It is a rain in the morning with gray light floods from the windows of ‘Swedish restaurant’ in Ekia Hyderabad. I am here on Sunday after posting a chess tournament on my Instagram feed. In Ikea? I am eager My Mistnate childhood part was allocated to play royal games and I wonder, as Americans say “I still got”.
I get tournament players at one end. Even before the incident begins, some have started playing impromptu. The organizer looks fresh – around 50 players have changed, and are more participants than the number of boards.
A fun game of chess in Ikea | Photo Credit: Nagra Gopal
I look around, the crowd is mostly 20 and 30 somothings, and looks like young professionals. I register my name, and is added to a WhatsApp group, where pairing or who will play which will be declared. The table has post-stem notes, giving them numbers and putting an order on these 64 classes. For watches we use apps on our phone, each player with about 10 minutes to complete the game.
As I soon find out, with names such as pons gambit, tribute 64, and chess muscators, virtual chess clubs that use social media to advertise meat and tournament are all anger. These tournaments usually last for a few hours and are held in upmarket coffees. In fact, some participants will run away after the incident ends, for one and one in the Bagh Beans Cafe.
Chess and coffee shops go back all the way, a link in a series that spreads back to millennium Chiakhanas On the silk route. Where chess is played, where people meet and ideas are exchanged. And in fact ‘coffeehouse chess’ has entered Lexicon, as it is the street cricket of the game, which has been completely removed as a classical chess test match. Instead of cover drive, there will be barbaric attacks on the king, lack of strategic foresight, so that all directions can fly pieces and pawns. And the cafe in Hyderabad is not showing any signs of stopping the spread.
My opponent is a technology that has won office tournaments. He essays Sicilian Defense and we are soon drowned in war. Posters that draw out Swedish crayfish beautify the walls, while overhead lights from the lamp fight the morning sadness.
Enthusiasts of chess compete in a friendly tournament in Bagh Beans Coffee and Art: Siddhant Thakur
As we play, on the next board, a player has lost, but asks “Sardaga Ankoti Auduthama? , (Let’s play another for fun?) And they happily set the pieces and closed again.
Between the rounds, we hold our complementary coffee and move around. I meet 28 -year -old Salil Kumar, originally from Bihar, which now helps to design a jet engine for an aerospace company here. “You could sit at home, what is your inspiration?”, I ask. “This is a long weekend. In the last two days I have been a couch potato, so I thought I would come out and meet my community,” he says. But why chess? “It’s like a addiction, but a good addiction,” he says with a laugh, saying that he took a game post-lockdown to give some “exercise” to his brain: “I turned from reel to chess” he says.
Our conversation is interrupted by dozens of WhatsApp notification pinging; Pairing is out and everyone reaches their table. I play with Siddharth ji, who was an 18 -year -old Bestacal, who was doing his BTech. Siddharth has received a walkover in the previous era, so till now a pawn was to be pushed. Later, “It was my first game, and I was worried in the beginning” he accepts.
Online or offline, I ask? “Offline” he says, “Chess.com is a lazy way”. Offline, a reaction, as you inspect people’s reactions, psychology comes out behind the game ”.
Chess session in garden beans coffee and art saw participants in various age groups photo credit: Siddhant Thakur
As the tournament proceeds, I am able to make some widespread observation; Most of the players are those who took an online chess during the lockdown. Now, in half a decade, he has worn the unconnected phantom area of the net and is eager to pits his intellect in the real world.
A data analyst, 28, 28, 28, for some, it is to avoid deception. He plays a version called bullet chess online, a type of frenzied T20, where players have only 1 or 2 minutes per game. Why do I ask, “It is difficult to play classical online because people are using bots”.
Nevertheless, the real world has its own quirks.
The organizer has to struggle with a dispute where a bishop of one color has blamed the other like one politician after the elections. Of course, these are impossible online, as illegal tricks cannot be input. Nor is there a measured fate of a tournament hall, where every sound transition is immediately shaken.
At one point, a family tries to open emergency exit and trigger a piercing alarm. They walk away from non -long, leaving behind a deaf day until they come up with a security guard. Muzak interacted on the low -thunder of customers, who were having a child to get pastry for a child for his mother. Nevertheless, a participant says: “I like the white noise he says,” in a tournament hall, when it is calm, my brain goes in 1,000 different directions. But when people are talking, I am able to concentrate ”
A young contestant in Bagh Beans Coffee and Art | Photo Credit: Siddhant Thakur
After the tournament, I hold with the organizer, Soram Kolaganti, 25. “I had no friends to play” they say. He was tired of playing faceless opponents and wanted a place to play, and wanted to play with people.
Sairam had some chess experience, playing the tournament as a child. He often made friends in these tournaments, and after the official game was over, he simply played for a few hours, such as musicians were handed over after a concert. “We used to have fun” he says, “Friends play with good spirit”. This is the chapter that he wants to repeat from his childhood.
What is there for the cafe? “We all want a place to play,” Syum explains, “we go to all the new cafes who are looking for the crowd.”
Sarita Sarkar, co-owner of Bagh Beans, says it organizes regular chess events, and has also won the championship as a child in West Bengal. “My mother taught me, and said that chess is a game that can teach you about life. As a child, I loved pawns, because they were small but powerful.” When she was approached to organize the program at the cafe, Sarita jumped on the idea. “I already had wooden boards that were installed for casual games. To be Frank, we do not do much business because chess attracts students who do not cost much. But I still host events because I like to use them my mind and do not use their phones.”
Enthusiasts of chess gather in cafes in the weekend for friendly tournament: Nagra Gopal
I talk to the winner, 35 -year -old Rahm Lakhani, a businessman who also has a coaching academy. In the tournament, he explains that “I always play with the book .. It takes me a minimum of six months to learn and prepare theory”. Here, however, he can play carelessly for the sheer bliss of the game.
The awards are distributed and people are swept away. Some still keep playing hump on the table. Perhaps this is the beginning of the rebellion against Branerot, against the dumcolling days. Chess, finally, represents the final victory of the mind over the case.