Projector on. Pairings up. I’m doing the usual pre-round fidget with my pen. Board Three clocks it and says, “Breathe, Leo.” I pretend I already was.
Across the room a dad starts in about three Blacks in a row. Same tone you get when someone thinks they’ve caught you out. I walk over before it turns into a crowd.
I keep it simple. Only played games count for colours. If you sat out or got a free point because your opponent didn’t show, that round doesn’t give you a colour. The software tries to avoid three in a row, but first it fixes bigger problems like not pairing you with the same opponent again and keeping you inside your score group. Sometimes the numbers force an ugly run. It isn’t a punishment.
He holds my eye for a second, then lets his shoulders drop. “So it’s normal?”
“It’s normal.”
I offer a swap if both players want it and it doesn’t break anything. They don’t. They just wanted it to make sense.
My game is fine until it isn’t. I rush one decision, then I’m defending a worse endgame and pretending I planned it. We draw. It feels like getting away with something and also like nothing at all.
I nearly miss the bus. The driver waits half a beat longer than he should. Two stops later Board Three gets on with a container that smells like actual dinner. We nod. She taps her wrist where a watch would be. Slow down. I try a tiny pause on each move in my head and it already annoys me. Still going to try it next week.
Home is noisy in the good way. Mum’s on the phone to London, drifting between English and Spanish mid-sentence. Dad’s got the match on with the sound low. He asks how it went without looking away.
“I didn’t lose,” I say.
Mum covers the phone. “Did you eat?”
“I will.”
We eat late. Tortilla, salad, the usual argument about who left the fridge open. Mum pushes the phone at me. “Say hi to Auntie.”
She asks about chess like it’s a creature we’re taming. I tell her I explained a rule and nobody argued after. She says that’s growth. I’ll take it.
I set the position from the middle game on the floor because the table is full of plates. Two ways to play it: the sensible line and the greedy one. I chose greedy at the board. It was bad then and it’s still bad now. Dad stops behind me, folds his arms, doesn’t comment. He knows when silence helps.
Mum asks what the man was angry about.
“Three Blacks in a row.”
“That sounds unfair.”
“It does. It isn’t.”
She nods like she doesn’t love that answer but accepts it. Welcome to tournaments.
I wash up. The kitchen clock clicks loud enough to feel like time trouble. I make tea I don’t need. In my room I write the twenty-second version of the speech for next time: only played games count, byes don’t give colours, the system avoids three in a row unless it can’t, and if it happens it isn’t targeting you. Done.
Position: White to move after …Be6. My e-pawn is itching to go. It shouldn’t. Hold, improve, then push. Simple. I didn’t.
New habit for the clock: move, press, keep eyes on the board for one heartbeat before I write. One. Then write. Then look up. It feels small enough to keep.
I put the board away. I tell myself not to think about it until morning. I probably will anyway.