was perfectly on time and I was very happy to see my good friends from Metz waiting for me at the bus stop!
I really like the concept of the Metz tournament. I had played a similar tournament in Nancy, France in 2016 and loved that tournament too for the format and for the wonderful organisation but after that year they changed the format of the tournament. Let me tell you more about the Metz tourney. They have a lot of round robin events held simultaneously. Two events started two days before the other events - Group A- a closed WIM tournament and Group B- a closed IM tournament with 9 rounds in seven days. Then there was Group C to Group M - so totally thirteen separate round robin tournaments and finally Group N where they made a small swiss with the remaining players! There was a total of 149 players in the festival. Basically as I understand, the idea is this - they take all the entries and then group them in different round robins as per rating. The advantage for players is that they get to play players of similar rating- not too high and not too low. I personally prefer this format to swiss events where you have to play players 300 points up and down and prove yourself. This event where you play players 100 points up and down makes more sense to me. You do well with players of your strength, you reach the next level and basically have a steady improvement!
The tournament hall was very spacious. You can see the events- Group A and group B in progress in the picture above.
The festival was very well organised. There were a few side events. One of which was surprisingly won by me!
In the picture above, next to me is the representative of the Mayor of Metz and behind me is Philippe Nolot, president of the EFE Metz Club. I won my first tournament abroad - a mini Fide rated blitz event on 27th July in Metz! The interesting thing is that initially I had decided to just watch the blitz event as I was not sure my stamina would pull after two rounds of the round robin games (4 hours each) that day. Then I decided to play 2-3 rounds and withdraw whenever I get exhausted and then I actually went on to win it, surprising myself!
Here, I am with Alexis Cahen, the ambitious 17-years-old organiser of the Metz tourney and now a good friend! He completely defies his age with his mature behaviour! I am extremely thankful to him for all the help with this trip! He not only invited me to the Metz tourney but also helped me with the Wasselonne event and strongly recommended that I play it! I am glad that I listened to his advice as Wasselonne was a success for me!
When I was young, I used to judge people a lot and that is why I had problems making friends abroad as they were very different from me. I have matured with age and have stopped judging people and like and accept them as they are. Probably this is why I make more friends these days! In India I see people playing chess to win, to be the numero uno! In Metz and later in Wasselonne, I met people who were playing chess for many different reasons, not just for winning! Some played it to forget their life's problems temporarily, some to not get Alzeimers' with age while for some, this chess addiction would keep them away from other harmful addictions! I found this very interesting! The tournament hall was a little hot for me (the temperature was much above 30 degress) and in France people do not use fans generally, but somehow I used be be happy with everything and that helped me to play good chess! I finished 5th after my only loss in the last round with the ultimate champion, Piotr Murdzia of Poland. I gained 14 rating points although I could have finished much better, specially had I not drawn a clear edge position in round 6.
The final ranking crosstable of the IM tournament.
Two players made IM norm in the tournament- Victor Stephan of France (photo top left) and my good friend now Pierre Villegas of Monaco. In the picture above, Pierre is trying some Indian food!
Enjoying a photo-session with my favorite boy of France, 10-year-old Clement Kuhn and his sister Mathilde Kuhn. I fell in love with this talented kid when I first saw him in my last trip to France in a tournament in Vandoeuvre. The striking thing about him is not just that he plays strong chess but most importantly for me, he always keeps smiling!! His smile is captivating! I am planning to learn some French to be able to speak to him!
My next destination was a 7 round tourney in Wasselonne. I had three days to relax before the tournament began.
My host Maurice was one of the organisers of the tournament. He was very kind enough to come all the way to Metz to pick me up three days before the tournament and drive me to the beautiful town Marlenheim, the place where he stayed! More about Marlenheim later. The above photo was taken by me when Maurice took me around to see the beautiful city of Strasbourg. I also met his daughter and his two lovely grandchildren in Strasbourg!
Strasbourg is beautiful, as can be seen in the picture above! The Cathedral was lovely, the streets were very lively. I was in love with it at first sight!
Maurice was really amazing. He saw to it that my stay becomes really memorable! The day when he was busy, he sent his friend Martine to take me around to see the vineyard and the nearby locality in the beautiful town of Marlenheim!
The two hours walk around Marlenheim with Martine was awesome! I realised that Marlenheim was all about beautiful houses, fresh surroundings, fruits, vegetables, flowers specially geranium and...
...the vineyard! Was really nice to walk through it!
There are two advantages of walking up the vineyard. You could see the town of Marlenheim from the top and secondly that was all the exercise you needed in the day! You could keep walking upwards endlessly and it was beautiful!
The short trip around Marlenheim with Martine was truly memorable! Marlenheim is very peaceful, calm and quiet place with fresh air, no pollution and is a very clean town.
Everything I would need in Marlenheim and Wasselonne was very well taken care of by Maurice. His friend Michel would pick me up and drop me back home whenever Maurice was busy. Michel is a music teacher who told me that he played chess to produce beautiful games and he even showed me a beautiful game full of sacrifice played by him in an earlier tournament and later even in the Wasselonne tournament he played a beautiful game and was extremely satisfied. It is so nice to see that my favorite game gives pleasure to different people in different ways!
I stood third in Wasselonne (I could also put it as joint first as six of us tied with 5.5/7), was unbeaten and this is my best standings in a classical open tournament outside India (I once did well in Bangladesh, came 3rd , but that was more than a decade ago and Bangladesh feels same as India!). Maurice and his friend Michel were the ones because of whom I could play well - they together took care of everything else - including dropping me at Strasbourg train station on the last day. On my part, all I had to think of was playing good chess! There was nothing else to worry about!!
Wasselonne tournament A was a 7 round swiss tournament for players rated above 1700. Tournament B was for 1401-1799 level and tournament C for less than 1500 players. There were 63 players in my tournament A. What I like about the France tournaments is the lesser number of players! Many organisers brag about their tournaments getting a lot of participants but from players' point of view, more the number of players, the weaker is the tournament generally, specially if you drop points in the initial rounds. I drew round one. But then I marched strongly ahead with four straight wins and due to the lesser number of players, I started getting strong opposition very soon. From round 4 onwards, I was on the stage (the top 4 boards were played there, those games were live, not just on the internet but at a few places in the tournament venue with giant screen showing the games which the spectators could enjoy!). After the end of 5 rounds, I was the sole leader! Then in round six I drew the top seed, the young GM Bellahcene Bilel, who was the favorite of everyone there! I was close to my dream of winning an international open but with the final round draw, it still was only a shared first place, third by tie breaks!
The final top ten standings in Wasselonne tournament A. I was half bucolz less- bucolz is the sum of opponent's points. Next time I win a player, I must boost his confidence after the game and tell him to fight back strongly!!
Everyone in Wasselonne is very friendly! I normally do not miss the prize giving even if I am not getting any prize but this time it was different. My train from Strasbourg to Brussels was at 3 in the afternoon as there wasn't any later train which would go directly to Brussels (I had to take the flight from Brussels to my next tournament at Abu Dhabi the following morning). This meant that I had to leave without attending the prize giving ceremony. The organisers were very kind enough to give me my prize before I left.
I went to Brussels with the two trophies I won, one in Metz and the other in Wasselonne and with some very fond memories of France! All my good friends outside India are mostly from France and this trip added more to the list!!
I give below an interesting win by me in Wasselonne.
We reached this position in my 5th round game in Wasselonne after Black's 22nd move. Can you find what I played here?
I played 23.Nfxe5!? Ok, I did not have something concrete but I felt that this is the move I must go for. My central pawns will give me some compensation. Play continued 23...dxe5 24.Nxe5 Bd7 25.c4 Bf6 26.Nxd7 Bxa1 27.Nxf8 Qxf8 28.g4 Ng7 29.e5 Qd8 30.Kg2 Qh4?!. This move was uncalled for. 31.g5! Now I had some threats to trap the Queen with Re4 and Be2. Play continued 31...Qd4 32. Bd2 Re7 33.f4. We reached the following diagram.
I keep telling everyone (even in my ChessBase DVD, "Strengthen your chess foundation" I have said the same) that you must keep putting pressure on opponent and everyone crumbles under pressure. Here finally my opponent made a huge mistake in a slightly uncomfortable position. He played 33...Nf5?!. How did I finish the game?
I played 34.Bxf5! The knight was the best defender of the black king. Once it is gone, the game is over! Play continued 34...gxf5 and then came the shot 35.Rxa1! Now it's winning for me. Black cannot take 35...Qxa1 due to 36.Bc3 followed by e6 check, when the Black's king looks paralysed! I soon won the game with my two extra pawns.
A good win and a good result definitely helps in making a trip unforgettable!
P.S.- Some of the photos of Metz tournament which I have used are by Alexis Cahen.
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