The Chess Train

by Brian McLaren

No, it's not a metaphor... there actually is a chess train. For the 4th year in a row, a train full of chessplayers departed from Prague, Czech Republic and went on a small tour of Eastern Europe. To make it interesting for repeat visitors, the destinations change each year. This year the stops were Vienna (Austria), Budapest (Hungary), Trencin (Slovakia) and Krakow (Poland). While in transit between cities, a fast time control (20 minutes with 10 seconds per move added) tournament is played. The trip began with an opening ceremony in the Government Room at the main Prague train station (Praha Hlavni Nadrazi). This room is a spectacular throwback to earlier times with its frescoed walls.

The opening ceremony – the players getting their game faces on

The newly-painted chess engine

The train this year consisted of a specially painted engine, five playing cars, one arbiters' car, two dining cars, a spouses' and non-playing riders' car and a luggage car. Each car was named after a world champion. Boards one to ten and eleven to twenty were each played in a car with a long table while the lower boards (the tournament is limited to 100 people so there are a maximum of five playing cars) are set up in individual booths. It provided an opportunity to go and hide after a loss (I took advantage of that).

Boards 1 - 10

The lower boards

The event is organized each year by the very congenial Pavel Matocha and the Prague Chess Society. He was very helpful with accommodation and transportation. At each stop the players need to arrange their own transportation between their hotel and the train station. The organizers provided a choice of 3, 4 or 5 star hotels that could be pre-booked if you didn't want to make your own arrangements. Each city had its own nuances (eg. Budapest – the taxis in front of the station are very expensive and watch out for pickpockets in the transit stations). For further information on past and future Chess Trains, check out http://praguechess.cz.

This year's train had 76 entrants, four of which were grandmasters, including the affable Australian Ian Rogers and the legendary (yet a little curmudgeonly) Czech Vlastimil Hort. In addition to the many players from the Czech Republic there were entrants from all over Europe as well as Israel, Saudi Arabia and North America. The dining car served a nice lunch each day and offered wine, beer, coffee, tea and water throughout the day. Spouses could sip wine, take in the sights and prepare commiserations or attaboys as needed.

One of the dining cars

A sample of the beautiful scenery (if you looked up from the board)

Waiting for the train with GM Rogers (he suffered his first loss right after this photo)

We quickly learned the protocols of traveling on a train with narrow passageways. You have to know when to hug the wall and went to duck into a booth. The head arbiter was the biggest person on the train (there were no disputes). If he was going for a walk, you had to find the nearest booth.

Hard at work in the Arbiters' car

The tournament was won on tiebreaks by GM Rogers over GM Petr. After the train arrived back in Prague, there was a prize ceremony in the Government Room. The prizes included, in addition to the usual chess books and chess magazine subscriptions, an eclectic collection of merchandise including: an espresso machine (claimed by a grandmaster), a tennis racquet and a curling iron (I just missed it).

The prize table

Left to right: Hort, Matocha, Rogers, Petr (deciding who gets the curling iron)

One thing that was disappointing for me was the amount of time we had in some cities (we arrived in Krakow after 6:00). Not being used to train travel in Europe, I envisioned having the afternoon and evening to go sightseeing at each stop. Unfortunately, we didn't arrive in a few places until late afternoon. From the sightseeing we did manage, a few places were noteworthy. Budapest is a real chess town (several ex-BC chessplayers now live there) and is definitely worth another visit. On the other hand Vienna was quite boring (although it is difficult to determine on such a short visit – we did witness a small riot in progress). Going from Prague to Vienna was like going from Las Vegas to Salt Lake City.

Before the train departed, we spent four days in Prague (birthplace of Steinitz) and loved it. Accommodation in Eastern Europe is very inexpensive. I highly recommend the website http://airbnb.ca if you are looking for interesting accomodation. After the train trip we stayed in a 17th century farmhouse in northern Italy for a few weeks.

The famous “Dancing House” in Prague – designed by a Canadian

The train trip lasted five days and was nice to incorporate into a longer trip. It was an opportunity to meet chessplayers from other parts of the world.