Report from Robert McFetridge

On Monday night I was in Victoria and had an opportunity to visit the Victoria Chess Club for their weekly meeting at Silver Threads on Douglas.  I delivered the slightly damaged trophy (missing his penny crown) to Roger Patterson as the winner of the Lighthouse Active in August.  He will be permitted to keep it for some time until we need it for next year.  I declined to play blitz so Roger paired me with 13-year-old Tim from Germany who was there with his 15-year-old brother and his mother Inga.  They are in Victoria until Christmas when their father's sabbatical at the university terminates and they return to Germany.  Tim has been playing for 5 years and has a rating of about 1600.  Needless to say I was no match for him.  After a couple of boring games for Tim he taught me some chess variant games.  Thief chess, where the object is to loose all of your pieces before your opponent does.  I did have an opportunity to play with Victoria's new King's Indian sets from Legend Chess in Portland OR.  These are very heavy plastic pieces with interesting and slightly unusual knights.  They are nice to play with.  I still covet the Alegria sets also from Legend and if I ever go down to Portland I will surely pick one up.  They are more conventional Staunton Style but the knight has prominent ears that may be prone to loss and thus not perhaps so appropriate for tournament and club use.

Tim and mother Inga seated against the wall

Roger Patterson

A good Monday night with about 20 players  (look for the wooden french doors on Douglas)