(Both pictures from http://en.chessbase.com/post/montreal-open-a-labor-of-love)
It had excellent tea and what I headed there for, boards and people to play chess with. (I half-expected that there would be no chess going on, but I was proven wrong.) I played two five-minute games against an eleven-year-old boy rated about the same as me, and lost both, but I was winning in both. In the first, I flagged one move from mate, and in the second, I had won his queen with a spectacular tactic when I blundered my own and resigned. I played a few more uninteresting games before I had to go. Here are some fragments from my first two games. (Sorry, I don’t have the score.)
Game 1:
Canadian Kid–HikaruShindo (Montreal 2015)
It ended up with his king on a7, frantically besieged by my rook, queen, and knight, but I then flagged. Argh!
It looked somewhat like this:
Game 2:
We reached a similar position to the one below.
HikaruShindo-Canadian Kid (Montreal 2015)
I was also in Fort Edmonton Park:
Picture credit: https://www.fortedmontonpark.ca
This is a historical park that has people dressed in costumes: “interpreters” that tell visitors about the time period they are stationed in. It’s not close to as touristy as it sounds. It’s really cool, actually. One of the interpreters was posted at a chess board. I didn’t get to play him, I only informed him that the board was set up rotated ninety degrees. And set it up correctly for him. At which point he complimented me for my knowledge and, to my surprise, asked if I was a savant (!) That was a laugh.
All the best,
Hikaru
