The 1st GingerGM Party!!!!
The 18th of November was a special day for GingerGM, after years of saving and building up our business, we decided to spend all of our hard earned profits on a party. In the words of one of England's finest footballers, George Best, " I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered."
Luckily, I manged to gain some generous sponsorship from a company which is supporting chess in the UK.
How did this party come about? I think everyone has to give something back to those who have helped them. GingerGM has come along over the years from the support of numerous people. It was our aim to invite these people to a party to show out appreciation for them.
First thing to do - Find a venue... What could be better then an actual Crypt in central London?
(more on the monkey later...)
We wanted the party to be the craziest ever chess party, and this venue was perfect! What was the next step? Well to get the craziest DJ that we could find of course. Enter 'Psychessdelia'...
Psychessdelia was a legend of a DJ! Everyone had some made fun pushing his buttons....
Some invited guest who have supported GingerGM through YouTube and my twitch channel included:
Morten Helgesen, Oddbjorn Sjogren, 'Blazeroe' and Stefan Girstmair. Having never met most of these people before, can I just say that they were all amazing and they were the people who made the party.
The party bridged all elo ranges, titles, ages and race. After all is what is all about, is it not!? It really didn't matter how strong the players were, it was all about having fun.
One person recalled his conversation with the DJ (edited somewhat). "Psychessadelia also spent 10 minutes convincing me that I (and the other bottom players) were the most important chess players in the world. The bottom players are apparently what keeps the chess community together. "YOU ARE SO IMPORTANT MAN!!! SO IMPORTANT".
As you can see from the next video, not all attendees were Grandmaster strength....
They were soo many people that I should mention in this report, so I am sorry if I leave some people out. But two VIP guests who came all the way form Denmark were the OutRay chess guys. Now these dudes, in my opinion, make some of the best chess videos in the world. For example this next video is mind blowing.
The party went on late and it was some party. 
There was also a fancy dress price, just to add that other dimension to the event. After all, the madder the better. The winner by a monkeys arm was David Spence.
WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
One of the most surreal moments of the whole day came when World Championship Semi-Finalist Jon Speelman faced off against a man in cage, being held by a monkey. Or in the words of Speelman. "The venue is certainly something different, the organised chaos was exactly the joy I expected and playing a member of the constabulary in a gorilla costume (which I trust did won the fancy dress prize) was a new experience for me after all these years of playing chess."
This next video shows the moment were they face off against each other... (sorry about the low quality, it was filmed on my phone)
You can find more pictures from the event on the GingerGM facebook page, by clicking here. Also one of the most amazing chess photographers around, Lennart Ootes, took some amazing shots. See here.
Such amazing characters made this event all worth while.
Hopefully we will run a similar event next year. It is invite only, but if you're nice, who knows maybe you can join in the fun!
Oh, we should mention who won!
1st - David Howell - £1000
2nd - Jon Speelman - £500
3rd - Ingvar Johannesson - £250
4th - Lawrence Trent - £250
Fancy Dress Price - David Spence - £250 (also David just had a kid, congratulations!)
