Beware of amphibians or The second tournament in Barbarka
As in the previous year, the Flisak teetotalers’ club organized a fair in Barbarka on the last Sunday of August, and just like a year ago one of the attractions was the open rapid chess tournament. This time more people attended, though: in total 30 players from nine cities fought 7 rounds of chess with time controls of 15 minutes per player per game. Among them was yours truly, who just like the previous year came to Barbarka much earlier to take advantage of beautiful weather and intense light, which made the nearby ponds mysterious and intriguing:
The lock between the ponds
“Beware of amphibians” — walking around the ponds, I spotted many such notices (some of even more cryptic character, depicting only a frog with words “AMPHIBIAN ACTION”). Not that amphibians in Poland are dangerous; on the contrary, the purpose of the notices was to raise awareness of their migratory activities and make people help them cross the paths and roads. Even though the whole thing was a bit outdated, since in our climate amphibians migrate in March and April, I tried to be cautious. Unfortunately, I didn’t see the smallest frog, but the slogan seemed to me surreal enough to serve as a title of this blog post
Upon seeing this, I cannot help thinking of Mark Rydell’s film
Tomasz Wodzyński opening the tournament
My friends Maciej (left) and Krzysztof before their game. This time Krzysztof lost, only to be immediately avenged by yours truly, who won with Maciej after an amusing KNP versus K ending (it was a rook pawn, hence the amusement)
Krzysztof Woźniak finished fourth
Konrad Marzec. This time we drew
Wiesław Jankowski
Daniel Ludwiński came sixth
Top seed Sebastian Pąpka (FIDE 2136) won with perfect score
Krzysztof, apparently not particularly content with his performance
My club mate Ewelina Czerwińska won best female prize, having scored 3 out of 7
Zbigniew Gęsicki: the warmth of the sun and the joy of chess
This time no less than 15 boards were occupied
Evaluating the position...
Making the move...
Waiting for the opponent’s response...
The drama took place in round 3, on board 13: Angelika Leśniak versus Gracjan Bromirski. White won
Camouflaged
The tournament I can count amongst my successes; sometimes I played good chess, sometimes I just had more luck than my opponents. As a result, from 13th place on the starting list I jumped to the fifth place on final standings, having scored 4.5 out of 7 (+4-2=1). It was only a pity that due to the tight schedule of events taking place on the main stage we had to wait for the closing ceremony and prize-giving for more than an hour; it would definitely be good to change this scheme next year.
