A riotous affair
Like the irresistible mistress she is, chess found a way to draw me back in, even in these unfamiliar territories.
I’m back in Santiago, and last night Tristan and I visited the Chilean Chess Club for their weekly blitz tournament. It was something of a relief to be surrounded by chess players, I have to admit; while my Spanish has improved remarkably, talking here is a constant effort, and I get frustrated with being unable to really communicate with all the amazing new people I’m meeting.
Enter chess, the universal language for us hopeless romantics of the sixty-four squares. While my Spanish is still far too basic to meaningfully communicate with the locals here on almost any subject, analysing a chess game is a story we can both share, language difficulties aside. It was refreshing to feel a little bit at home for an evening.
Although, not everything was quite like home.
The chess club is located on the third floor of a corner building that overlooks a large square near the major university in Santiago. The square is frequented by students and often used for student protests – and occasionally, it would transpire, major protests by the general populace.
After round one of the blitz, a huge crowd began marching and chanting in the square. Protesting the proposed construction of a hydro-electric plant, it seemed, and peacefully (though certainly passionately) at first.
(I won’t try to pretend I have any real understanding of Chilean politics. However, I’ll mention the apparent irony of a protest against one of the greenest forms of power in electricity-starved Santiago, one of the most polluted cities I’ve ever visited.)
By round two, the organised march had been broken up by a small group of police. By round three, the police had dispatched a riot squad with tanks. Yes, tanks. By round four, water cannons were used to spray the frenzied crowd, which had taken to hiding behind trees and rubbish bins and hurling projectiles at the cops and massive tanks. All the while, the protesters maintained their vengeful chanting. By the penultimate round, rocks started hitting the windows of the chess club, and it became a little hard to focus on the middlegame of my main-line Petroff Defence. Outside, the protesters were losing a very one-sided endgame.
Not your typical Friday night chess tournament.
For the record, I won my six games to take the fourteen dollars (!) first prize, while Tristan played well enough to tie for third in a field featuring a few local FIDE masters. Outside, the solid defences of the authorities easily soaked up the sacrificed artillery of the protesters, before launching a devastating counter attack along the open watercannon files; 0-1.