In my 11 year old career of playing chess, what happened today was for the first time and I hope that it will be the last!
The Hyderabad GM Open taking place at the Yousufguda stadium witnessed a power failure in round 3 due to which the games were called off.
The games started at the time that was scheduled i.e at 2.30 pm.
While the players played on, suddenly at 4.20 pm i.e 1hr 50 minutes into the game, the lights went off.
The players were asked to move away from the boards.
Power failure during a tournament is not uncommon in chess. Once the power fails, the generator is started and things are back to normal in some time. Thats what we all expected as we waited in the dark.
However it turned out that there was no alternate means of power supply. As minutes turned into hours, the players started to lose patience.
It was quite possible that many players had already discussed their positions with each other, and more than that after waiting for nearly 1 and half hour, the seriousness of tournament play had been affected.
The decision taken by arbiters and appeals committee was that the 3rd round will be played again tomorrow at 10 am against the same opponent with the same colour!
What happened next was a mixture of emotions.
A few players had completely winning positions, were terribly dejected.
Those who had losing positions were sort of smiling and happy how fortune had saved them.
Those who had come with novelties and had a huge time advantage had more reasons to be upset as to do an encore tomorrow would be sort of impossible!
Finally everyone left the hall around 6pm with the thought as to how to play against the same opponent tomorrow with the same colour! Its as if you are playing a match! You need to now improve on your play with the same colour against the same opponent!
Too bad there is no duckworth lewis in chess or else, the position would have been fed into Houdini and those who had an advantage of more than a pawn would have been given a win!! :)
It was truly a new experience for everyone and a very bad mess up from the organizer's point of view.
PS: those who had already completed their games wont have to play again tomorrow as their result stands.
The Hyderabad GM Open taking place at the Yousufguda stadium witnessed a power failure in round 3 due to which the games were called off.
The games started at the time that was scheduled i.e at 2.30 pm.
While the players played on, suddenly at 4.20 pm i.e 1hr 50 minutes into the game, the lights went off.
The players were asked to move away from the boards.
Power failure during a tournament is not uncommon in chess. Once the power fails, the generator is started and things are back to normal in some time. Thats what we all expected as we waited in the dark.
However it turned out that there was no alternate means of power supply. As minutes turned into hours, the players started to lose patience.
It was quite possible that many players had already discussed their positions with each other, and more than that after waiting for nearly 1 and half hour, the seriousness of tournament play had been affected.
The decision taken by arbiters and appeals committee was that the 3rd round will be played again tomorrow at 10 am against the same opponent with the same colour!
What happened next was a mixture of emotions.
A few players had completely winning positions, were terribly dejected.
Those who had losing positions were sort of smiling and happy how fortune had saved them.
Those who had come with novelties and had a huge time advantage had more reasons to be upset as to do an encore tomorrow would be sort of impossible!
Finally everyone left the hall around 6pm with the thought as to how to play against the same opponent tomorrow with the same colour! Its as if you are playing a match! You need to now improve on your play with the same colour against the same opponent!
Too bad there is no duckworth lewis in chess or else, the position would have been fed into Houdini and those who had an advantage of more than a pawn would have been given a win!! :)
It was truly a new experience for everyone and a very bad mess up from the organizer's point of view.
PS: those who had already completed their games wont have to play again tomorrow as their result stands.
I CANNOT STOP LAUGHING!!!
ReplyDeleteGotta Feel for every one .... sad moment
ReplyDeleteAs an Arbiter or Tournament Director, what are the options please ?
ReplyDelete