My Experience in Chennai (CBSE South-Zone Chess Tournament)

Part 1: The First 2 days.

Day 1: Bursting Tires, Criminal Drivers, Fainting Team-mates, etc. 

I had gotten up at 5:00 am and our train reached Chennai at 6:30.  Out team was four boys, four girls, our chess coach and our music teacher. Out of the four boys, two stayed really close to my house, and I knew them. Both of these people were okay; the other boy was a joker. After getting down from the train, we split into two groups. The four boys were one group and the four girls were another group. The first group went off in one auto, and the second group was following them in another auto. I was in the second group. As we went, we were stopped by the traffic police. Only then did we realize that our auto driver did not have a license. He convinced the police to let him go after paying a fine of 100 rupees.  We were going along the road when all of a sudden there was a long bang - like something bursting. That something turned out to be our auto's tyre. We had to wait as the driver fixed the auto tyre.

We finally reached the school. It was huge. There was a big ground and a large building. The building’s four sides had a lot of space in the middle, in which there was the auditorium. Most of the speeches, dances, etc. were held at the auditorium, but all the things that I had witnessed there had gone over my head, not into it. The school had three floors and a terrace. The school also had a kitchen behind the auditorium, and we had all our meals in the auditorium. The school provided all the food. Sometimes the food was good, sometimes it was bad, all the time it was Chennai food (what else could we expect?). I liked the sambar, and luckily it was given in every meal. We had eaten outside the school only once.

After reporting in the school we went to our hotel. The hotel had two floors and a terrace.   That day also watched one of our school mates faint due to the intense heat of Chennai while having dinner. We had ordered our dinner from a hotel nearby for the first (and the last) time and were eating our dinner in the hotel's corridor and it was very hot there.  I had to change my room twice that day. First time, they did not give us an A/C room, so I had to shift my entire luggage to another room. In the night I again had to shift when I was told that we were occuping too many rooms and were going to be better organized. In the end, everything was finally peaceful. So that day, in the hotel, all I did was play many chess games, read a book (The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan), had a bath and went to sleep.

Day 2: Even Stevens; won 1, lost 1.

We got ready by 7:00 am in the morning. Having a bath was a huge problem because we had to fight for the bathroom. I went to my sister's room to avoid the argument and to finish my bath on time. All the four players from our school were supposed to sit beside each other and play their games at the same time. I was on board no. 3. I checked the list of players to see whom I was playing. I was going to play a rated player, which meant it would be a tough match for me. I went to one of the class rooms to play, played well till the end, blundered and lost the game after two hours of playing. Our chess coach said that I had played very well and he thought so because I had almost beaten a rated player. All my team-mates played FIDE rated players and lost except for one of the boys who was lucky enough to play someone with a rating of 0 (which means he was unrated). We had three hours till the next game, so we sat in the auditorium and played a few practice games.  I also met a boy from Bangalore, who had attended my school last year

 In the lunch break, we had found a quiet corner, and we were eating. Suddenly, the boy whom I mentioned as a joker started singing. When you read this, it doesn’t appear funny; but if you were there, you would laugh your head off. The second game was a very easy one for me. As our team didn’t score many points, we had to play another team that had lost the first round too. I won that game easily. I really tried to play slow, but my opponent blundered so early in the opening (the first 4 to 10 moves of a chess game) that I finished the game in ten minutes. So for that day, I had won-1, lost-1.

We went back to the hotel to relax, and our chess coach organized a small tournament for us. All the girls caused a lot of trouble and took a long time to assemble. Our chess coach decided that if there was another small tournament, they wouldn’t be invited. After the tournament, we had to go back to the school to eat our dinner. All of us came back to the hotel very tired, and went to sleep. I wasn’t able to sleep because our coach and another boy were snoring really loudly in the night. On the first day, I had slept early and didn't realize that there were snorers in our group. Just when I was about to drift off to sleep, the boy (who I mentioned as a joker) started singing. Everybody woke up and started laughing, that was when I went to sleep.

Note: There were many other funny things that happened, but they can only be expirienced and can't be typed.