London Chess Classic 2015 - This is why we do it!

Quick check of the moon phase today - Waning Crescent, well that rules that out.

Today is my last day at this years Classic.  There has been 7 iterations now and I have been privileged to be working backstage at 6 of them.

Rather than do a daily blog while I am here, I thought I'd do a wee summary at the end.  After today, I wish I had done one each day.

Set up went well, well as well as it can do when the tables are not here!  Poor Dave and I were sitting around waiting for them to be delivered.  We had everything tested and working but no tables to put them on.  Tao as always was a star and about 4 hours late, we had them.  Don't know what he said to the company but it worked

 Day 2 for us was the first day of the Classic.  Up early doors and in for a 16:00 start.  We had to test everything to make sure nothing would go wrong when play started.  1 hour later and nothing was wrong.  That doesn't usually happen!!  That gave us several hours of sitting around in bemusement!  Day went really well

Day 3 - I made a cardinal sin.  There was a problem in the morning with one of the mics, the feedback through the hall was awful when we were setting up for the day.  I put my headphones on so I could think and played some loud Rammstein to block out the noise.  Play started and I switched my tablet to Chess24.com to make sure our feed was going through.  Guess who forgot to turn the volume off on his tablet.   I don't think I have ever moved so fast in my life!  Again strangely no problems!  Not used to this!  Only other excitement of the day was being asked to chair an appeals committee :D

Day 4 - Liking the earlier start at the weekend, it means an earlier finish and some much needed sleep.  Again we had next to no problems, no server load problems, nothing going wrong.  I was beginning to think that I had come to the wrong tournament.  Jim Webster, the Chess Scotland President was down for a conference.  We agreed to meet up and have a chat after time scrambles.  We keep our mobiles on and with us backstage in case there is an issue so we can contact each other if we have gone for a wander.  I am sitting next to Jim when my mobiles goes.  Problem backstage.  Thankfully it was a simple case of kings being put on the board incorrectly and registering as a move.  Managed to get it sorted.

Day 5 (Today) - I don't know where to start.  We now have the schools coming in on the morning so we have 400 kids in the auditorium in 2 sittings (200 each).  Danny King and Chris Ward do an excellent show with the kids which culminates with one from each school coming up on stage and actually playing on the boards while we broadcast it to the hall.  Danny asked one of the schools what school it was.  Thomsons was the reply.  Danny then asked if it was Thomsons with a P to which they all answered on mass, no it's with a T.  I had to leave the stage and sit in my seat.  There were tears rolling down my face.

Not to be outdone, later I went for a toilet break.  Now in the Conference Centre, they reverse the toilets as there are more men than women.  That means men go to the womans.  I am sitting in the toilet in almost hysterics when I hear 2 kids putting money in the machine for condoms and being gutted that they got Tampax instead!

This evening, I became truly convinced that it is a full moon.  I am sitting at my desk just off stage ( I am about 6 feet from the boards) suddenly I can hear a low rhythmic rumble.  One of the audience has fallen asleep!  You could not make it up!

A couple more hours and that will be it all over for me this year.  As always it has been hard work and long days but a complete blast.  Thanks Dave, David, Albert, Tao and Malcolm for having me back again.  Has been good to hook up with Matt and Alex again and teach them a little more of my Scottish Brand of madness.

Have a good Christmas and New Year one and all!


Andy