A few weeks ago a dear friend asked me: "So, what are you up to, Alina?" I am a fast speaker, and my tongue is usally stuck trying to keep up with my thoughts, especially when I am enthusiastic about something. Unsurprisingly, she “misunderstood” my answer "Isle of Man!", which came out a bit like 'I love men'
"OK," she said. "I love men, too, but where are you going next?"

The Isle of Man is a self-governing British Crown dependency
located in the Irish Sea between Great Britain and Ireland

I find this amusing confusion quite illustrative for the series of paradoxical contrasts I faced during my delightful ten days on this small island. Soon after landing, I wondered whether I had taken the right flight: I was prepared for northern landscapes, but the vegetation looked rather typical of the tropics! Had I managed to trick autumn again?

Douglas when it doesn't rain. For this shot I had to work quite a bit..almost did some trespassing
but the fences were too high...then I found a new spot, difficult to explain what that was but the
view was blocked by something similar to prison bars.

Not really, since the sunshine was anything but tropical and the weather was so fickle that around the middle of the tournament many players got sick because of its whims... On the other hand, perhaps the players' colds were contagious, spreading from one to another with the same speed as their good spirits did! And if the two things came as part of the same package, the share of coughing and sneezing was a small price to pay for the broad smiles accompanying them.

Merry Alan B (with his mother), the tournament sensation, happy to receive both IM and GM norms!

A sample game illustrating his original play:

The Israeli table in the closing ceremony; you can recognize the extremely dynamic player
Alon Greenfeld as well; he defeated me twice and in the same line, but we had great fun
in playing interesting games.

If I didn't know Elisabeth personally, I would say she is "cheating" by
wearing some coloured lenses to get such incredible eyes, but they are
as real and amazing as her personality.

Well-played by David Howell too and, although he lost the last round,
it was still a great tournament

Michael Adams was the top seed but had to content himself with sixth

Fiona Steil Antoni always working hard to promote the tournament

The air was so fresh and the sun's smile so unique, that I just couldn't resist and I had to enter my restless mode again, trying to immortalize the fascinating colours of the nature. Had I been a painter, Douglas would have been the perfect place to complete my artistic studies!

My camera didn't really like this, especially when I got over-ambitious in trying to immortalize
what it was in my head, a good photo opportunity... (Ed: A true photographer)

However, my continuous hunt for the sun's smile was quite often rewarded with a broad grin. In weather translation: cold showers would start out of the blue or huge waves would leap at you with a wet embrace, in case you dared to venture along the promenade. My shoes once got so wet during my artistic attempts in the photographic field that I found no remedy other than to dry them on the electric heater in my room. The problem was that I overdid it a bit and I'll have to buy some replacements soon...

The Isle of Man flag and the name of the island in the old language

Even though the sun and the vegetation proved a bit misleading, I found some other form of genuine warmth - that of the local people's soul. All my questions to passers-by were answered not only promptly and hyper-informatively, but also with an enthusiasm I didn't expect to meet at such high latitudes.

In the electric train where I met...

...the man who told me all kinds of interesting things about Isle of Man
and as a coincidence, he was staying in the same guest house I was

I had traveled to the Isle of Man prepared for dedicating myself to what we call in Romania "tearing the cat by its tail", meaning to spend the days in laziness. I planned to switch off my mobile phone, all the social media channels and surround myself by the supposed peace of the place in order to focus exclusively on the tournament. I found out that there was an organic defect of this plan, as the island is famous for its six-horned sheep and, more importantly... tail-less Manx cats! True, I never saw a single one though I carefully checked the dozens of cats crossing my way, but they all had quite impressive tails.

I told you that the Manx people are a happy bunch

The pub culture is of course vibrant, just as in England and Ireland,
where I have been so far. As you can see, my fascination with doors
and windows is very much alive.

Tradition with a modern twist - what are the spring onion and cucumber doing there?!

Even if we leave the area of symbols and step into the real territory, there is more excitement on the island than one might expect. The Isle of Man hosts the most dangerous motorcycle race in the world, starting from the Snaefell mountain and forcing the participants to risk their lives at breathtaking speed on the tight curves downhill. Since the first edition of the circuit, back in 1907, the race has claimed more than 200 victims... yet in spite of this the craziness on two wheels continues extremely popular.

The steam locomotive

Chess is less lethal (at least in a direct way), but being sponsored by the PokerStars, the 2014 tournament featured as much excitement as a poker contest. Speaking of the Casino, many players visited it regularly in the evenings and during the chess rounds, you could almost read on the faces of those who were painfully defrauded in their attempts to hit the big pot.

To be continued in part two...

Final standings

Click for complete standings

Pictures by Alina L'Ami

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN The games are being broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.