Hardcore Pawn: IC Chess Takes the Americas by storm

After a very successful year dominating British chess, the British Uni and London Uni Champions (your resident chess team) decided that they needed a new challenge. So when ex-President Sam “Sporter” Porter began organizing the trip to the US, a lot of excitement and anticipation started to arise. With big names like Princeton and Columbia on the menu, Imperial Chess was really looking forward to making a name for themselves out there in the land of opportunity. In fact we set out with a very strong team with big ambitions, including our own FIDE Master (FM) Ryan Griffiths and El Presidente Arijit Gupta. The night before was spent in preparation, with a gathering of half the team: Sporter, Baron Luke Barron, FM Ryan and myself playing exchange (a very enjoyable variation of chess which allows even the weakest players to beat extremely strong players) and drinking in the Union, and generally just bouncing strategies off each other that we would use to destroy our opposition. However since our flight was relatively early on the next day, we decided to call it a day and reconvene in the airport. The next day dawned rainy and cloudy, however that did not dampen the spirits of the Chess team as we all arrived early (or perhaps not so early in some cases) and without much hassle we all boarded the plane. Soon the inflight entertainment system was discovered, with its option of multiplayer chess and movies, and the flight was soon played away. Once we arrived in the US things quickly became more complicated. Due to a very absent-minded border security guard, Sporter, El Presidente, Aditya (Adi) Gupta and Akshaya Ahuja all took at least 30 minutes to pass through, while the rest of the team slowly got more and more worried that they had all been interrogated. However after that slight complication, (plus a few more), we finally made it to our monster of a minibus which was subsequently named the Knight Rider. With some trepidation we approached the twelve seat, 4 meter beast, and, as I was the one who had to drive it, with a lot of fear. A lot of trouble was had getting out of the parking lot, however once all the start-stop crap had been overcome it was as smooth as a pawns top. Thus the knight riders were born! We duly arrived in Princeton, after having our first real American meal, namely McDonald’s, and were met by Austin and George, two members of the Princeton chess club. We were put into different dorms of various hosts, as well as the house of one of the student’s chess tutors Johnny (who turned out to be an absolute legend). The morning after, still influenced by severe jetlag (at least some of us), we found each other and recounted of our nights escapades, for me this included a surprisingly comfortable evening spent next to Luke, who went as far as calling it romantic, on a sofa bed. We spent the day chilling, chilling Princeton style. A breakfast of pancakes (which were amazing), a visit to Walmart, as well as some games of footie and chess on the beautiful Princeton campus were all used as welcome relaxation and were drumming up quite a lot of local interest. After a rather filling burrito and an introduction to the triangle game (which to my absolute delight has still not been solved by some), we once again separated to return to our beds/sleeping bags. The second day saw the Knight Riders take on New York. After some initial difficulty parking the Knight Rider (resulting in a $115 fine, YOLO), we started our tour of Manhattan. We did do the obligatory walk through Central park, however the two things that were on every Chess geek’s mind were: 1) Chess Hustlers of Washington Square and 2) The Marshall Chess Club. Therefore without much further ado (and with the cliché panorama picture), we made our way to the Chess Hustlers. What we saw there did not disappoint. We were pretty much overwhelmed by a circle of Chess tables with various people in different states of disarray sitting at these tables crying out: “Chess Plaayyyyers, 3 Dollars a game, 5 for 2!” nicely complemented by some soft jazz playing in the background. So with quiet confidence FM Ryan sat down and destroyed his opponent, upon whose face you could slowly see the dawning realisation that he had absolutely no chance. Next Baron Luke decided to give a chess hustler a try. While his win was less assertive (he was shaking and with less than 30 seconds on the clock) he nonetheless managed to beat his opponent. However once El Presidente tried to win some actual money, his chosen opponent decided to meditate instead of lose his money! What an outrage! Another benefit of our stay at Washington Square was the fact that Alex (Gandalfiano) Galliano (our second board) managed to join us. Without any hesitation he sat down at one of the tables and superbly checkmated one of the hustlers. After our dominating display, none of the hustlers wanted to play the Knight Riders anymore, so it seemed like the time to leave. Luckily Baron Luke had met and talked to (as he does with every stranger) the president of the Marshall chess club, who luckily enough invited us to a tournament there. The Marshall is a world famous club which boasts several famous personages throughout its illustrious history, including Stanley Kubrick, Hikaro Nakamura and Bobbie Fischer. In fact it is also the location where Fischer contested the game of the century! Sadly we were not able to make the beginning of the tournament itself, after failing to park the Knight rider in the busy New York streets. However we did manage to see the last two rounds, and in fact there were 4 Grand Masters in attendance, so we were not disappointed! Since it was getting late though, Princeton was a bit of a drive and the fact that we were going to play the current Ivy League champions, the big match of the tour, the next day led to the decision that the knight riders should call it a day. And without much further ado (however a stop for greasy New York pizza was included), we made our way back to Princeton and split up once again. The next day arrived duly, and even though some people (Adi and El Presidente) had problems getting up, the rest of the team was up bright and early to face the day. After being given a tour of Princeton, attending a BioChem lecture and pretty much stealing everything possible at a careers fair (I am looking at you Alex Gandalfiano), we then made our way to Philadelphia to meet our first adversaries. Overcoming traffic and parking difficulties we finally met the president of the UPenn Chess club as well as Anup, one of our team mates and old ex-presidents of the clubs, who was living on his own in New York, and commenced out first game of the tour. In a very tense match with a very strange time control (1 hour plus 5 seconds for each move), Imperial managed to edge out the Ivy League champs 5-4. Highlights of this match include Gandalfiano “grinding down his opponent, until he was in an utter desperate and hopeless mess”; Sporter coming from completely lost with a few pawns down, to swindling himself up a rook and winning the game in the end and Luke beating his opponent in 18 moves, saying: ‘she basically couldn’t play’. The general consensus after the game was that we had been dominating, and in fact should have won pretty much on all boards. This conclusion and the fact that we were now North Atlantic Chess champions allowed us a heightened sense of achievement and were looking forward to our next opponents. Since our game took quite a bit of time we arrived returned rather late to Princeton and missed out on their club night! However this was no biggie, as we would be meeting them the next day in the match that was billed as the one to end all Chess problems. After a good night’s rest, and a hoagie (an absolutely better version of a subway sandwich) we were ready to play Princeton. However it seems we became overconfident. Losing something embarrassing like 12-6 over two matches, we were quite down after this episode. When asked about their games Baron Luke remarked: “Not enough time to press home an attack against the ‘thug lyfe’ ” and Adi attributed his loss to “The women’s charm”... ohh Adi! However we quickly had to prepare ourselves for a bigger loss, because it was time not only to leave Princeton, but also to give up the Knight Rider. Our big baby couldn’t and wouldn’t fit into the New York parking spots, and so with some reluctance we gave the Knight Rider back to Hertz, and then made our way to Columbia University, for our second stage of the tour. Very well organised and friendly, we were met by Matthew, the Columbia Chess President, at the Columbia Cafe, and then were split up once again. The Guptas (El Presidente and Adi) stayed together, and the rest all slept in Matthew’s Dorm. Before we hit the hay, we had a pretty amazing time chilling and playing Chess. The first thing on the agenda on the next day was waiting for the Guptas to finally wake up. Once they did we had a very enjoyable breakfast consisting of pizza provided by Columbia before we commenced our game with two time Ivy League champions Columbia. Sadly we lost 7-2 yet, however given the nature of the games, we can say we actually did rather well. I myself was playing a much higher rated player, and, until I started having time problems had him very well contained. All our resident FM would say though is: “Banter right...?”, which pretty much sums up his game. After this somewhat disappointing loss, where the result belied the actual performances, we rushed over to Washington Square to play NYU. However on the train, Sporter got a message that they could not get a team together, and thus conceded defeat against the superior British opposition! In actuality this was a blessing in disguise as we were still knackered from the previous match so we made our way to Times Square to do some good-old fashioned site seeing! Congratulations should go to Alex and Luke for remaining unbeaten throughout the whole tour. Times Square, while very impressive, was extremely packed for some festival, so after a quick stroll and peak around the area we decided to vacate it and look at other things. At this point Sporter (actually the Chess club) was feeling very generous, so it was decided that $10 would be subsidized to every player for their dinner. The chosen venue was Applebee’s and we were not disappointed! With pretty much the entire table ordering the 1800 calorie Mac and Cheese with bacon, as well as another diabetes inducing dessert, we were pretty much all very sated! Since the next day would be our last in the beautiful US of A, everyone agreed that we should get up as early as possible (AKA 8 O’clock), so we could see as much as possible. However that plan was shot, when everyone decided that 8:00 was way to early, and the Guptas decided that in fact 10:30 itself would be too early as well. After several threatening Facebook messages, as well as going off without them, they managed to sprint and catch up to us at the amazing Bagel place we went to for breakfast. Things we did on that day included: Brooklyn bridge, Wall Street and Ground Zero. However it was the Staten Island Ferry (free by the way) which stood out. However on the journey back, most of the team decided that a game of Secret Queens was in order (which Baron Luke won against Akshaya) or some much needed nap time, instead of having a second look at the Statue of Liberty! What an outrage!!! Anyway, after this really outstanding, yet tiring day we had our last meal in the US, which was none other but some classic McDonalds yet again! Thereafter, we trudged over to Newark Airport once more. Without much hassle we boarded the plane, and commenced once again in using and abusing the in-flight entertainment! Before you knew it, the Knight Riders had touched down in Britain again! Much thanks goes to Matthew, Austin, Johnny and all the other hosts and organizers of the US Universities as well as Stu from the Marshall chess class! Lastly I would like to thank all my brilliant tour mates, as well as Sam Sporter Porter who did so much to make this possible! Till next year folks!