Live Chess Mini Stories 3 - Nice to meet you!

In 2020, we can share the love of the game... over the Internet. Meeting friends and playing OTB is so much harder. And the wave of interest in the game is honestly bigger than anything I could imagine. Like twice as bigger as we could have imagined just one year ago (and only if we had a good imagination). This is a great thing but also so hard to handle for the Chess.com team on many levels. And the team is already missing a yearly meetup which we have been organizing since 2012. Let's hope we can meet face to face in 2021! It is always an inspiration and a pleasure to meet you guys!

Chess.com Meetup Florida 2016

About 20 years ago (back in 2000/2001) I was happy to meet amazing people who really inspired me with their love to the game of chess. From strong chess machines to causal players, each of them showed me a part of their chess world and each had a different story. First, we became friends with two authors of other chess sites (each of them handling their site on their own and with big passion! - cheers Sławek and Wiesiek!) and we decided to meet, so we found a date and I took a train! It was so great to spend a few days and meet in person and it was one of the first times I actually met people who I had met only over the Internet before (these days, I guess it is 1000 times more common!).

Later, we invited more and more people who played on 64pola and we organized several meetups in different parts of Poland. It was awesome to hear their stories about how they enjoy online chess and interaction with each other. So it was not only me meeting them, but they also enjoying seeing their online opponents face to face and play an over-the-board game or mini tournament during meetup! Or even enjoy a campfire with crazy delicious wild boar organized by my friend Dlugi!

Thank you so much, friends! I really miss those good old days!

There are two pictures here which are a bit different . One is from Akiba Rubinstein Memorial in 2001, where I dared to play (the only tournament outside my home city I have ever played until now). So enjoyable! 

The other is from World Blitz Chess Cup in Warsaw (2000) where I didn't play (I couldn't even imagine it that day!), but I got an autograph from the one and only Vishy Anand (who won the tournament). My friend, who was 2000+ participated only to play Vishy in the 1st round, but (alas) the friend's rating was a little too high so he had to play with someone from the end of the rating list. A Swiss tournament with almost 400 players and many stars like Anatoly Karpov which was so great to see in blitz action!

/To be continued/

PREVIOUS PART: Live Chess Mini Stories 2 - Arrakis - https://www.chess.com/blog/piotr/live-chess-mini-stories-2-arrakis