For more than a year now, Nicholas has been getting more involved with chess. By that I mean, not just playing it, but participating in tournaments. Tournaments involve long weekends of parent waiting (me) and up to five games in one day (him) as he has been honing his skills.
He participated in trials this year in order to qualify to represent his province at the Mzansi Inter-provincial Youth Chess Championships in Polokwane. This event saw the gathering of children from all over the country to play chess together.
An event like this takes some organisation, as you can imagine. Planning began months in advance as we booked our accommodation and transport. The accommodation turned out to be quite stressful because it was booked through the local organising committee who then had to pay the Limpopo chess committee, who then had to book for everyone. We started off selecting the cheapest option (0-1 star) but landed up with the three star Town Lodge. It was a lovely place to stay though.
For transport we flew to Johannesburg and then hired a car to drive to Polokwane. The logic of this was that we would need a car to get between the hotel and the chess venue (The Ranch Resort). We also clubbed together with some other local players on the transport so that we did the Jhb-Pol trip with another mom, Rushaan, and her son, Saud, who we became friends with. We also transported two other kids between the hotel and the venue as well.
I think this was the really cool part of the trip – making friends and getting to know some of the other moms better. For the kids their highlight must have been all the swimming while we sat poolside and relaxed.
Before all of that happened, however, the game of chess had to be played.
The opening ceremony saw some African dancers doing their thing. We had to wait for quite a while in the heat while the people met inside. After a while we discovered an airconditioned area next door. I have to say that after enduring the heat in Limpopo (it was literally stepping into an oven) I absolutely love and appreciate air conditioning now!
The president of SA Chess was there making speeches as well, but I don’t remember much of what was said. There are many challenges and conflicts in SA Chess and they are also in debt. But we have to choose to be positive and hope that great things will happen for our country and our talented players.
That was Sunday.
Day One (Monday) commenced with a lot of delays. The daily rounds are meant to be 9am and 4pm. In reality these rounds started about 11: 40am and the second one was 18:40. So there was about a two and a half hour delay. The first round, we found out later, was because a whole lot of last minute registrations had to be done. The second was because the results of the first round were incorrectly captured.
I think the worst part of this was that it landed up being over meal times and also that for round two, they had to sit in that hall for about an hour, unable to start. Nicky actually finished that round at about ten to nine at night.
Despite these setbacks, Nicky won his first match against a local friend and then drew to someone from KZN that evening.
As you can imagine, parents were very upset. There were also accommodation issues with many people. They had a parent meeting on Tuesday to explain the delayed start, and there were a lot of angry parents. There were even some who had been placed in the wrong age group.
The following day they started an hour later, to accommodate the late ending, but the damage had been done.
For Nicky, that 4pm round on Tuesday, he told me later, was on autopilot, he was very tired, and he lost that one to someone from North West. At least he drew the morning one, to a Gauteng competitor.
On Wednesday he played two kids from Limpopo: he drew the first and won the second. On the last day, Thursday, he also drew to someone from Gauteng. Everyone he played had a higher rating than him, apart from the first Limpopo guy, but he did admit that those guys were good and underrated, possibly because they don’t have so many tournaments in their province. Nicky’s matches were hard and long – at least 2 and sometimes 3 hours.
While Nicky played, I sat in the air conditioned room next door and read books. The laptop came with but I barely touched it. I needed the break. Rushaan (my travel friend) and I also went on some shopping expeditions.
Firstly, we went off to get a whole lot of the right kind of bottle. Apparently you couldn’t have a screw top lid at this tournament, it had to be the flip top lid. They actually scanned the kids as they entered. Fortunately one of the other moms gave Nicky the right bottle on that first day, and I’m very grateful to her.
We also went to the Mall of the North and I got some more books and Rushaan bought a lovely dress. I also found some nice Woolies pies (as we had to eat lunch at The Ranch every day as I had only booked breakfast and dinner at the Town Lodge).
In between all of this the venue was really lovely. They had tennis courts and trampolines. Nicky played tennis on the first day. After that it was some serious pool time every afternoon. The pool had different degrees of cold and heated water, which was a lot of fun for the kids. I think it was a great way to cool off and have fun with friends.
On the last day they had an awards ceremony. We were very proud of one of our friends who came third in his section. But it was very noisy. Every time someone from the Western Cape won they would blow that air horn (sounded like a vuvuzela). It really was too much and Nicky and Saud went off to jump on trampolines. I also did not stay to the end and helped one of the guys who I was transporting to check in at The Ranch. He was leaving early the next day from there.
Nicky’s final ranking was 17/58 and I was super proud of him.
We got back and Nicky still swam until late at night after we had had dinner.
The next morning it was time to travel back. I also had to make sure that the tank was all filled up before I returned the car. That Polo must of had a big tank as it had only used up half in all our travels.
We drove back without any problems, dropped off the car and sat at Mugg and Bean for a while until we had to go and check in. It was really nice to spend time with Rushaan and Saud before we had to leave again.
Although flying and driving were fine, we did have some problems when we got to PE. I had technical problems with my Uber app. Fortunately my sister in law came to fetch us. I really do appreciate her. Then, when we got to the house, we realised that my mom had locked it securely from the inside and I was unable to get in. I was able to get into the garage, so I drove to my mom to get the key to the side door. It was a long day, but we eventually got in, and Mittens was very happy to see us!
Saturday consisted of laundry and groceries.
On Sunday I was meant to meet a friend but as we sat down to eat, Nicky was really nauseous. He almost threw up when we tried to feed him a toasted cheese sandwich.
So we left there and went home.
I thought he just needed some rest and continued doing things around the house. I was busy cleaning the pool when Nicky came outside, a bit dizzy and worried. Not only was he feeling sick, he was also a bit confused when he tried to do his chess puzzles. He really wasn’t well and by now I was a bit worried that he might have malaria after telling me all about all the mosquito bites he’d had.
Being Sunday afternoon, everything was closed, so I decided to go to the hospital. It really was a long wait, but they checked him out thoroughly. He had blood and urine tested as well as an x ray. Nicky was also very constipated, that’s why they wanted to do the x-ray. As he described his symptoms to the doctor, the doctor said it might have been a bit of an anxiety attack, not malaria or epilepsy. After waiting for all the results we were sent home with meds for constipation and nausea.
Long drawn out chess tournaments are not for the faint of heart. They can be very stressful and long.
We thoroughly enjoyed our trip, but it certainly had its difficult moments.
Here’s to a rest and recovery for the rest of the holidays.
Check out my video below of our fun times:
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