GILLIAN THE CONQUEROR

Gillian Moore

The historic town of Hastings along the Sussex coast is famous for “The Battle of Hastings” in 1066, when William the Conqueror from Normandy , France , took England by brute force.  This same town also has a long-standing tradition of witnessing an annual intellectual battle, known as the Hastings International Chess Congress.  December 2000/January 2003 was the 78^th such event.  I competed in it after a 30-year absence.  

I returned to the fray for the Weekend Minor tournament, from Friday 3 to Sunday 5 January 2003 , to pit my mental strength against others of similar dignified pugnacity.  True, in November of 2002 I had won the minor Hampshire Championship for players with British Chess Federation gradings up to 125 ~ my current running-in grade after a long absence of competitive chess is 124.  But this Hastings tournament was going to be a bit tougher, as players were graded up to BCF 130, and sometimes with a playing strength greater than that indicated by the grading. 

Great Uncle’s Monocle  

My journey from Southampton to Hastings went without incident, except for one minor annoyance that threatened to be a major inconvenience.  On the train, the left lens of my reading glasses fell out.  The frame was broken.  Like Humpty Dumpty, it couldn’t be put together again, though I fiddled for a long time with minute bits of sticking plaster painstakingly cut up with my nail scissors.  Oh golly, I would be able to see the large chess pieces and their squares, though not so sharply, but as to writing down the moves on the scoresheet, an essential activity, I would squint uncomfortably.  What should I do?

Arrived at my destination on time around 12.27 pm , I found and settled into a popular seafront hotel.  My third-storey room overlooking the beach was spacious and comfortable.  After a quick welcome coffee ~ I’d been travelling for 4 hours without access to a drink, as there were no buffet cars or station buffets open ~ I went straight outside again.  Raymond was waiting there as arranged.  He’s my chess buddy since 1965.  Like me, he is a player who has been “somebody” in the past.  He won the Derbyshire Championship 6 times.  In my heyday, I had been British Girl Champion and then British Ladies Champion in 1966.

After greeting each other, we retreated to the railway station and entrained for Rye , about a 20-minute ride away.  Raymond has been taking an annual trip to Rye for decades.  He’s very predicable is my friend Raymond, going to the same chess tournaments/holiday venues year after year.  Also he stuck with the same employer (Rolls Royce aircraft engines) almost all his working life, not necessarily a bad thing .  But in many ways he’s not so adventurous as I am, not so broad in his interests, but terribly loyal and easy to be with for all that.  He’s a thoroughly nice guy.  I once asked him if he ever felt that his life is in a boring groove.  He replied that he was stuck in a rut and knew it, but that change frightens him.

Rye is a comely little town with all the usual tourist attractions of restaurants, cafes and shops.  But the first thing I saw after exiting the station was an optician’s shop!  I joked with my friend about how silly I was going to look if they couldn’t mend my specs, what with just one lens through which to peer ridiculously, like somebody’s great uncle with his monocle.  “And a pocket watch”, Raymond retorted.  Perhaps, after all, I should go the whole hog and stick on a false moustache to complete the façade!  Luckily, the shop stocked some cheap but very good non-prescription glasses.  I bought a pair I liked very much for just £6, a terrific bargain. 

Next, Raymond showed me around his usual haunts in Rye .  After discovering quaint little side streets with sudden lovely countryside views, browsing around a book shop and buying a couple, visiting a church he likes and the library, we wound up in Simon the Pieman restaurant, where the ambience and good food restored our energies as we relaxed beside a roaring log fire.  We needed this refreshment ready for the tough contest ahead starting at 7 pm .

Grandeur and Growth

The chess venue is ideal  The Horndye Sports Centre has plenty of room and all necessary facilities, including a bar and a canteen where cooked meals were served daily.  There were always veggie options, catering for folks like me. 

The line-up of players entered in the top Premier and Challengers tournaments was also impressive.  Grandmasters (GM), International Masters (IM), Woman Grandmasters (WGM) and Woman International Masters (WIM) graced the seats.  Some tables for these seats had little national flags on top.  On the far side where the well-known personalities sat for up to 7 hours per game, the big demonstration chess boards enthralled spectators quietly watching progress on the high-profile games.  There were chairs for this purpose on the near side of the personality big cheeses.

The hall was large and accommodated the various graded tournaments going on simultaneously.  On the other end of the scale were those for beginners and novices.  Mine, the Weekend Minor, was somewhere between the two extremes.  Raymond was in the next section up, the Weekend Major, which I also could have entered, but knew I stood a better chance of winning a prize in the other one. 

Alas I only drew my first game, giving me just a half point instead of the full point for a win.  But this is chess, to be expected and I felt not a jot discouraged.  Next round, as compensation, I would play someone who also only drew his game.  This is the Swiss system of pairing, in which winners play winners, losers play losers, and opponents are matched throughout the rounds according to their on-going score.  So, I would have one second chance to catch up the next day.  I did!

On Saturday, with hard work, I managed to win all 3 games, making me jointly in the lead with 3 ½ out of 4.  I was particularly pleased with winning game number 4, not just because this enabled me to have a chance of winning a prize, which I had hoped for all along, but because I won by cheer determination and perseverance.  My opponent, perhaps because he was tired after hours of play in the morning and afternoon, offered me a draw and seemed fidgety and fed up that I was playing on in a position with admittedly very even chances and not too many pieces left to manoeuvre with.  Whereas he had apparently mentally given up the idea of winning, I kept on looking for chances to gain an advantage.  I found it, forced it and pressed home my slight advantage of just one pawn up in the end game.  It was enough to eventually gain a new queen and hence win the game.  He knew this and shook hands with me in resignation, after his game turned clearly hopeless. 

This 4^th round game was actually my toughest game of the tournament, but one of my most instructive.  I always gain a sense of joy when I learn, relearn or increase my learning about any aspect of the game and how to improve it.  In this case I had executed dynamic will on the basis of the maxim, “Never give up hope”!”

My Whole Self

I went on to win my 5^th round game on Sunday morning, to a man I knew by sight, as we were both from Hampshire.  He was much more gracious in losing than the previous player.  We went up to the analysis room after for “post mortems”, the what-ifs and might-have-beens that players love to pore over.  We played through our game.  But before that we talked. 

We agreed that chess is a whole person pursuit, not just an intellectual one.  The physical brain is used and must be in peek condition to perform well.  For this, sleeping, eating and exercising are important, we both knew.  And the emotions need to be calm, else the player is distracted from the total concentration that this greatest game of skill deserves.  Naturally, the mental ability has to be there, otherwise no amount of physical and emotional health and control will be to any avail. 

What about spiritual development we asked?  We agreed that this too was most desirable for a chess player, though certainly not all of them do have.  In fact, one could be a world champion, yet an egotistic wretch.  I could name one, actually, but had better not!

Essential to my wellbeing, alongside chess and any other mental work, is to allow the change of body and brain rhythm made possible by some relatively thought-free enjoyable activity.  Back in my hotel, agreeably holed up in my room for the evenings, I chilled out and mellowed out with music on my personal stereo with headphones.  I followed this by a spot of yoga meditation, which I have done daily for decades.  Tuning my heart strings to my beloved spiritual teacher and dearly loved friends, here and in the hereafter, I was enwrapped in a shawl of divine love.  As usual, I was reluctant to go to bed, since I am always happy in this state of consciousness.  But I need sleep too.

A Woman and a Kid

My last round was to be the deciding factor in whether I won first, second or third prize.  I was the only woman in the section and there was one junior, Master Anandajeyarajah (“happy king”).  He was brilliant.  We were equal in our scoring after round 5 and therefore had to play each other in the 6^th and last round.  If I beat him, I would be the clear winner; if I drew with him we would share the prize money and the Herbert Dobell Trophy.

I was content that with the Black pieces I got into a Cambridge Springs variation of the Queen’s Gambit Declined, which I knew well but he appeared to know less well.  I won a pawn in the opening, with no compensating positional advantage for him.  If I kept this up and he did not win it back, I should win the game in due course.  And it was a passed pawn too, meaning to say it had a clear passageway with which to march ahead to the last rank and turn into a powerful queen. 

But the boy fought back hard, twice offered me draws which I refused, because at those stages I did have the edge.  But then I lost the impetus I had and realised that to be safe I should now accept the draw.  I offered it this time and it was done, both relieved not to have lost that last pivotal game.  We had both won first prize, probably receiving £250 each.  This is the most I have ever won in monetary terms.  I briefly chatted to the boy’s father afterwards and told him that his son has a great future.  He is just 13 years old!  The woman and the kid had won!

The woman Congress Controller congratulated me on my result and I arranged with her for my prize to be sent on to me at home.  I had a long journey ahead and couldn’t stay to the prize-giving ceremony.  It actually took over 6 hours to get home, due to engineering works on the railways, necessitating a bus journey from Hastings to Polegate, a train from Polegate to Clapham Junction, London, then finally a train to Southampton, followed by a taxi to my door.  The journey from Hastings to Southampton takes only 2 hours by car, the taxi driver told me. 

My Friend

How did Raymond fare, my reader might ask?  Well, if he is ever going to be champion of anything now, it could  be “Draw Champion”.  Even before he started the first round, he was hoping for a quick draw, so that he could go home and have a rest.  That is exactly what happened. 

I humorously chided him beforehand, saying that this was not the spirit and that if spectators had paid to view his game on the demonstration boards (that was not actually the case), they would be disgruntled and want their money back for such a poor show! 

Same age as me (58), poor Raymond has suffered a stroke a few years back, and he has now been discovered as having a slight degree of diabetes.  He doesn’t have the stamina of a young man any more.  Unlike me, he’s retired and feels slowed down a bit. 

Raymond drew all his games except for one win.  His final score was 3 ½ out of 6 points.

Final Thoughts

Journeys may be so long, and so can games of chess, but the learning and the delight involved in my life’s journey and in my game of life is without any end.  In chess, I am always analysing where I’m at.  In life I’m always introspecting.  I enjoy the insights that I am forever gaining about myself and others and about the whole scenario of existence.

I also enjoy watching my life unfold, with its inner plans and outer projects, and peering into the future concerning how my circumstances and consciousness are about to unfold.  I am able to make certain predictions about what’s coming next or in due course in my life.  The reason for this is because I’m aware of features in the scheme for my soul.  I cannot foretell precise acts of grace, though, any more than I know all that shall transpire in a game.  This is so despite my plans according to perceived possibilities combined with my creative wishes. 

Strategies and their realisations, imagination and its fulfillment: my life is full of this and my life is full because of this.  No two games are identical and no two days are entirely the same for me.  Themes are recurring but details differ.  Life, as in chess, is ever full of joyous surprises!

As in chess, so in life, which to me are at once both games and more than games.  Both require enormous skill in order to be successful.  In both cases, we have to take the rough with the smooth.  No one achieves everything they wish for without struggle and disappointments before victory.  Some reverses are inevitable.  But win or lose, the important thing is to enjoy The Game for its own sake: caring and giving, loving, losing and gaining.  It’s a great game; it’s a great life!

Gillian Moore