Many years ago, I played chess as a schoolboy. Not all that brilliantly, but good enough for the school team which played in various competitions. This fell by the wayside when I went to university, and I'd never had the time or energy to re-start though kept on playing against my uncle when we met. A couple of years ago during covid lockdowns I started playing on-line on chess.com, and then more recently someone started a chess club in Settle where a small bunch of us have been playing fairly informal and quick games. Last weekend was my first proper over-the-board competition, at the very conveniently located Ilkley Chess Festival. I'd naively assumed this would be a local event for local people, but my opponents came from all over, hailing from Portsmouth, Nottingham, Shrewsbury, and even Scarborough. There were also some Scots on the entry list that I didn't meet.
I've blogged the event on the chess.com site (here and here) as that allows for embedding of games. Spoiler alert: after losing the first game, I won the next 4, ending in 4th place. In the “Intermediate” section, which means under-1750 rated. (I don't have a current rating for OTB chess, so had to guess which section to enter. At school I was about 1450.)
Someone was taking pictures, so here is a picture of the main hall:
and here I am, about to win my 3rd game:
