NEHRU STADIUM
This was the stadium where I was performing….. Ha ha a. .gud start but not on the tracks but in a room beside the place where I took the photograph. I am not an athlete but an average chess player. I had nominated for the Chess tournament conducted by TCS – Maitree ( CSR & employee welfare arm of TCS );
They had invited us to be thr by 8. I was sharp to reach the place by 8:30 and found the organizer coming behind me. Subashini, was the only known face thr who came to play Volley ball with her team.
The point system was based on the Swiss league format. The game has to be completed within 30 mins and whoever plays the first 30 mins loses. Everybody has to face 6 opponents amount the 81 participants; which will be chosen by the s/w; based on the scores scored by the players.
My 1st game was with Vijay from Chn 1. He was playing considerably better than me. My games are well known for silly mistakes and himalayan blunders. I made one and it costed my QUEEN. Adrenalin oozed out of me to not to lose the first game. Got my concentration back and was playing better chess then onwards. Some attacking and intelligent!!!! moves got me the victory. The final result I WON the game :-).
2nd game was with Manoj from the APACS team, Siruseri. It was just a normal game where I could beat him easily and scored 2 points. The 3rd one was another big blunder game by me. It was with Vel Murugan of AIG, SNR branch. He was leading by a pawn. He exchanged a piece for which I forgot to take one of his powers and realized it after a couple of moves. I resigned later after the situation went in favour of him. The score was 2; me winning 2 games and losing 1. Vel murugan was the 2nd runner up in the overall competition with 5 points.
The 4th game was with Sai where we played an exchange game and could win it very easily. The 5th game was with another gentlemen from AXA where I was playing lethargically after winning a power. By then I scored 4 points. Before my 5th game, I was watching Chenna Kesava Rao(CHR) and the 1st runner up playing their league match. The game was very interesting but finally CHR lost the game.
CHR was my opponent in the last & 5th game. I went with a -ve mindset. Both of us were playing quite carefully. Some of his smart moves made me think for a while where I lost some time. During the final stages I had only 60 seconds within which I need to finish the game or I “LOSE”. He was playing comfortably with 5 mins in hand. It was almost an exchange game, where in the final minutes of play I was leading by 1 or 2 pawns and having 45 seconds in hand. I atlast powered a pawn to QUEEN and check mated him with 13 seconds to spare.
Wowwww!!! a great sigh of relax winning the game and scored 5 points.
The top 2 who scored 6 points played the finals. It was a 5 min rapid chess, best of 3 match. The winner (I believe his name is Sheikh) won the 1st 2 match. It was a great day thinking completely about Chess and finally returned home @ 6.
The whole week I was searching for gambits in wiki and read completely about the Alekhine’s defence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alekhine_Defence
Mukund & Mukund Only 