Help me help this chess player from another hemisphere
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Help me help this chess player from another hemisphere

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This is a personal story. In this piece, I will talk about my origins, a surprising encounter, our privilege, chess, and you, dear reader. Yes, you. (I'm pointing at my screen right now - I hope you feel engaged!)

I'm about to give you access to a special moment in my life, and hopefully, it will motivate you to help me in my quest to support another chess player from the other side of the planet. It would be really awesome if we manage to achieve this together.

To give you some context, let me introduce myself.

This is me. Bonjour!

Generally, when I meet someone new, they have questions. I'm a comedian who looks Latino, but I'm a French Canadian named "Pierre-Luc". As 4 Non Blondes once sang: "What's going on?"

Let me give you some hints for the Sherlock Holmes or the Kramniks at home. (The Kramniks are just as good detectives as the Sherlock Holmes, but a little more paranoid.)

I have a Canadian passport, but I wasn't born here. I saw the light in Bogotá, Colombia... Can you find a reason to make it all make sense?

Yes! I was adopted! And last year, for the first time in my life, I went back to the country where I was born. This is the backdrop of this blog. No biggie.


The trip that changed me


In Bogota, capital of Colombia, thinking that my mother might be somewhere in there

" Emotional" would be an understatement to describe those weeks... I have yet to set foot in an amusement park since, as I'm still recovering from those emotional roller coasters!

It wasn't a trip planned far in advance. My girlfriend's client offered her extra frequent flyer miles from her airline. A great gift! The broke artist that I am hadn't taken the plane in a while. We checked where we could go. Colombia was in the options! We decided to go there in order to me to cry in public all the time.

This chess story takes place during my time in Salento, a small town in the countryside. To give you an idea of what it's like there, I stayed at a five-minute walk from the central square, and my neighbor had a rooster that went into alarm mode every morning as soon as the sun came up.

Unfortunately, it was hard to hit the snooze button on this little ruffian!

Salento, viewed from the Mirador Alto De La Cruz

While we were chilling at a restaurant, we met a local man who made us taste different local fruits. Talk talk speak speak as we say in Québec, and we learned that this man is a local chef who also gives cooking classes. We said "si" so quickly and never regretted it. We discovered so many things, like in the next photo:


An unexpected encounter


LOOK AT THAT LITTLE PATATO!!! THAT'S THE CUTEST PATATO OF ALL TIME!!!

While we were savoring what we had cooked, I noticed that a chess game was happening at a nearby table. I asked the chef if he knew those people. He turned, said that he wasn't sure about the player with his back turned to us, but the once facing us was the gardener, and  that he was trying to get better at the game.

While eating, I kept an eye out for a player to leave so I could join the game. Thinking about it now, maybe I looked like a stalker.

By chance, the timing worked perfectly. As soon as I put down my spoon, the gardener was left alone. With my approximate Spanish, I said, "Juego?". He said: "¡Si! Sicomalotomatoa"

I suppose he said real words, but my Spanish is so bad that this is what I understood.


The chess game


From the picture, this is where we were. If it had been my turn, I would have checkmated him. If it had been his, it would have been +8.2. I was still about to mate him, but not next turn.

The game itself is not what I want to focus on... because I played the London System, bringing shame to the country that gave me life.

For real, this is not a story about how I beat a Colombian gardener at chess. This is a story about how chess quickly bonds players.

Not only I have forgotten the details of the game, I also can't remember the name of this fruit

Althrough we couldn't communicate with words, during the chess game, we were able to talk with our pieces.

It's really hard to describe with precision how I felt during this game, as English is my second language, but it felt great. During the past days, I struggled to make myself understood by everyone I crossed paths with. Finally, for a moment, I was in sync with a local.

Two strangers who don't speak the same language, and yet, I felt close to him as he pointed at pieces and gestured about possible lines. It felt so friendly, even though we had never seen each other before. There was no sense of competition in this clockless game, only a moment where two people born in the same country could communicate with their facial expressions, their fingers and the movement of the pieces. During the duration of a chess game, we spoke the same language.

No matter where you are in the world, the sensation of blundering a piece is the same. But the human warmth of playing a game OTB, where two players just wanted to have fun connected us in such a special way.


The part where you can help me help him


This granadilla was delicious

So, yeah, I don't know how to say this with humility, but I beat him pretty easily. But no, I didn't write a long post to brag about it.  However, that detail is important, as I wouldn't need your help if he were a Super GM.

This man, who lives in a country where life isn't always easy, wants to get better at chess. I think that together. it would be so great if we could help him improve his game by sending some resources his way!

Unfortunately, I can't do this alone since there are a few challenges along the way. Starting with my idea that I think it would be great to send him 2-3 books to get his hands on, but as I said, my Spanish is so limited that I would need your help to tell me which ones we should send him. To try to specify his level of play, he knew how the pieces move, but showed no knowledge of opening theory and still lacks fundamentals.

At that time, I hadn't played a game online for 10 months and was rated about 1000. (for what it's worth). I feel like he was rated 500-600. Comment easy-to-read Spanish books for that level in the comments please!

Ajiaco soup tastes better than it looks I promess!

Those books would have to work on their own. By that, I mean no QR codes or external links. Sometimes, we take our access to internet for granted, but in Colombia, only 72% have access to the internet, and that number drops drastically when we leave big cities. That's why I'm thinking books, not online courses.

While we're at it, I feel like a new chess set would be great. The one he plays with had a dirty mat and a broken king.

Doing the best with what he has. A lesson in gratitude.

I still have the chef's contact on WhatsApp, so I could ship things for him to pass on to the gardener, but for that, I need to understand how to do that from Canada. Again, my lackluster Spanish is an obstacle to my understanding of that situation.

I mean, I would gladly bring all those gifts myself if I could, but the prices of the airfare are a little out of my reach for the emerging artist than I am.

So, here we are. Can we do something? Feel free to message me in this app or write down suggestions in the comments.

We are lucky enough to live where improving our game is easy. Let's make it fun for another player. Chess nerds, assemble!