Patience.org

So the lad played in the Greater New York Scholastic championships last Saturday, his second tournament and this was a long one!

He spent the whole day in the the New Yorker hotel – he was there from 9.15am to 6.45pm, played five games, (as did everybody).

And although he lost his first three he rallied and one his last two, which are the first games he’s one in a tournament setting, which is great for him. Here he is setting up for his 4th and 5th games, note the encouragement being provided by his sister in the last photo (all taken on my phone, hence the quality, but click to enlarge).

In the wake of Bobby Fischer’s demise, it’s clearly time for a new American grandmaster to emerge. And so with that in mind (well not really, he enjoys it, so we encourage him, it’s that simple), the lad participated in his first competition yesterday. He didn’t win a game, but he drew one, but no matter.

It was a big competition – 200 kids crammed into the gym at his school, which hosts a lot of these and has chess as part of its curriculum. Next competition, this coming Saturday!

Here he is warming up with his mate Rocky:

And here’s a few taken by the official photographer, as parents aren’t allowed in in case we flash them some signs, though I can’t teach him much about chess he doesn’t already know.

So it was quite a long time spent in the UK and quite packed. Among the highlights:

The kids went to their first panto – Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs at Wimbledon Theatre with their cousin Charlie, and all loved it…. Alvin & the Chipmunks was checked off the list (thanks to Uncle Rob!), while Mom & Dad went to see Fulham lose to Chelsea (maybe Alvin was a better option)… the week before all four of us sat through (perhaps the best description) Fulham’s draw with Wigan…two days before that the kids had met some of the players, last in the line was the American international Clint Dempsey, I urged the kids to tell him where they had just arrived from the day before, the lad went a tad mute at this point, but she edged close to the table and said quietly, in her cutsey voice “New York City,” which he liked. They’d had a bad day as the manager had been fired only hours before, we subsequently learned. Here he is talking to her, unfortunately out of shot:

The kids and Sally went to Paris for a couple of days to visit Uncle John and Thierry; it was supposed to be three days but was shortened by Dad’s inability to move due to a dodgy back.

And the highlight for me, at least through family connections (Uncle Brian is a retired forest ranger), Charlie & his mum and Miles and me ventured out in an old Land Rover on New Year’s Day evening after dark to feed the deer in Richmond Park. It’s not something the public gets to see, and was something I’ll never forget, driving the park in the pitch dark while Brian threw feed out to the deer as the clustered round us, waiting for their winter supplement.

Here’s a screenshot from the video that night:

Overall, Miles especially enjoyed being with his cousin Charlie, here they are in Hyde Park: