At Belfast Cafe Nero Chess players took part in unique international event: Chris Ross Simultaneous
Chris Ross a top Chess player who is blind played a simultaneous chess event. Playing in Collingwood College, Durham University Chris played players from nations including Italy, India, Iran . Ulster was invited to participate and a group of youngsters and club players met in the Cafe Nero to play and enjoy this unique event. The event took part on 29th February 2016.
February 29th is a special day. Made even more special this year with a unique chess event. Chris Ross a top chess player who is blind played a simultaneous display against players from around the World. Organised from Durham University by Malola Prasath - some comments from Malola after the event:
"Thank you for the enthusiastic participation into the Chris's Ross Simultaneous exhibition, which has taken several redefining moments with the history of chess.
Durham yet again saw a making of a very significant event, which will shape the future of how large scale participation with chess can be truly global. It also brought real experience to people playing the game.
Simultaneous Chess delivered in a truly blended approach has also helped us continuously test the limits of technology infrastructure for scale and seamless management of transnational cultural and cooperative audience.
Although, we all kept cool faces throughout the event. we ran through myriad of technical and emotional difficulty to get to a comfortable position at the end of the evening.firewall issues, with schools, Internet downtimes challenges during the start of the programme. These are mundane.
Let's not forget (see the videos) Chris's challenge to accurately centre pieces. Let's remember he played totally unassisted and played on regular boards with no ability to see anything. The digital boards are very sensitive.
greater admiration for Sainbayar, Dr. Kirkhah, Mark, Mr. Chellan and Ravichandran for brining people both grassroots and federation resources in no time.
Full Credits, to Dr. Kheirkhah, who patiently ensured we played this event with progressive frame of mind. He did a true record setting of organising this with 3 hours of notice. This is the true creative culture around chess." - Malola Prasath.
Early in the morning Adrian Dornford-Smith and myself loaded our cars with half of the Digital Board equipment. Arriving at the Cafe Nero 11:00am. Setting up the boards and the area. Ready for the arrival of the players at around 1:30pm. The staff helped us setup the chairs and tables so we could use the larger tables for the quite large boards, needing space for the wireless transmitters. We had space only for 4 boards. So with the pieces and the boards setup. The transmitters plugged in. Each board was configured ready to play Belfast 1, 2, 3, 4. We couldnt use the wifi of the cafe - as it didnt permit the transfer of the positions to the website so Adrian used his mobile as an internet router ( lucky to have an excellent technical person on site). Adrian also setup a video feed of our area in the cafe which was transmitted live during the event.
Geoff Hindley arrived, Martin Kelly arrived. We had the sets ready for transmission and sat down for a friendly and a cup of coffee.
We communicated to Malola our setup was ready and the URL to the live boards. So that our moves could be seen by the team at Durham.
We setup a laptop showing the live boards at the Durham site. So when we moved on our boards, Chris' team would let Chris know our move. Move it on their board and when ready make his move. We would see on the Durham site the move being made. Make this same move on our board and then make our move.
The Patterson family play good chess and have a catching enthusiasm for all things boardgame, They arrived ready to play serious chess in a fun way.
Player profiles:
Calvin Patterson - the youngest - played in the 2013 Childrens Chess as a P1 pupil and won a place at Stormont. and ever since has been a winner in the Primary section.
Phoebe Patterson - second youngest - a regular visitor to the Stormont award ceremony and constantly challenging her younger brother.
Hannah Patterson - has played excellently in a top class Secondary School section, being a regular to the Stormont award ceremonies. Has won the Silver Plate for the Schools Ulster Championships.
Jake Patterson - also playing in the tough Secondary section has recently won the Secondary Children Chess. Also a regular winner invited to Stormont.
Four youngsters who love the game of chess.
We had 4 boards. Calvin at one, Phoebe and Hannah each with a board. The fourth board was the 'Belfast Team' which comprised of Mark Newman, Martin Kelly, Geoff Hindley, Adrian Dornford-Smith and Jake Patterson.
After technical hitches across the various sites. Games started. With this there was plenty of chat of moves and chess analysis. A laptop manned by Adrian pointed at the Durham chess boards from which we took our moves. Another pointed at our site so we could confirm the moves from our own boards.
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Some videos of Chris playing the games:
Links to the Durham games
The 15 board games are available in the following site. It will be shortly migrated to Durham city chess club and county association sites.
After each move - lots of discussions on the positions. Chat about Chaos theory (Adrian has previously lectured on the topic - what hasnt he done?).
The afternoon was brilliant. The games got more complex. Chris was playing constantly. and late in the afternoon due to venues closing and Chris showing signs of exhaustion the games were adjourned.
Thanks go to Chris for playing so many games and giving us a brilliant event. Thanks also to Malola for organising and inviting us.
The venue we had couldnt have been better. Good coffee, lovely atmosphere, brilliant staff - thanks to Cafe Nero (Lombard St, Belfast).
and thanks to our own team - Adrian Dornford-Smith for being a technical wizard.
and to our players - for coming at short notice and making the event happen and creating the friendly fun environment.
The final positions:
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Ross, Chris v Patterson, Calvin
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 Qe7 4.d4 d6 5.Nf3 Nxe4
6.Be2 Qf6 7.O-O Be7 8.Nbd2Nxd2 9.Bxd2 O-O
10.d5 Qg6 11.Kh1 c6 *
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Ross, Chris v Patterson, Phoebe 1.d4 d5 2.c4 Nf6 3.cxd5 Nxd5 4.e4 Nb6 5.Nc3 Nc6 6.Be3 e6 7.Nf3 g6 8.Be2 Bg7 9.Qd2 a6 10.O-O f5 11.exf5 exf5 12.Bg5 Ne7 13.a4 Be6 14.Rfe1 Qd6 15.Bf4 Qc6 * |
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Ross, Chris v Patterson, Hanna 1.d4 d5 2.c4 Nf6 3.cxd5 Nxd5 4.e4 Nb6 5.Nf3 Bg4 6.Be2 e6 7.O-O Bxf3 8.Bxf3 Bd6 9.Nc3 c6 10.d5 Qc7 11.h3 O-O 12.dxe6 fxe6 13.Bg4 Re8 *
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Ross, Chris v Belfast, Team 1.d4 d5 2.c4 Nc6 3.cxd5 Qxd5 4.Nf3 e5 5.Nc3 Bb4 6.a3 Bxc3+ 7.bxc3 e4 8.Nd2 e3 9.fxe3 Nf6 10.Qb3 Qf5 11.e4 Nxe4 12.Nxe4 Qxe4 13.Qb1 Bf5 14.Qxe4+ Bxe4 *
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