Bermuda International Open: Rd. 2

It wasn't quite the same view as yesterday. Unfortunately the weatherman got the rain forecast correct today. However still got to be better then anything that's happening in New York.

There were no upsets in round 1 per se. All the titled players won last night. An unrated Bermudian did put the hurt on his 1800+ rated opponent. I haven't seen all the results from round two yet, so I don't know if there were any upsets. They schedule the rounds at 9:00 am and 3:00 pm. You do the math! No time between rounds if you go the full six hours. I did not.

Larry Ebbin and Donna Reis

Last night they gave all of the out of town players a nice Bermuda canvas tote bag with a few goodies from the Tourism Board. Larry Ebbin, a local player and journalist gave Donna Reis a special bag and gave deep thanks for her generous support of the tournament. I taught Donna's son for many years until he got too strong. Hopefully we have not travelled to Bermuda to play each other again.

Nick De Firminian and Nigel Freeman doing some post mortem of their game from last night.

Carlos Taveres, my second round opponent doing his piece flip.

We had an interesting game that ended out in a draw. While he's playing he sometimes picks up a piece, flips it in the air, catches it and drops it on the destination square. The first time he did it was when he castled. He moved the king normally, picked up the rook, flipped it, caught it in mid air and gracefully set it down on f1. Quite a trick since he manages not to drop the piece before catching it. I had to get a shot of him doing it, but not during the game. So I had him recreate it as we were going over our game afterwards.

Polly does the queen flip.

I asked Carlos to take a picture of me out on the patio. I originally tossed my lens cap, but then decided to try it with a queen instead. I'm not sure I'd ever try to do it during a game. Someone might construe it as showing off. Somehow at a tournament like this, it just fit in. I think it's just part of the local flavor of the tournament. Thanks Carlos for an excellent shot. I may put up the sequence if I can figure out that slideshow thingy.

Time to relax. Round three starts in 35 minutes......Maybe!