Playing Ray Robson 5

The Ray Robson simul was a great and very enjoyable event - newspaper article here.  16-year old GM Ray Robson played dauntlessly - from 1:30 PM to 6 PM without a break - no water or other bio related pit stops.  Dressed in black from cap-a-pie he proved extremely gracious and fearless despite the many chess and non-chess challenges.

I took a quick glance at the book Chess Child and the few pages that I've read so far are quite good. You can google the book for reviews and places to order.  I expect the that book would be a great read for both adults and youngsters.  And I was not compensated for mentioning this book - rather, I tremendously enjoyed meeting the Robson family members; keep in mind, GM Robson just turned 16. 

The atmosphere at Selby Library (and kudos to the library staff who stayed after closing hours to let the last few games finish) was more Florida casual than what I imagine is traditional GM simul.  There were no suits and ties, lots of shorts, very little silence, and a fair amount of laughter.

Over the next few days and weeks I'll recap some of the lighter moments of the two months that elapsed between the scheduling of the event and the event itself.

As for me, I resigned somewhere around board #25 to fall, down 2 pawns and facing an unstoppable queen-side pawn end-game and a chatty participant near me that would have been loads of laughs at a pub but was a huge distraction at a chess event.  Florida chess event lesson learned #1 - bring earplugs.  I'll post the game later in this series to give all readers a chance to comment on how much better they would have played if at my board.