Many greetings from the winter lands of Romania! I am struggling to send you
all the photos I've made so far, but the Internet connection is very slow or
sometimes completely gone, for reasons that are obvious: the weather is simply
incredible in Romania right now, and is creating a lot of problems and headaches.
It was even worse before, when the roads were blocked, but it seems that the
bad times are not over yet. I cannot believe that, after a very warm December
and a sunny January, we have such an awful February – payback time from
the cold season I guess.
All of this is the reason why the National Championship of Romania was postponed
for 48 hours: we couldn't have made it to Sarata Monteoru, the place we are
at right now. Romania was and still is under heavy snows, with deep sub zero
temperatures – think about Siberia and you are coming close. When will
the winter's wrath end I wonder?!
On our way to Sarata Monteoru; in the foreground Irina Bulmaga and Smaranda
Padurariu
Many thanks to our bus driver, who safely brought us to the final destination!
You cannot imagine the amount of snow we saw on the roads, European ones!
Our chess club chose to stay in the Villa
Olga, run by the tournament organizer Mihai Posedaru, who is trying extremely
hard to make us all happy. Unfortunately, he is not able to stop the snowy clouds
nor to ask winter to simply go away. We are a bit far from the tournament hall
– around two kilometres through snow and uphill. Why go to North Pole,
when the North Pole has come to us?
The winter landscape in Sarata Monteoru, which is incredibly beautiful
A little private house covered with more snow than I can remember here in
Romania
But, as you can see, nothing stops us from having our national championship.
There are some technical issues, such as: how to get to the playing hall through
the snow drifts. Well, we are Romanians, survivors, we will always find a way.
You will see in the pictures how. Which is all quite funny to be honest. I felt
like a child again, and I know that many players were eager to try it at least
once. So we combined necessity with pleasure and safely arrived on time for
the games.
Making your way through the snow-covered landscape
You have to watch out for traffic on the narrow roads to the event
If you are lucky – like the girls from our club – you can hitch
a ride...
... to the tournament hall, which is of course itself covered with snow.
We are playing in separate sections, men and women – an open tournament
with nine rounds for women and eleven for men. Although there are only 27 participants
in our women section, all the strongest players are present, fighting for the
top spots. The same goes for the men section, where there are 123 players participating.
Only Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu is missing – he chose to play in the Aeroflot.
The rate of play is 90 minutes for 40 moves and 15 minutes for the rest, with
an increment of 30 seconds per move starting with move one. It's quite a fast
tempo, so there are many interesting games to watch, with many ending in time
troubles.
The playing hall for the women's section
That's me on the left, playing against Otilia Baciu in round two
Mother against daughter: the game Cristina vs Veronica Foisor ended in a
draw
Another family encounter: Irina Bulmaga playing against her sister Elena
WCM Roxana-Ana Anton, rated 1859
WIM Ioana-Smaranda Padurariu, rated 2247
WCM Ioana Gelip, rated 2025
Top seed WGM Corina-Isabela Peptan, rated 2425
Second seed: WGM Cristina-Adela Foisor, rated 2395
Me, WGM, rated 2360 and third seed
In second place: WGM Elena-Luminita Cosma, rated 2325
WCM Andreea-Marioara Cosman, rated 1885, my opponent from the first
round. She is young
and talented –I had to work very hard and needed some luck to get the
full point from her.
Dinner time for our chess club! Many children came to the Championship to
gain experience
(Mămăligă,
our bread replacement, made from corn flour. It is one of the things I miss
when I'm abroad
The playing hall for the top boards; you can see some bags on the floor
– they
contain gifts from the organization, and are highly appreciated!
Mircea Parligras and Constantin Lupulescu, the two players above 2600, were
a little
bit late for the start of the round. But that can be explained: it was 09.30
in the morning.
GM Levente Vajda, rated 2594, currently in second place
GM Gergely-Andras-Gyula Szabo, rated 2554
Second seed GM Constantin Lupulescu, rated 2648
Top seed GM Mircea Parligras, rated 2650
Open Tournament – Top rankings after round seven
Women's tournament – Top rankings after round five
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