The Bulgarian gambit

Today I played my first-ever chess tournament, in rural Bulgaria of all places. As I reach the Hotel Valentin 2 in the hamlet of Dobrinishte, a flock of sheep swarm past me, and a car drives by leading a trotting horse on a tether. The tournament is happening in the hotel garden - it’s a beautiful sunny day, children with unusually large heads are on the play structure, and the air is somehow thick and hazy with cigarette smoke even though we’re outside. Only one gently smirking man speaks English. I tell him it’s my first tournament and I don’t speak a word of Bulgarian. “Chess is an international language. You will be okay.”

Game 1. We start 51 minutes late. I’m against a bodybuilder with a crew cut and a huge platinum wristwatch at Board 42. My queen looks exactly like my king. Frig! I get convincingly beat but not humiliated. A Sicilian in which I tried the Grand Prix attack, his pesky knight forked my rooks and I was down the exchange by move 20 or so. Later I sacrificed my knight to bust open his king’s defenses, but he forced a queen trade and then the endgame was hopeless. Good job muscle man. 0-1. 

Game 2. I’m playing a 75-year old man named Plaman. He smells like a farm.  We shake hands. He asks me if I’m Jewish, which I of course understand as a one-word Bulgarian question. I say “yup”. He looks down and makes a big theatrical “what can you do” shrug. Then shakes my hand again and we start to play. Hoo boy. Our clock malfunctions three times, then he hangs a knight which I promptly snap up. He flushes, curses in Bulgarian, stomps over to the director and chews him out. There is much shouting on both sides and they both turn bright red. Then Plaman stomps back to the table, resets the board, grumbles some more, and ...we restart? I am too polite to argue. He keeps his knight this time, soon checkmates me, then makes a deep namaste. Sooo… 0-2. 

Game 3. I won!!! I beat a little 11-year old kid!!! I launch an amazing attack, then realise it doesn’t work at all if he just captures my attacking bishop. But he didn’t see it and it was a nice juicy checkmate. 1-2. 

Game 4.  My opponent is a 1500-rated 16-year old. I go for a saucy Portuguese gambit and have him on the defensive all game. But he capably blocks all my attacks and in the end I’m just down a knight in a hopeless endgame. 1-3. 

Lunch. My large plate of steaming cabbage and remarkably tasty rice, followed by a thick slice of baklava, is included in my 20-leva entry fee (~$15 CAD). Win! I sit with the 3 other anglos and we talk about chess. I go for a short walk to stretch my back and almost get run down by a horse and buggy. 

Game 5 is a full-grown Bulgarian man who walks straight into my deadliest trap, the Deutz Gambit. Checkmate in 9 moves, he is close to tears. Most of the other games haven’t even started yet and I’m already doing the victory march. 2-3. 

Game 6 was just a beautiful win by me vs a half-Bulgarian 15-year old from Vermont. I was won my heels from early on, but in a complex midgame with more pins than a bowling alley I tied him up in knots. He fell apart and I’m feeling great. 3-3. 

Game 7 versus a nice guy with a perfectly spherical head and round glasses. It was a stressful, even game all the way through. At the end it was my bishop vs his knight, and unfortunately my endgame skillz vs his. Slowly and inexorably my position deteriorated. I could only watch it happen. 3-4. 

Game 8: the Deutz Gambit strikes again! After 15 moves my opponent's position is busted, but he just won’t give up. My knight, bishop and queen all pile into the attack but the dude is slippery. Somehow I get cornered into a tight endgame. Win it on increment, heart pounding like a jackhammer. 4-4

Game 9: a totally unfamiliar modern opening vs a strong opponent. I play rock-solid, he unaccountably blunders a bishop, and I go into the endgame feeling good. But he has three pawns vs my 1 on the kingside and time runs low. I suck at endgames and end up relieved to draw. Good old Plaman has been observing; he is deeply disgusted with my play and berates me in Bulgarian for all my failings. 4.5-4.5, even steven in my first ever event. Woo hoo...

Hahaha but no!! The director had mis-entered my round 6 result, and marked it as a win for the 15 year old even though I told him I won and he marked it on his little paper! He says it’s too late to change. He’s gotta be kidding, I say. Ten guys start shouting at me in Bulgarian. “Get out! Get out!” a pudgy man hollers. They turn bright red and wave their arms at me. My amygdala goes a bit haywire but it’s only a game after all, so I let it go. There has been so much shouting. The youth national champion, a husky eighteen-year-old, is actually crying. A mother is shouting that her son has been mistreated. My new friend Sebastian comes fourth in his division, but is passed over on the grounds that he "doesn't look like he's from Bulgaria." Never a dull moment.

So I ended up 3.5-5.5, but morally 5.5-3.5. Guess I’ve learned that Bulgarian chess tournaments offer a charming combination of beautiful outdoor venues, tasty lunches, and blatant xenophobic incompetence. Bulgarians don't know about the Deutz Gambit. And I am not terrible at chess! I need to work on my endgames though.

The 'happy first win' face

Lovely venue!

My 8-km walk to Dobrinishte was mostly on a highway, but it was a beautiful morning