Daaim Shabazz’s Triple Exclam!!! The Life and Games of Emory Tate, Chess Warrior may be short on great games, but it provides a compelling picture of a remarkable chess life

Michael Healey

“Russian chess players use the somewhat untranslatable word творец [tvorets] to describe a particularly inspiring chess player. A tvorets prioritises elegance over rating points, values the quality of his games rather than his standing in the tournament. Above all a tvorets is someone who keeps the beauty of our game alive, inspiring us to follow in his footsteps. Emory Tate was most definitely a tvorets.” – GM Daniel Naroditsky 

Emory Andrew Tate Jr, aka “Dennis” aka “The Exclam kid” aka “Emory Mate” aka “Indomitable Warrior” aka “Tactical Assassin” aka “ET the Extraterrestrial”, tvorets, was an American IM, martial artist, intelligence officer, poet, father, drunk and general weaver of chess dreams. He claimed the only chess book he ever read was Vladimir Vukovic’s Art of Attack in Chess, and this is born out by the games we’ve been left. He distrusted computers and databases, but took the scalps of many grandmasters. He died in 2015 at the age of 56 after a heart attack playing chess. Opening theoreticians will be aware of his contribution, Alekhine’s Defence Tate variation, an early rook development: 1. e4 Nf6 2. e5 Nd5 3. c4 Nb6 4. a4 a5 5. Ra3.

To the world at large, however, he is now more famous for producing Emory Tate III, aka Andrew Tate. He was the father of one of the most influential and controversial figures of our times. 

Tate the father ticks a lot of the “tortured genius” boxes. From a good family, ill-disciplined but brilliant in high school, he achieved a scholarship to Northwestern University in Illinois at 17, but dropped out both here and then at Alabama University. He joined the US air force and entered intelligence, picking up Russian in a record time of three weeks (one of his eight languages). While based in the UK he snuck away to Camden for blitz with Limey locals, among them IM Malcolm Pein (who shares his memories in the book and contributes an analysis of one game). He formed a family, took them back to America, separated from his wife (who returned to England), split acrimoniously from the air force, and continued his life as a chess player and teacher, taking cross-country buses to tournaments and living the life of an eccentric, very much at home among chess players. 

As an enjoyer of American writers focusing on this character type (Hubert Selby Jr, Charles Bukowski, John and Dan Fante), Tate very much appeals: the genius drunk living on the edge, circling the drain of life and finding beauty amidst the grime, loving and hurting everyone around him, exhilarated to suicidal from page to page. Reading through the book, the darker side is periodically hinted at: the paranoia and drinking, depression and resentments, critics and confrontations, not just involving Tate but fellow chess road warriors such as GM Aleksander Wojtkiewicz too. But we are mainly presented with the positives, chief among which are, of course, the games, such as this one against GM Leonid Yudasin in 1997.

Various Sicilians with both colours make up 20 of the book’s 35 full games, which give full rein to Tate’s penchant for sacrifices. He also shared my own desire for the holy move g5! (as did Fischer), as demonstrated in his win here against Alexander Beltre in 2001.

The main narrative thread is the paean to Tate, climaxing in a dramatic near miss of a GM norm in Curuçao 2007. Here, with White, he baffles GM Jan Gustafsson:

The question is presented: why was this man, a larger-than-life genius on and off the board, who played with such flair and scalped so many grandmasters (he claims about 80) not a grandmaster himself (he managed only – only! – IM)?  Along the way he is regularly compared to Tal and Alekhine (for their gamestyles and lifestyles) but also Fischer (showing more determination against Russians). “You’re afraid of success,” he was told. “You could be the first black grandmaster, but you’ll never become a grandmaster unless you get serious.” Serious? This was a man who ended up in positions like this, as Black against Glenn Bady (somehow, the game was eventually drawn):

The book’s tendency towards hero worship is a definite feature of American chess culture (try disparaging Fischer or Nakamura to any US player). The über-competitiveness and trash-talk also comes across (play chess online and stars and stripes tend to be a decent predictor of insults in the chat). We’re constantly told people’s scores and placings in open tournaments, using a strange match system of 7-2 rather than 7/9. There is only one game given from a team match, something truly bizarre compared with our own domination by league chess culture. Tate himself is constantly aggressive, trying to dominate on and off the board with words and pieces, often simultaneously. Everything is a fight, even with his friends. Here he is in action in 2013 against GM Artur Chibukhchian.

Tate clearly had a remarkable ability to impress himself on an audience, resulting in legions of fans on and offline. Not only his moves, but his general patter and joy were infectious, sprinkled with cheeky expressions. Apart from the eponymous “Triple exclam!!!” here are a few other Tate-isms:

Light laser: light-squared bishop
Swizzle sticks!: castling
Sweeper/sealer: a “tai-chi pawn move”
ROVER: Rook-up-and-over
Intruder alert! Intruder alert! (with klaxon)

After meeting in 2009, Tate formed a friendship with the American rapper RZA, legendary founder of the Wu-Tang Clan, probably bonding over chess, philosophy and martial arts. For the youth and aged among you, Wu-Tang were a disparate group of competitive street rappers who shared an appreciation for all the above. Indeed their debut album featured Da Mystery of Chessboxin‘.

When you look into the Clan, the sense is of a brotherhood of young black fatherless men, dropouts in and out of jail, becoming a mutually supporting family, going their own way and working together in an often predatory record business. They had built up their skills by travelling the New York boroughs competing against any contender in battle rhymes in front of an audience, before the best were selected for the Clan, with a famous promise from RZA that if they gave him five years of their lives, he’d take them to the top (he did). Did Tate wish he’d met RZA decades before, to focus him on that GM title?

This is something else that comes across strongly in the book – the plethora of references to a community of black chess players, not just in the US but across the world. “Tate’s Black Imperative”, “Rest in Power” and “The Black Bear School of Chess” mark out this especial American phenomenon. The need to support each other in the quest for rating, prizes and titles even led Daaim Shabazz in 2001 to create a website called The Chess Drum. Tate felt great solidarity with Pontus Carlsson of Sweden and Amon Simutowe of Zambia before he’d even met them. Back in America, future GM Maurice Ashley credited Tate for berating him into a switch from 1. c4 to 1. e4. When he plays other black players, another layer of meaning and importance is added:

I was lucky enough to play a few games with Simutowe, aka the “Zambezi Shark”, while he was at Oxford, sharing the spectators’ hysterics at various sound effects (the helicopter and Bruce Lee in particular). Were some of these adapted from the time he spent with Tate in the US?

One suspects this is the world Tate was happiest in – the fun, silly, competitive, adrenaline-fuelled buzz of blitz, a crowd of adoring spectators at hand. Yet his pride and ambition thirsted for achievement in classical chess, both in titles and prestige. He repeatedly brought up his five US Armed Forces Chess Championship titles. At one point he runs out of the tournament hall to celebrate a win over IM Georgi Orlov, noted for his expertise in the Black Knights’ Tango. “I beat the Tango guy!”, Tate shouts, determined to instantly demonstrate the game.

As the story comes to a conclusion, the tone becomes palpably darker. Tate himself was prone to a sense of foreboding about his end: “When you screw up the opening and the middlegame, then you’re going to have a bad endgame.”

A decade ago Simutowe put out a shortlist of his best games, intending to work on an autobiography. Sadly Tate did not compile his own games (he played in roughly a thousand classical tournaments, as well as rapids later in his career), so what remains are those collected and commented on by others (bar three taken from Tate’s lectures, with his own unique patter). There are also some tactical problems taken from his games but, quite frankly, there aren’t many jewels.

“I hope that for our younger students and our aspiring players, they will study my play and emulate my style,” said Tate in 2006. “I hope I’ll have a lasting influence. I understand that I’m creating a legacy per se, and I’m very aware of that. There is never a time when I play that I’m not aware of that.” So let this be a lesson to all of us: if you think you have games or positions which will be of interest to the wider world, get them organised and ready to go. Death always wins in the end.

I enjoyed the story of Tate and his world, more so than the actual games. It’s a wonderful tribute to the man that so many have contributed to this book in so many ways; Tate clearly touched many, many lives. We’ll leave the last words to his son, Andrew (Emory III): “The only thing that makes me feel better is knowing that he doesn’t know he’s dead. If he did, he would be furious!”

Larry Evans was just 16 when he wrote his first book – a self-published monograph on the great Vienna tournament of 1922. Some of the analysis is a little wayward, but it’s still a remarkable achievement

Michael Healey

This season I have been mainly losing to people younger than myself. Other people as well, but it’s the youngsters doing the most damage. In revenge, I felt the need to savage a book written by a teenager.

In 1948 Larry Evans, aged just 16, was already a strong player. In three years he would be US champion, then go on to become an IM, a GM, US champion a further four times, and a second to Bobby Fischer. He would also become one of the most celebrated chess columnists and writers, famously co-authoring Fischer’s My 60 Memorable Games (which I still have not read).

As part of his development, the teenager not only discovered the 1922 Vienna tournament‘s scores, but took it upon himself to annotate each of the 103 games, and then self-publish the result. At 16! As Evans later admitted, “Youth is so presumptuous!” Sixty-two years later, he was asked to review his first work for a new edition of Vienna 1922, with computer assistance, sadly dying before the result was published. Thus this is both Evans’ first and last book – an alpha and omega one might say.

Vienna 1922 was a 15-player all-play-all tournament featuring a lot of big names, though lacking Capablanca and Lasker, who had contested the world championship the previous year. The field was as follows, with Chessmetrics December 1921 world ranking in brackets: Alekhine (3); Rubinstein (4); Tartakower (6); Tarrasch (7); Bogoljubow (10); Spielmann (11); Maroczy (12); Réti (13); Grünfeld (20); Sämisch (23). Bogoljubow and Rubinstein were perennial world championship contenders; Alekhine would succeed to the title in 1927. Some other names may also ring bells!

Completing the field were local bunnies Sándor Takács, Heinrich Wolf, Imre König, Hans Kmoch and Vladimir Vuković. Kmoch and Vuković went on to become better known as chess writers. Kmoch’s most notable book is Pawn Power in Chess, published in 1956, while Vuković produced two of the most famous chess books of all time – The Art of Attack in Chess (1963) and The Chess Sacrifice (1968). 

In Vienna 1922, Evans’s comments are pithy, but usually humorous and accurate in equal measure. Each round is given a succinct summary, and each game a brief prologue. So what happened? Here is the scoretable:

This was to be Rubinstein’s last great hurrah. He won five in a row between rounds 10 and 14, and went undefeated all tournament, but was clearly leading a charmed life in some games. Tartakower was a deserved second, hunted down after a start of 6.5/7. Third was … Wolf?! Indeed, Wolf led the tournament in round 10, only to receive 0 from the next two games. Though several games from this tournament made his own best games collection, Alekhine lost a whole three games, despite benefiting from a bye against Spielmann, who missed the last two rounds due to illness. It is quite clear that König and Kmoch suffered, even when their games were looking promising, and sought out draws whenever possible. Neither won a game. Maroczy had a very solid tournament, only losing one game. 

Whilst going through the book I realised the drama of the tournament wasn’t coming across very well, so I made my own progressive (if slightly messy) scoretable.

Here I discovered one issue with the book: several round summaries feature the wrong match pairings and results. The table I constructed demonstrated just how well Tarrasch had finished (six wins and two draws in the second half of the tournament). In round 10 he defeated Réti with a lovely king march.

34. Kh2 Nd6 35. Rg7+ Kh8 36. Rd7 Nb5 37. Kg3 Nxc3 38. Kf4 Nb5 39. Ke5 Re8 40. Kf6. Black resigns. The plan is Kf7 and Bg7#. If Rg8 Kf7 and the threat of Rd8 is game-ending.

The openings played are testament to their era and the influence of “hypermodern” ideas. Because these ideas were new, openings can look inaccurate or overindulgent to modern eyes. However, the differences in strength are also a factor. Weaker players strive for drawish lines; stronger players play some slightly fishy stuff. For this reason, many of the most entertaining games are those against König and Kmoch, whom everyone was clearly desperate to dispatch. This was how Rudolf Spielmann, with Black, did the job against Kmoch in round 4.

This was not the only game where I had cause to doubt the teenager/septuagenarian’s commentary. In round 9, Kmoch was again the victim of a crazed stronger player, Ernst Grünfeld:

As the tournament progressed I found myself really rooting for Kmoch, only to be disappointed each time. The summary before Vuković-Kmoch pretty much covered being a Kmoch fan (“Black hangs his queen!”). I genuinely bashed my head into the table. 

There were a number of blunders throughout – possibly because it was a long tournament, but more likely because back then they didn’t register thousands upon thousands of tactical puzzles and tomes of theory. They had to reason things out themselves, without a bank of patterns and tricks. Sometimes it’s utter nonsense, as in this game between Vuković and Spielmann.

The positional chess can be quite impressive though, as in the following game between poor old Kmoch and Siegbert Tarrasch.

Certainly, as a disciple of chaos myself, I didn’t really trust young Evans’s nous in the crazier positions. Which was a lesson in itself: given most chess books these days are written by grandmasters with supercomputers, it’s useful to be able to challenge what you’re being told, and sometimes find out you’re actually correct. Sometimes.

As you might expect from conversion of an old descriptive book without diagrams to algebraic with plentiful diagrams, there are regular typos; these don’t detract from the games though. In all seriousness, to achieve what he did in this work is quite astonishing. Evans the teenager found the time, determination and sheer cojones to analyse games from the top tier of chess a mere 26 years before – games by players who, he admits, were at that stage all stronger than he was. Not only did he contribute to chess scholarship in the process, but he protected chess legacy and brought obscure games to a wider audience:

“My main reason for writing in 1948,” Evans said, “was to preserve the games which were then largely unavailable except for a handful of collectors.” It is little wonder he went on to be so beloved by chessplayers in America, and around the world.

The Czech super-grandmaster’s games collection doubles as a memoir and is full of humour, passion, wisdom, raw honesty and an unquenchable love for chess

Michael Healey

David Navara has always been one of my favourite players amongst the elite, but I’ve never really understood why. Are his games really that interesting? Is he actually a thoughtful character? A super-nice guy? A calculation machine? A true chess artist? Turns out – yep!

My Chess World really is a most charming book, as the Roman poets would say – except that at 616 pages it’s not exactly brief. In fact due to its weight this became a bedside book, where I would read a chapter or two a night (a couple of games) stretching through 64 (of course!) games. Before nearly every game is an article about his experiences as a professional chess player.

The dominant theme is Navara’s unstoppable love for chess, through ups and downs (even finishing up with a “Chess Poem”). Every page resounds with passion and strain, humour and wisdom. Despite this chess addiction, he finds time to read books (“I normally take three times as many books to a tournament as I manage to read”), partake in philosophy and art criticism, spend six years at university, follow Christianity and even have a girlfriend (on page 568 – by which time the reader has sadly already fallen in love). He also likes to take note of everything around him and find amusement everywhere.

The book is filled with stories and gossip, opinions and jokes, and one particularly surreal photo of himself with a large fish. He even has the occasional hilarious adventure, walking about between games. It may help that we seem to share a sense of deadpan humour, which of course can be a big hit-or-miss with chess books (and people.)

Navara is immensely courteous, making excuses for opponents, complimenting them, pointing out other instances when he was on the receiving end or how they proceeded to outscore him in the tournament. Before a game from his match against Nakamura, he writes about “UNPLEASANT OPPONENTS”. Is Navara about to unleash? No, he explains that certain players’ styles he finds hard to play against. The rudest he gets is a slight argument with someone who steals his seat on a plane, and remarking he has possibly heard one of Nigel Short’s stories before.

Harsh criticism is saved for himself. Games are filled with comments on things he missed, or ways he was lucky, or how computer ideas are beyond the mind of a mere 2700(!). One senses the mischievous wit of Tal, proclaiming himself the youngest ex-world champion, when Navara notes he has probably lost more chess matches than any other player (local sponsorship often invited strong players for mini-matches, which tend to go badly for him). However, he seems justifiably proud of certain stellar individual results, and team results are a source of great joy. There are moments which seem incredibly raw, and one particularly sorry comment that he used to have more supporters in the past. Everything is so honest it is impossible not to join in the emotional journey.

The self-deprecating bulk of the book comes under the title “Blog past its sell-by date”. This may be the secret of what makes this book so impressive. Navara clearly took his blog very seriously, investing time immediately after games to analyse and give his thoughts, sometimes to the detriment of the following day’s games. Through the various editions and translations, despite myriad lines I found very few errata. He gives move times, tournament placings (pre-game, post-game and final), team scores and podium scores. All this provides far more context (and interest) than your normal game collection.

Nevertheless all this would be fairly pointless if the games weren’t up to much. The 64 games chosen are obviously overwhelmingly interesting, although as Navara explains:

1. Substantial games are interesting
2. Substantial games require extensive annotations
3. Extensive annotations are boring

The Navara calling card is this king march, a superb concept coming from computer preparation and practical skill.

Here Carlsen is put on the back foot with White, coming up with a clever rejoinder.

Invited for a match in China against whizz-kid Wei Yi, Navara uses a Queen sacrifice to unbalance the position.

The powerful usage (and discarding) of a queen recurs in several games, both for himself and his opponent. Sometimes Navara neglects development and defers castling. He seeks out unbalanced positions, but often with not kings at stake but better coordination of pieces. Chaos – but more treading water amidst a tsunami than running to escape a volcanic eruption. It’s never that obvious what the end goal is or what we’re avoiding, just that it’s all completely bewildering hard work. A number of games finish in unusual rook endgames, which can become remarkably engaging, even for philistines like me.

Here are two games which felt particularly joyful. The first, against Indian GM Krishnan Sasikiran, appealed to me instantly because Navara randomly picks up an opening I play and finds ideas I’d never considered – and of course there are the tripled pawns! Drama explodes from a “level” position, but is tamed by piece coordination, accurate choices and a very cute finish.

Here the future world championship challenger, Ian Nepomniachtchi, contributes to a wonderfully unorthodox game, where Navara has to keep an eye out for perpetuals, fortresses and … blunders!

I would thoroughly recommend this book to chess lovers. If you end up falling in love with Navara as well, that’s just the cost.

The Olympiad is over and the exhausted Welsh captain is in reflective mood. Yet incredibly, he says he might be willing to do it all again in two years’ time – if the next Olympiad actually takes place that is

Michael Healey

Round 11 brings a change, an end-of-tournament 10am start against Fiji. I have a quick look over my team’s opponents, create a file for Kim on 1. e4 Nc6, and finish up my latest blog post; no sleep, as per usual in India. I’ve suggested an entertaining (temporary) opening line queen sac to Kim, but Liv is against it. Kim becomes a meek little Josh Waitzkin in Searching for Bobby Fischer, Liv the venerable master Ben Kingsley, and of course I’m Laurence Fishburne. 

Kim’s looking at the line on the shuttle bus. I’m trying to convince her – what a way to end the tournament, her opponent will totally collapse – but it’s no good. She’s afraid. Later I’ll get entranced by a rook sac on f2 in Liv’s game, which she correctly passes up during a long think. Turns out street hustling don’t win no tournaments (the Kingston Invitational could have taught us that one!).

Some final wandering around Scum Hall. I won’t miss the bobbly carpetting and flimsy result signs which shake as you go past, making those of us sensitive about our weight feel like Godzilla taking on the skyscrapers of downtown Tokyo. There are so many teams I have interest in now. I bump into Tunisian Zoubaier Amdouni and complain he’s not yet an IM; “Covid, Covid – but soon!”

Both the Irish board four and the Jersette board one have ventured last-gasp Orangutans – good thing I taught my team that anti-Orangutan set-up! In Lula’s case she had promised me this one was coming, so the smile I expected. It’s a joyfully saccy game, and even though the reward is only a draw she’s now a provisional WCM. Elsewhere for the men Jersey could get some titles, but Wales’ Tim Kett needs just a draw. His opponent, needing a win, declines a perpetual, overpresses and Tim becomes an FM. He has performed at 2296 throughout the tournament, but this special Olympiad achievement is unlocked by getting over 65%. Everyone’s delighted.

Liv wins a calm game where she never looks troubled, deadly efficient with the tictacs; anyone facing her should properly fear that Petrov. Kim finds a nice opening win of the f7 pawn with check and converts. Hiya plays her new opening well, but underestimates a lightning attack. Maybe this game has come a bit too soon after yesterday’s heroics. Khushi is today’s heroine: the two players on bottom board have a joint rating under 2500, but if you’d told me this was a GM v GM game I wouldn’t be surprised. It’s major pieces and opposite-coloured bishops. I was talking to one of the team about this; was it Khushi? The initiative, go for the king!! I’m back being Vinnie in the park.

Khushi’s opponent plays the losing move so lackadaisically we’re both thrown. Surely Qf8 is mate? How tired am I? Khushi heptuple, octuple checks – while I doubt my sleep-deprived vision and ability to quantify time – before delivering checkmate. What a way for Wales women to finish up.

The boys have had a tough time against some real heavyweights, but achieve their seeding rank of 96 exactly. Three draws with GMs, but it could and should have been so much more. The girls lost a cumulative 100.4 rating points against the underrated world’s best, but somehow placed 86 off their 90 ranking. That captain must be some kind of genius.

The Jersettes offset the men’s troubles with more good news – at their first ever Olympiad they come fourth in rating group E. Indian WGM Vantika Agrawal, who Liv let off the hook in round one, has gained an IM norm. Clearly that near-disaster woke her up.

You probably know more about the big boys and girls than I do. We hear various stories (Polish Oliwia is doing slightly better than Welsh Olivia), but mostly I’ve been too tired and chessed out to show much interest. Kim regales us with tales of her chess crushes, Fabi and Magny and Davey H and all the rest. Instead I seriously wonder how super-nice-guy David Navara ever gets to the bathroom with all the door-holding us polite types have to do.

It’s been a complete whirlwind, and a sort of world tour as well. From the sizes and shapes (from tiny Nepalese to giant Sudanese), the outfits, the mannerisms, from holding hands to bare feet, choral singing on the coaches to masking up, the lack of respect for personal space and inability to lift the toilet seat to pee – it’s one giant cultural exchange. The African nations in particular, with their great competition for best-dressed team, are a joy; but they’re also fiercely competitive. Many an evening we’ve discussed how that Zimbabwean board three got on today – Jemusse Zhemba is certainly a name for your future fantasy chess leagues.

There’s a lot of stuff I don’t quite get: the politics, the myriad dignitaries having jollies, the very very important persons (VVIPs), the rules for nationality and country representation, what’s going on with China and Russia. But basically this is the best of the best from around the world in one place. Countries either at or verging on the point of war – Ukraine, Kosovo, Chinese Taipei – all sit and play happily, shades of Buenos Aires 1939. Covid hasn’t been a big thing here, a massive relief after the past two years. We’ve had daily temperature checks at the hotel, and some countries are permanently masked up (the Asian and island nations mostly, but also Australia and New Zealand, and of course all the staff and volunteer helpers, poor sods); for most it’s just a normal tournament. 

Will this be the last great Olympiad? In two years the venue is supposed to be Budapest. Placed between two geopolitical hotzones, with waves of pandemics, a coming financial crash, green aviation taxes and a European black market supposedly filled with Javelin missiles, perhaps the betting on a return to Chennai isn’t so unlikely. Hungary would be nice though. 

Will I be there? Well some Welshies have jokingly asked if I’d do it again, but I presume next time, with a stronger team, they’d want a stronger coach. It’s been a lot of fun, but I have felt like a caged animal at times, unable to sub in and contribute over the board. I’ve been lucky with my team (let’s face it, most teams probably would have either sent me home or be preparing to sue me for defamation at this point) and the strangely subdued expectations. Or maybe I could switch federations, and use my 1/8th heritage to create a Romany team.

Top-level women’s chess, even in Scum Hall, has really impressed me. It’s solid, even towards the lower end. Hiya is a young lady after my own heart, while Khushi and Kim clearly love a sac; watching Liv’s games up close has forced me to appreciate the nuances of chess strategy, conditioning, intense preparation and determination. And sleepiness.

The sheer numbers of young female players from non-western countries is either encouraging, or a bad sign – are they just coming the once, as teenagers, then going off for life and careers and marriage? Is chess a phase they’ll evolve beyond, forcibly or not? Beyond me, but currently they all seem teens to this old git. 

Were I to do this again, I’d certainly transfer more stuff to databases (and maybe not take 44 [!] chessbooks in my luggage). Prep is so important, it’s like winding up a phalanx and letting it loose at the enemy line. If it hits, success. Should it veer right and miss, doom. It’s incredibly hard to beat even 1200-level players – they may make inexplicable opening mistakes, but give them enough time and they’ll find the best move in most positions. Overpress and you get sucker-punched.

Will I miss India? Well, I don’t really feel like I experienced much of it. Alex Bullen and Liv are off travelling for a bit, whilst Hiya is visiting relatives in Kolkata. I’ll miss the curries, and the awkward stardom; not so much the daily shuttles, the limited alcohol and the muzak blaring in the hotel lobbies. Dreary London is calling. I’ll sleep well on the 5am flight. And drink as much of BA’s whisky as allowed.

The end of the Olympiad is in sight, the Welsh women’s team have reached round nine, and their captain is mildly hysterical at the prospect of facing Ecuador

Michael Healey

¡Dame tu mano
Y venga conmigo!
¡Vamonos al viaje para buscar los sonidos magicos
De Ecuador!

I wake up even earlier, in an even colder sweat from the obscene aircon, than normal.

ECUADOR!
doop doop, de doop de doop doop

These chiquitas can play. Looking over their games it’s all fabulous; one replies to Nd5 with Ne7-c8, intending c6. I’ve been playing chess 30 years and I’ve only just clocked that manoeuvre exists. 

ECUADOR!
doop doop, de doop de doop doop

They all play a bajillion things. Their board two, as previously reported, is insanely good. The best I can do is pick some of their more obscure lines and prep something simple. Fully rational terror combined with an internal pounding 90s dance anthem is quite something, let me tell you.

On the plus side we finally get a South American country, which means we’ve pretty much collected the set (barring North America and Antartica). Our arbiter is Spanish, so for once we have the feeling of being left out of the linguistic banter. Hiya is deeply mistrustful, while Liv will later claim her dairy milk chocolate (one of my main jobs as captain is to nick as many as possible, as often as possible, from the heavily guarded dispensary), has DISAPPEARED.

I’ve been to Quito, but Liv’s actually lived there for a couple of months, working in a children’s hospital. Their board two, Anahí Ortiz Verdezoto, who is gaining elo points like nobody’s business, is training to be a doctor. Board one has a knight tattoo on one hand – something evident on several chessplayers here. One Lithuanian, keen that no one miss her backless outfit , also has a chess queen tattooed on her upper back. Many have got henna tattoos. Indeed, after learning the Jersey captain got someone to come round specially to the hotel for all the girls, my team point out yet another of my deficiencies as captain. Sigh.

Liv plays a Petrov (or anti-Petrov, which doesn’t really make it anti-boring for those sitting next door), and gets a position we’ve looked at but where the nuances mean little to me. Hiya’s opponent sidesteps our prep with a Catalan. Khushi’s prep goes fantastically well, and she’s better and hacking away delightedly. Kim’s opponent has gone g7-5 early in an Italian, and I smile to myself – not something we looked at and this ain’t gonna be good. Kim replies with g2-4, in front of her castled king. She later complains I never told her g5 was a thing – having spent most of my chess life preaching the power of The Holy Move, I find this amusing.

Khushi gets overexcited and drops her e4 pawn, Hiya drops her d5 pawn, Kim is … whatever she’s doing, and Liv’s position is not helping with my serious issues drifting off. I dramatically stand up, shake the arbiter’s hand, and head for the 5pm shuttle. First however, I want to hit the Expo and see what’s happening there. 

It’s Sunday in India, and the crowds for the traditional day off are mental. There’s a queue going round the courtyard to get in for a view of Champion Hall. Everywhere are people, especially lots of purple lanyarded VVIPs. Whilst looking at some particularly uninteresting computer displays and soulless chess sets, I get huddled out back into the heat for my second interview of the day (back at the hotel a swarm had descended on my prep session with Hiya). Yes, everyone’s very friendly, I like the food, I expect everyone will be back to Chennai since it’s about to become chess capital of the world (Gukesh D is on 8/8, having knocked Caruana out of the top 10 yesterday). Now will I make this shuttle?

I feel a bit guilty, as I should, for abandoning my team so early. Fortunately Caissa punishes me with a shuttle which takes two hours to get back, going all round the different early finishers’ hotels. Khushi will last past move 50, showing incredible fight, and still beat me back, along with Kim and Hiya. While Liv’s game goes to and fro, I am accosted by a tiddly Tanzanian girl, who is delighted to practise her English on me and seems strangely taken.

Mariam tells me she only started playing in December, her life not going too well at the time. A distraction turned into a tournament, which led to an invitation to travel to another tournament in Kenya. Someone dropped out of the Olympiad team, and now she’s travelled here, her goals being to get a rating and win at least one game. Not only will she gain a rating, she’s on 4.5/9! I’m blown away by her story, as well as her constant questioning and smiley nature. When she leaves I ask how she’s going to spend the evening? “I have learned so much from chatting to you. I am going to work out how to keep you!”

Back at the hotel Kim is down, so I join her for our second KFC at the mall next door; being of Malaysian heritage, Kim thinks UK KFC is done wrong. I don’t know about that, but my popcorn chicken biryani is the hottest thing I’ve had since I got here. In pain I squeeze a ketchup satchet into my mouth, only to read the back – “Contains spices”. I nick a limey ice drink no one wants, containing lashings of masala. I can’t taste anything. The ice is cold though. The mall is unbelievably packed. There’s even a little train going round for toddlers. I try to get some pashminas, but my haggling is slightly dampened by someone holding a bag of KFC at the entrance to the shop. Having managed to get only a small discount, I once again become the moron who spends too much money. Liv has drawn, but could have won. Another whitewash averted.

The next morning Nick Faulks informs me Wales are safe. Nick is my source for Fide gossip and this is voting time. There are lots of controversies, one of which is a proposal to have non-International Olympic Committee countries removed from the Olympiad. It is defeated, so Wales, the Jersey girls and the rest live to fight another day.

Our next match is against Malta. Kim has the day off, so we are deploying our secret weapon – head of delegation Sarah Kett.The morning is spent training her in the Hippo, reckoning this gives her the best chance of long-term survival. Khushi manages to sit at the wrong board, forgetting she’s been promoted. Whilst wondering just how much trouble we’re going to give this arbiter, whom I previously joked with over Khushi’s en passant game in round two, one of the Thai girls near us collapses. Another medical emergency? No, she’s been trying to hide from a photographer and fallen off her chair backwards. It’s going to be a silly round isn’t it?

Khushi has a fine position, but tactics go wrong and she gets ground down. Sarah reaches a position where f7-5 will completely dominate the kingside, but she’s been told not to push her f-pawn. I smile and return to my book, Sinclair Lewis’s Arrowsmith. Hold on, I espy an f5! Wow, she might win this!? Oh, but now the b-file has opened. And White can play Rxb7, winning a bishop. Never mind, two and a quarter hours’ survival is pretty good going. 0-2. Liv gives us a point. Now, it’s time for Hiya the hero!

Hiya’s position on two, against Maltese chess maestro Clarence Psaila’s wife Uranchimeg, is very blocked. Hiya seems to have dropped an exchange – or is this a genius trap, realising in this position the knight outdoes the rook? She plants the most tentacled octopus knight you will ever see on e4, before white grabs a hot pawn. Hiya concentrates, calculates and finds the way to cause her opponent the most difficulties. Time dwindling, White drops a queen. Then a bishop. Eventually White concedes. I never had any doubt – Hiya’s aristeia. 

After that late game we shuttle back to the hotel, eat and meet up for the final time in the rooftop bar. It’s a bit of a sombre occasion. Apart from anything else, the boys are lamenting missed chances against an Estonian side who arrogantly seem not to have prepped them. Two draws, including one for Alex Bullen against a GM, but it could have been more. 2-2 was kind of the perfect result for us today (not that I wanted Sarah and Khushi to lose). Instead of a harder final match and 1/2, we’re on for 1.5/2 and a tournament 50%. The men have Jersey of all teams, while we’re going back to Oceania – Fiji at 10am.