Oxbridge Chess Tourney and Jamaica

So University sports here are weird. There is only one main game of the year, against Oxford, called the Varsity match. So while I'm about to go mad without March Madness, end of the year Varsity matches are capturing my attention. Two folks from my program are competing this year -- one guy is on the crew team and another on the chess team. Both of these events take place down in London and are the real deal.

This past weekend was the Varsity chess match, and Lissa and I decided to head down to London to support my buddy and explore the city. A little background, my friend from the program, Duane Rowe, is the national chess champion of Jamaica (therefore called a National Master). I play co-ed soccer for old people on dirt fields in Seattle, and chess has taken this guy around the world to compete in international events, just think Cool Runnings. He is the top chess player in Cambridge and recently played 14 people at once and smoked 12 of them. Check out the link: http://www.srcf.ucam.org/chess/simul2.php


Although he's never been able to beat me, he's pretty much the man (of course, we have yet to square up on the checkered board). He was set to play against a Women's International Master from Ukraine (which is a higher ranking than national master). To set the stage, the Varsity chess match was held in this crazy pompous old gentleman's club in downtown London called the Royal Automotive Club (da RAC). Ties are required at all times, jackets during weekdays, and the place reeks of old white male (company of which I am quickly becoming). Imagine a huge room with fire place crackling, red leather couches with the little gold rivets tacking the hide to antique cherry wood, and 20-something females take orders as the bow-tied men talk through the economic pitfalls of the Thatcher regime. I mean this place was straight out of Bond, and I was just waiting to watch some old Russian spy (with a radioactive colon) glide down the grand staircase and float into his Kremlin sponsored Benzo. I will probably never be in a place like that again.

Ok, to the match. To keep it brief, Cambridge upset Oxford 5-3. It was an upset because Oxford has a Grand Master (one of these Bobby Fisher type child prodigies) and the Ukrainian lady who was supposed to be unstoppable, like most Russian women. However, Duane dollywallompted this female -- no joke, took him 18 moves. Fastest game of the day. It took him 34 minutes of move time, took her 1 hour and 46 minutes. He won match of the day and was reported as being the catalyst for the unlikely Cambridge upset.



For those of you who haven't been to a match before, like me pre-saturday, you basically walk around with tea admiring the boards at play and pretend to exhale with emotion when someone makes a move - or in my case when the guy next to you exhales. It was pretty cool, and I would highly recommend it. We left the match, caught a few drinks in Soho and walked through Chinatown before settling on some Chinese food for din-din. Afterwards we went to a cool pub and caught the last train back to Cambridge. All in all it was a great day out! Big ups to Jamaica, the bobsled won gold.