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GM Ramirez on the World Youth: Arriving in Maribor




GM Ramirez on the World Youth: Arriving in Maribor |
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By GM Alejandro Ramirez | |
November 10, 2012 | |
World Youth!
A few months ago, I received an invitation to be part of the
US Delegation in the 2012 World Youth Chess Championship as a coach. I was delighted to be part of such a great
team and even more delighted when I learned that this tournament would be held
in Slovenia!
Slovenia is, to me, a very unique country. Its natural beauty is unparalleled, the
people unbelievably friendly (and English speaking!) and from what I've heard
and witnessed and experienced, totally safe.
Maribor is Slovenia's second largest city, despite the fact that not
even 100.000 people live here. Hosting
an event that is so big in a city so small can be risky - after all we players
and coaches and parents number over 2000 people. The first and clearest inconvenience is
travel.
Getting There
Getting there was a unique adventure for everyone. For Americans, flying to Europe is relatively
not bad. (Imagine being from Argentina,
now that's a problem!) The issue with Maribor is that it is so small that the
only airport they have does not have any commercial flights. So unless you parked your private jet in
Frankfurt, you're out of luck on getting a flight in. Most people flew into one of three major
cities that are ‘close' to Maribor: Ljubljana, Slovenia's capital city, Zagreb,
Croatia's capital, and the closest big city which is Graz in Austria. I was visiting
the ChessBase offices in Hamburg, Germany prior to the trip, so I had to figure
out how to get to Maribor.
Since I was
arriving a little bit before the official start of the tournament, I wouldn't
have the ‘ride' the organizers were providing from the major cities. After comparing many itinerary costs I chose
the following:
Flight Hamburg, GER - Berne, SUI
Flight Berne, SUI - Zagreb, CRO
Train Zagreb, CRO - Zidani Most, SLO
Train Zidani Most, SLO - Maribor, SLO
So 12 hours after I left my apartment in Hamburg I arrived
exhausted in Maribor. My experience is
not as bad as others, I heard that the Bulgarian team drove a big bus 48 hours
to get to Maribor, then spent another 5 looking for the hotel once they got
here!
Hotel Habakuk and
Slovenian Scenery
The first few days of my stay here were uneventful. I walked around a bit and was dazzled again
by how beautiful this country is. I had
already been to Bled in 2002 for the Olympiad, and although Maribor is no Bled,
it still is quite pretty. And it's not
that cold! The weather has been stable
around 50 degrees during the day.
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The hotel most of the American delegation is staying is
called ‘Habakuk' and it's
great. Thermal Water pools, excellent food,
spacious rooms, wonderful service, fast internet and it's next to the playing
hall. It's awesome! Some federations were not so lucky. The Colombian federation, for example, is
about one hour away from Maribor on car (that's as far as Graz is!) and it's
quite complicated for them to transport themselves daily. The organizers are providing buses, but it
seems that Maribor is a bit too small to hold all of us. This is normally a Ski tourist hot spot,
since we are not in season it is rather vacant, but apparently not vacant
enough.
Ambassador and
Opening Ceremony/Round
We were privileged to have a private visit by the one and
only Ambassador to Slovenia, his Excellency (yeah I'm a cool guy that writes
inside jokes in his articles) Joseph A. Mussomeli. He informed us we were the largest group of
Americans ever to visit Slovenia (220 people!).
After some encouraging words and a large picture session, our head of
delegation, Mr. Michael Khodarkovsky explained some minor details set in the
technical meeting (including smart ones like no application of the zero
tolerance rule).
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When that was done, it
was straight to business. The pairings
were up before the round and after an opening ceremony that might as well not
have existed, the first round started without any incidents.
Our team did overall quite well in rounds 1 and 2. Some of the highlights included Alara
Balasaygun, u10 girls, taking out the number one ranked player of the
tournament, Russian Aleksandra Maltsevskaya!
Also our 1-2 duo in the u12 boys, Samuel Sevian and Jeffery Xiong
started with a strong 2-0.
The Daily Life
Being a coach here is awesome! But our work is really hard too! Every coach has been assigned seven
individual students. These students meet
one on one with the coach every morning to prepare their game. Additionally, the coaches gather at 4:30 in
the USA Team Room to wait for incoming players.
Once the players finish, they can choose a free coach and analyze the
game they just played. Honestly the experience and lessons from this tournament cannot be
rivaled.
Carrying forth
Many strong rounds await us.
Robert Perez will be facing a GM tomorrow, so wish him luck! You can follow the US team's progress on the
website www.chess-results.com or on
the official website www.wycc2012.com. Or you could wait for my next CLO check-in,
which I hope will be soon and full of good news!
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