Stormy greetings and complains

Pulling the curtain aside, a stormy Black Sea greets me. A cyclone felt like visiting the Romanian League in Mamaia, sharing with us the delights of heavy wind and rain. As chess players are widely known for their lack of imagination when it comes to complaining, let me not fall out with this presumption. 

Settling comfortably in an armchair right next to the wide window, I deliberate on what to start with. They say this weather makes it impossible to sleep at nights as it is way too noisy. Well, I can’t really relate, as I cohabitate with a nice pair of noise cancelling headphones, occasionally having flings with random earplugs. And the alert the government kindly provided us with in the middle of the night (read: early morning in chess language)? There’s a reason my phone enters the airplane mode whenever I reach the heights of my 6^th floor room, closer to early evening (read: approaching midnight). Continuing the weather criticism- how not to fall victim to the meteorological blues under these circumstances? Unrelatable to me as well- just find a photo of me smiling or looking happy during a chess game. I’ll spare you the effort and just tell you- no such thing exists. Weather blues are just part of my natural state. 

What should I complain about next then? Let’s pick food. “Too salty, undiversified, not tasty.” With this I can relate, and I’d even add that the two minutes distance I must overcome every time I walk through wind, rain and gigantic puddles to the nearby pub are very hard to bear.

The "CSM Iasi 2020" team.

Should we take the playing hall next? “Too little space, too warm, too cold”. What can I say? There hardly was any playing hall which had ever fully satisfied me. It would take something shockingly bad for me to get annoyed.

No hot water on some floors, with the only offered solution being to let it run for 30 minutes before taking a shower. That’s not ideal indeed. I see a few ways of fixing it. First- try moving to another floor, second- challenge your inner fighter with a cold shower, third- find a friend with a room on a different floor, fourth- train those prophylactic skills and try estimating the time you’ll need hot water, fifth- if all these are not possible, don’t despair, you won’t be the first chess player skipping showers for a whole week.

What else might there be left to complain about? People! The hardship of living among like-minded souls can’t compare to anything else… You whine about making some inaccuracies on your way to winning against a lower rated opponent while your companion replies that they didn’t manage to win at all.

Let’s now touch the money subject. “I get peanuts for playing here.” To this I can only remark that if it was money you wanted to get in this life, perhaps a career in chess was not exactly indicated. Looking to the restless sea I take another sip from my sparkling water and let this thought sink.

Certain that I could continue this post, I think I’d rather stop now and get back to how I initially intended to spend my free day. The plan was to enrich myself with some Salinger dialogues while listening to the ‘Discover Weekly’ playlist. I actually managed to read two of his stories before feeling the urge to complain. For now, I can just say that those hardships I hinted at while at the ‘People’ paragraph include more interesting dialogues with like-minded friends than the ones I’ve been trying to enlighten myself with. Perhaps the best is yet to come. As about the ‘Discover Weekly’, I ended up with my ‘Classical’ playlist, though music isn’t something I’d like to add to this list of complains, for now.

Stormy greetings from the Romanian seaside and may you have a week full of something else than grumbling!

Before (!) game 1.

November Thoughts

Dear readers,

My apologies for writing so rarely. I've had a very tough schedule through this second half of the year- a lot of travelling from one tournament to another. It hasn't been very easy, but that's really nothing to complain about. I am very lucky to do what I love.

The last 4 tournaments I played- the Croatian League, Maria Albulet Memorial, the ETCC and Romanian League went quite well. I won the 1st board in Croatia after which Caissa smiled to me again- won the "Maria Albulet Memorial"...

The European Team Chess Championship came afterwards. It was the 2nd time I had the honor to play for Romania's team on the 1st board. It was very interesting and challenging. Somehow, I didn't play many strong tournaments after the EIWCC in Riga and I was a bit "bored of chess" if I can say so. You know this feeling when you play a lot vs lower rated opponents and at some point you feel like you can't take any more games like this- avoiding too "dry" variations, playing strange openings, having to fight in all the games like it's the last one. It can become a bit too stressful. That is why I was very happy when hearing I'd be on the 1st board- it meant I could finally play some "calm chess" and just enjoy it. I guess this is the main reason why I had a quite good tournament, scoring 6/9p. We had a slow start, but as I've noticed at this kind of tournaments- the finish is the most important. A good finish helped us share 4-5th place which was definitely a success for us!

from right to left: Alina l'Ami, Corina Peptan, Ciprian Nanu, Elena-Luminita Cosma, me and Mihaela Sandu

After barely 2 days of rest we had to go to the Romanian League. The opponents were not as strong as at the ETCC, but my chess got worse- too many blunders and misses, I guess I didn't have enough rest... It was a bit frustrating to know that I can play better and still not to be able to show it. Considering this fact, 6,5/8p was a decent result- good enough to help our team- "CS Politehnica Aqua Carpatica Iasi" to become Champion for the 3rd year in the raw!

from left to right: Bella Khotenashvilli, Alina l'Ami, me and Miruna Lehaci

There is one more classical tournament waiting for me this year- a strong ladies round robin in Wroclaw, Poland. It will start on the 29th of November. I hope to have a good rest until then and to  show some quality chess there!

May you have a wonderful end of the week!

A Chess Saga

     2017 is already here and it has brought loads and loads of snow in Bucharest... (yep, Bucharest is my new home now!).

     While most of the "normal" people had to return to their normal schedule and go to work, I'm taking advantage of the privileges of being a chess player, staying comfy at home, drinking tea and planing the calendar for this year... 

     2016 was definitely an interesting year! There were many ups and downs, but somehow, more ups come to my mind, which is a good thing...

     I hope that 2017 will be at least as good as 2016!

     November & December were some veeeery full months for me! I think that I've never played so much chess! There were more or less successful tournaments, but I've understood that it can't be healthy to play so much if you want to think of yourself as of a professional.

     I hope to play less in 2017 and if possible- better! :)) Why not, right?

     I've achieved the "so much wanted" 2400+ Elo again, though I try not to overthink it. After all, chess is not about ratings and this 2400 doesn't either feed me or warm me any better than 2395... 

     I hope that I'll be able to make the necessary adjustments this year so I would start playing better chess, that's the main goal (besides buying a sofa and a TV for the new "hommie" :)). 

     These being said, here's a little timeline of the last "chess months":

Calimanesti, Romanian League, beginning of November, smiley face

late November, Kings' Tournament- vs GM Mihail Marin (my face as expressive as ever!)

Again a very friendly Irina, this time vs GM Vlad Jianu

Romgaz Open- very late November- again a "happy" face

     

My mood at the beginning of December!

Wining 3 National titles (Rapid, Blitz and Solving) right after the beginning of December deserved a smile!

Finally a happy face and a week break from chess!

Vandoeuvre, France, first half of December- happy face goes on!

End of December, Austria, right before the last 3 "very successful" rounds (0,5p/3)

     I will finish on this positive note, the face I had after those 3 rounds got no official record!

xoxo from Bucharest :) 

Tricky Sun Rays

     The cold autumn days have come and there's of course no "better" place to be now than at seaside :))

While the sun was still here...

     Mamaia is the host of the Romanian League and it decided to be not so friendly this time, though it welcomed us with some tricky sun rays. The weather reminds me now of some terrible nightmares where I try to walk but no matter how hard I try, I remain in the same place. It is very, very windy and cloudy and frankly speaking, my mood is somewhere at the "stay all day in the bed" mode.
     Still, the tournament is as usually  very interesting with lots of tension and many great fights. I guess there's not much left to be done in Mamaia but preparing for the games and trying to show your best.
     I enjoy going from one tournament to another. Poland was a great experience and I am pretty satisfied with the 4th place I got there. Mamaia has been good for me as well so far... Between coughing and drinking one tea after another I've managed to score 4,5p/5.
     Our team is going well so far, there are two more matches left for us and  we are leading. The hope is that we can keep it this way until the end.
     You can follow some live games here: http://sahlive.ro/ , while the results are on: http://chess-results.com/tnr189236.aspx?lan=1
     As for me, there are no more tournaments left until the European Team Chess Championship, which will take place in Iceland, in November, though I might have some ideas on what I could spend my time on until then... Maybe you will find out more about it soon on my blog! ;)
     
    

I wish you all a great weekend and a few sun rays!


xoxo from Mamaia :)

Drama Queen

     The Romanian Women League is over.
     We lost the match yesterday and with it- the title has slipped... For different reasons, I played a

terrible game- one of the worst I've played lately and though I tried to put a fight, my position wasn't in a "phoenix mood".
     These kind of games keep happening to me from time to time and some deeper investigations need to be done in order to understand the reason. When I look at the game now, I feel like someone else played yesterday :( It is not the first time when the final standing depends on the result of my game at these championships and call it bad luck or just coincidence, but the outcome is the same every time.
     All in all, congratulations to the wining team- "CS Studentesc Medicina Timisoara"! Here are the final standings:

Rk.	Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	TB1	TB2	TB3
1	CS STUD.MEDICINA TIMISOARA	*	3	0	2½	3½	3	4	3½	12	2	19.5
2	CSM BUCURESTI	1	*	2½	3	2½	3	3	4	12	0	19.0
3	CS POLITEHNICA-ANTIBIOTICE IASI	4	1½	*	2	4	3	4	4	11	0	22.5
4	CS SINANDREI-CSS NR.1 TIMISOARA	1½	1	2	*	1½	3	4	3½	7	0	16.5
5	ACS APA NOVA BUCURESTI	½	1½	0	2½	*	2	2	3	6	0	11.5
6	CLUBUL CENTRAL DE SAH BUCURESTI	1	1	1	1	2	*	3	3½	5	0	12.5
7	CSM LUGOJ	0	1	0	0	2	1	*	3½	3	0	7.5
8	CS UNIVERSITATEA ARAD	½	0	0	½	0	½	½	*	0	0	2.0

If not to speak only about this tournament, I had an idea- to make video posts from time to time- I see a lot of bloggers doing that, so here's my first try! Don't judge to harsh- I guess it's a new field for me. I am waiting for feedback and if you have some ideas with what could be the next video post about- feel free to tell me!

xoxo from Calimanesti ;)

The Tradition

   

Many interesting things are happening at the Romanian League.

     I have managed to convince my pieces that it's better to stay with me than to desert and I've won the last 4 games, scoring 4p/5. Our team has got the "4-0 virus" and we've won all the matches since the last post. There are two more rounds to go and I hope that we'll keep the lead!
     The main drama is happening in the men section, where the "favorite teams" are slashing each other with no mercy. You can check the results here: http://chess-results.com/tnr150050.aspx?lan=1
     As you might know, it was my birthday yesterday- I've turned 21 yo... I don't feel any different but I'm really happy that I spent it here, among friends and in such a nice chess atmosphere. I have a tradition- I win every game I play on my birthday (no matter of the strength of the opponent) since I'm a little kid. Yesterday was no exception and it made my day even better! Maybe I have to play against Carlsen next year, who knows, maybe "the tradition" will frighten even him :D

     "The Match" is keeping everyone under pressure- the first thing I do after I finish my games is to check the result. Honestly, I didn't expect the match to be so interesting and Anand's win was definitely a surprise to me! I am not cheering for any of the sides, I just enjoy this beautiful chess battle!
     After all, it's a beautiful life the life of a chess professional!

Wish you all a nice evening!


xoxo from Calimanesti ;)

Deserting Pieces

     And here I am at the Romanian League in Calimanesti.
     The first round out of seven was played yesterday and it was a pretty dramatic one for our team- Politehnica-Antibiotice Iasi. We made an equal match, but all the games were really crazy... I lost a piece on the 17th move and there was no fight at all. I think it's the first time in many years I make such blunders... The other games looked much better for us, but somehow things got out of control, like Kasparov said- "People are not machines, they have emotions and that's why chess is a sport- not a science."
     There are six more matches ahead of us and I just hope not to be so lavish with my pieces and to be able to play some decent chess. Here is the compositions of our team:

Bo.		Name	RtgI		FED
1	IM	Javakhishvili Lela	2486		GEO
2	IM	Bulmaga Irina	2393		ROU
3	IM	L'ami Alina	2393		ROU
4	WCM	Gelip Ioana	2169		ROU

     You can follow the results here: http://chess-results.com/tnr150089.aspx?lan=1&art=8&wi=821 and some of the games on : http://sahlive.ro/
     As about everything else- the weather is really nice- some degrees above 15- a very enjoyable autumn. Anyways, it's difficult to focus on other things when my pieces desert from the board...
     I will keep you posted, hopefully with better news!


xoxo from Calimanesti :)