Pole Position

Saturday 31 July 2021

Pole Position

FLEW to Poland today for the Adolf Anderssen Memorial, which is being held in his birth-place of Wrocław (more commonly known as Breslau in the 19th century).

Ryanair flies direct to the Silesian city, which is always something of a good-news/bad-news situation.

The bad news today was that Ryanair told me to be at Stansted airport three-and-a-half hours before my flight was due to take off at 11:40, but checkin opened at gone 08:40.

The airline also gave me wrong information about which printed documents I needed, but otherwise checkin was fairly smooth, and passing through security even smoother.

The chess festival consists of a rapid (10 minutes with a five-second increment) today, which does not interest me, a blitz later in the week, and four "Open" tournaments - actually an over-2000, an under-2001, an under-1601 and a beginners', for children aged under 12.

I am seeded eighth of 68 in the under-2001, officially called Wrocław B, which, according to the tournament website, has an average rating of 1571, an average age of 27, nine females, 63 rated players and five federations. A slight oddity is that two of the unrated players have estimated ratings of 2000 which, if even approximately correct, would push my real ranking down to 10th.

Two players, including myself, were born in 1957 - everyone else in 1959 or later. Since I was born in February, I am probably the oldest player in the tournament.

Thirty-two players were born in 2000 or later, including two in 2010, so there is a good chance I may extend the junior fest I 'enjoyed' earlier this month in Basel.

The over-2000 and under 2001 have two rounds tomorrow, followed by one round a day for seven days. The time limit is 40 moves in 90 minutes, a 15-minute 'windback' and a 30-second increment from move one.

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Polish customs took about 45 minutes to get through, but standing in the queue made it seem longer - perhaps I have been spoilt by recent smooth border-crossings.