Day One, Thursday, January 4

This last Thursday was our first day in our new location. The Chess Castle is now in the basement of the Twin City Bridge Center.

I walked in the back door and saw a full room of people playing bridge. I don't know much about the game, but the people looked like they were having fun. I went downstairs where I saw Kevin and the owner of the club, Teri. The space that we are sharing with Scrabble Club 42 is spacious and inviting. Basements don't usually have that feeling, but there was a good vibe that night.

People slowly gathered before the 7:30 start of round one. Many regulars were here. Besides myself and Norm (the tournament director), in came Steve, Dave, Mike, Dennis, Vince, and a few others pictured below in the preceding posts. All told we had ten people for the first round, with an eleventh person joining for the remaining rounds.

As more people walked in, the more excited I felt. I was not sure how many would show up this first day, but eleven is a great number for a Thursday night. (My excitement didn't helped me at the board in my game against Dave. I made a very amateurish mistake about a dozen moves in which kept my dark-squared Bishop trapped behind enemy pawns for most of the game. I felt bad about playing lousy, but I didn't lose any sleep over it either.)

I want to thank everyone who came to help make this first round a good one.