Ali's first chess tournament.

Last Saturday my husband, Necmi, announced to our 9 year old, Ali "I've entered you into a chess tournament. It's in 2 weeks time so we need to get practicing!". Ali was excited and a little nervous as, although he likes chess, he doesn't play regularly and so was rather rusty. As the week progressed he played a little chess but not too much as we thought the tournament was the weekend of 7th May. However on Thursday his dad came home and said "oh, I got it wrong, the tournament is this Saturday!"
Thankfully Ali wasn't fazed. He turned up at 9am today along with around 80 other kids. They played 5 games, lasting all day, filling in a form as they went along recording all their moves. It continues tomorrow when they will play 4 more games. Ali only won one of his games but he has not been put off. He is really looking forward to tomorrow. I'm so proud of him.

The venue was a cafe on a hill overlooking the sea. Break time was spent running around on the beach with all their friends. Pretty idyllic really.

My son is the one in blue at the back!