13th Open International de l'île de la Réunion
This event is being held at Saint Denis, Réunion, from October 1-8.
Players have flown down from as far as mainland France to participate in the
chess holiday by the seaside. Here are some initial impressions from this romantic
island.
The tournament, jointly organised by L'Echiquier du Nord and Ligue Réunion
Echecs, has attracted a field quite disproportionate to the very decent 7,300
Euro prize fund – only four titled players in the fray. One reason for
this could be a lack of funds as evidenced by the conspicuous absence of sponsors’
banners. The time control for the games is 1 hour 30 min per player with a 30
second increment from move 1. There will be nine rounds with a rest day on October
4.
Réunion, or Reunion Island, as Anglophiles know it, is a chunk of France
floating between Madagascar and Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. Governed by France
while sandwiched between the two vastly different continents of Africa and Asia,
the islanders display a charmingly mixed sensibility and typical tropical friendliness.
Where on earth is Réunion? The above map from Wikipedia gives us
an impression
View
larger map
The population is under a million (a difficult concept to grasp for someone
living in Mumbai) and includes Europeans, Africans, Indians and Chinese. The
most widely spoken languages here are French and Réunion Creole, a close
relative that has evolved under the other ethnic influences on the island.
Réunion has two towering volcanoes, one of them active, three cirques,
massive natural ramparts and a national park – all of which were left
largely to themselves until UNESCO named it a World Heritage Site last year,
throwing the gates open to tourism. While the average Réunionese are
not as gregarious and tourist savvy as natives of more famous neighbors like
Mauritius and the Seychelles, they are extremely warm and have the most impressive
range of desserts.
The journey from India included a brief halt in Mauritius. A tour guide
advised a quick visit
to Blue Bay where one can see schools of fish in a coral reef through a glass
bottomed boat.
Some fish swim daringly close
Bougainvillea is the dominant flower in both Mauritius and Réunion.
Most driveways are a riot of pink, orange and yellow. This house has a traditional
thatched roof that looked cosily like fur.
Foreign players were enthusiastically received at the airport – that's
organiser Daniel
Tching Sin holding the placard, accompanied by Bernard Dujardin from France
Players greeted by members of the organising committee: International Arbiter
Stefane Escafre, Echequier du Nord president Jean Olivier, Johan Devos from
Belgium, Francois Xavier Duprey from France, Fide Master Akshat Khamparia from
India, Ishmael Bah from France
A banner promoting the chess tournament
View of the ocean from the tournament hall
The opening ceremony was short and informal, with many of the young participants
looking eager to get on with business
I was given the tricky task of addressing a largely French speaking audience
The tournament favourite Akshat Khamparia being interviewed by a local journalist
French Fide Master Emmanuel Reinhart with Osmin Renaux
R.S. Chetty, his wife Nicole and L’ACRI president Mrs Colette
Members of L'association Culturelle Reunion Inde. Their ancestors were brought
from India a century ago as contract labourers but were treated little better
than slaves. Today, these people proudly call themselves Réunionese and
have formed an association to rediscover their cultural roots by inviting Indian
artists and intrepid reporters such as yours truly to visit their adoptive land.
Kids fool round on a giant chessboard in the lawn
The mascot for this event is the dodo, a highly lovable and sadly extinct bird
from
this region. Remember the saying, “as dead as a dodo…?”
A dodo’s eye view of the playing hall
A closer look at players in action
This young man, Loan Le Maguet, was the darling of the media – for
obvious reasons
Labour of love: this patient lady knits under a miniature palm while
her husband Kurt Meier sweats it out over a chessboard nearby
Younger players unwinding between two rounds with a game of football
More football outside the playing hall
The board game battles continue with Mahjong, an immensely strategy game
complicated involving 136 tiles (and we thought 32 pieces were tough to handle!)
Patrick Vitry (left) introduces young Denis Valentin to the nuances
The domino like tiles are inscribed with various Chinese characters and
symbols
And that’s why we should stick to chess! Philippe Lecaille with outfoxed
Yohan Lebon
About the author
Kruttika Nadig is a Woman Grandmaster from Maharashtra, India. She has won
three Indian national championships, the last one being the National Women Premier
in 2008. She received her WGM title in the same year and also made two IM norms.
In 2009 she won the Asian Women Zonal, which qualified her for the World Women
Championship in Turkey in December 2010. Kruttika took a break from chess in
2009 to study journalism and started working with Economic Times, a leading
business newspaper in India. She left her job (surprise!) this month and will
now be working as a freelance journalist and semi-professional chess player.
She like to read, write, travel and aims to try all the adventure sports in
the world at least once. She divides her time between Mumbai and Pune, where
the family has a house in the hills, with two dogs and a cat. We welcome Kruttika
to the staff our our permanent contributors.
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