The only good thing about no more chess is no more beggars.
My final round today - Its been such a long day it feels like I played it two weeks ago, anyway, was against a 1880 Belgium player named Phillipe Ladent. He played passively and I got an advantage from the opening, but I was careless with it and the game equalised. We got into a drawn endgame with maybe some slight chances for me, but he played quite accurately and finally found an aggressive push that secured the draw.
So I finished on five points out of a potential nine. To put it into context the winner of the tournament got seven and a half, so not a bad shout. Its a pity it started so well, I need to work on my mental stamina. I made a new friend as well, Edward Farrington, He's originally British but he moved to French to live with his girlfriend. We stayed for the prize giving, clapping when everyone else clapped, then parted ways.
Went back to the hotel and collected my stuff, printed boarding pass, put on my blue suede shoes and, boarded a plane. The plane was a Boeing 714, instilling a small amount of fear that I was flying on a model 33 times previous to the ones Easyjet and Ryanair use. The flight was good enough - All the announcements were in French, so I amused myself with the thought that even if they were telling us we're about to crash, or a wings just gone AWOL, everyone would be freaking out but I'd be sitting chilling like a villain, reading my chess book calmly. As we were descending to land all the babies on the plane burst into tears. Their parents gave them water to try and help my ears pop, and as I was really tired and quite thirsty, I had the strange urge to burst into tears myself to try and get some attention / h20.
So now I'm in Corsica, sad that the chess is finished but looking forward to the two days rest and no more beggars. Oh, and the 23 Degree heat's a little enticing too!
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