What a day

Another day of chess. But sometimes…

It is striking that there are always more cancellations by players at distant away matches than at other matches. today E was a substitute with another team to solve the transport problems and to send at least 1 team on the road completely. originally we were allowed to play closer to home with his own team, now we drove close to the French border... (only 10km more) Something I didn't like very much.

upon arrival at the specified address, something turned out to be wrong: the 6 players of our club were also the only players there! after a phone call it turned out we had to be at an address 5 minutes away.
upon arrival there appeared to be another problem: the player on board 1 of them had driven to our club because he thought he had to play an away game instead of a home game. we probably crossed him on the way! Nevertheless. no player on board 1 also meant no match for E, so a 2-hour drive was made for nothing. it did earn the team a point. but instead of being able to drive home right away, we had to wait for the two fellow players who drove with us. it was a long afternoon: the two almost played the maximum time: after 4.5 hours we could start the way back home...with the team win in our pocket, that is. but these are not the competition days that get me excited to chess ;-P

another waiting chessplayer asked E to play a game for fun while waiting. I had coffee and tried to enjoy the very friendly atmosphere there was.