A post-mortem of a Chess Festival organized in just 15 days

How a chess tournament was organized in just fifteen days

The pros and cons and the kick of taking challenges head on

On the 3rd of July, while I was all set to pack up and finish the remaining work before I head home from Batumi, Georgia, a session was arranged by the ChessBase India team led by Niklesh Jain where he described the intricacies of organizing a chess tournament. As someone who has seen the game very closely but has never played a game of chess at the professional stage, this could have been just another session to learn something and move on. But, it was not.

During the session, as I was learning about the ideas of being an organizer, a strange thought just ran across my head. Why haven’t I organized a chess tournament yet? And the thought just stayed for a while as the session ended and I went back to finish my remaining tasks before I could head to the airport.

Cut to the next day, the 4th of July, I was just taking some rest at home and watching one of the ChessBase India streams, when some asked why don’t you organize something in Hyderabad as Sagar was speaking about the 1st Phoenix Marketcity Rapid Rating Open on International Chess Day.

To which Sagar replied, we will definitely have something in Hyderabad as Aditya is there and that is when it struck again. Why don’t I organize something for the players in Hyderabad? 

And just then the flow of uncertainties and doubts kicked in.Where will I get the money to organize a chess tournament? Where will I organize? Who would come to play? I don’t know many people here as I don’t stay much. What if it doesn’t work and I will turn into a joke? I have never even played a tournament, what do you know about organizing and much more.

It felt like I have been thrown in a judgemental cage and being asked these questions all around. I was unable to think and some of these questions seemed genuine and concerning. I thought of contacting two people who came to my mind. First was Lokesh Natoo who was in Hyderabad at that time and wanted to discuss the idea but he said he won’t be here for that week.

And then an arbiter who had helped us previously in our other tournaments:

Both these responses were good enough for me to drop the idea and move on with the other things that I had planned. It seemed that as I decided to take the first step, I pushed backwards and the energy was too much to fight. In a few days, I had planned a short trip with my wife to Gokarna and I thought it is better to focus and plan for that rather than taking the pain of going through the process of organizing a chess tournament. I decided to retire for the night.

The next morning, the 5th of July, I woke up fresh and started my morning yoga and meditation. 

I was in a calm state and couldn’t hear any more voices judging and questioning me, it seemed they came to do a job and they were gone, and then from somewhere I remembered Rishpal Singh whom I had met at one of the tournaments in Hyderabad and his passion for chess was something I recalled. After finishing all the morning chores as I came to my work station,, I decided to message him and what started from there was beyond what I could have ever imagined. 

Just a quick call after this message and we were already making progress. The confidence in Rishpal’s voice was everything I needed at that point of time. I sort of surrendered myself to him and explained that as I do not know much about the chess scene in Hyderabad, I would need all the help I can and the things that followed was nothing short of magic. The idea was to organize a chess tournament on the International world chess day that is on the 20th of July. 

A few hours after our conversation, we released our first flier. The idea was to spread the initial awareness for the players and the sponsors. 

And thus the very first step was taken successfully and there was no looking back. The next and the most important step was to find a venue. There are many factors we had to consider to find an ideal venue. The most important factor for us was the budget as we had no seed fund so getting a venue at the most affordable rate would be the best. I would have been happy if even fifty players came to play the tournament, but Rishpal was optimistic that two-hundred players can turn up if we organize a good tournament and thus this rough budget was set by Rishpal.

After seeing the total amount, my heart almost skipped a couple of beats as I had no idea of how to even get close to that amount to spend. Then I had to explain that even though we want to, we can’t afford to raise that much money. We want to keep the entry fees less so that more players can come and enjoy the game and seek the help of organizations who would come on board and help us build a chess ecosystem in Hyderabad by being a constant supporter and not just hosting a one-time tournament. 

8th July, 2024. Though we were making some progress, the day of the event was coming closer and each passing day was very precious to us. Just twelve days to go and we still don’t have a venue yet. We were discussing the possibilities of organizing the tournaments in some schools, educational institutions or any other places that can accommodate the players, but nothing was striking and just then I remembered Ali from Sarath City Capital Mall whom I had met earlier and we had done an event together at the mall.

Though the event was much smaller compared to what we were planning, I wasted no time and immediately contacted him. He was keen on the idea but wanted to discuss with his managers and so we arranged a meeting in the evening.

I reached Sarath City Mall and as I was waiting to meet the Asim Mumtaz (Marketing Head), I was going back to the phase of my life when I used to meet my clients. A little anxious but a lot hopeful. The meeting went smoothly until I was asked how much space do I want? And suddenly I had no answer. In all the planning and preparation I went through, how did I miss this basic question. So I tried to give a lame answer which was obviously not very convincing and I was kicking myself for not knowing about it. Asim asked me to let me know of the required area and then they will let me know of the decision. 

Once I came out of the mall, I was still lost in the thoughts to understand how much space do we actually need and so I spoke to Vidhi and Himank from ChessBase India who had attended the Phoenix market city sessions in Mumbai but even they did not have any idea. So we came to a logical conclusion and shared the dimensions with the mall. 

09th July, 2024. I was in a session when suddenly I saw Ali calling. I knew I had messed up a bit but I was hopeful that something positive was going to happen and it did. We got the confirmation of the place and our most important task of finalizing the venue was completed. I took a small moment to enjoy it but there were a whole lot of tasks remaining to be completed. 

10th July, 2024. When we were finalizing the prizes, Rishpal came forward and mentioned that he would contribute the medals for the winners from Deccan Chess Academy and that was one of the first of many collaborations that we would receive. It felt that everything was flowing in order and as more people showed interest in joining us.Soon, we had CircleChess on board who agreed to take care of all the participation and registration. The very same day we welcomed Zero40 Brewing and Life Purified who joined us and agreed to pay a sum of Rs.5,000 every month for chess. This was one of the biggest moments for us as this was the first fund we had in our account and this was a huge boost of confidence.

11th July, 2024. We reached Gokarna and were greeted with the fresh breeze of monsoon. Though I was physically there, mentally a lot of things were going on and I tried to find a balance.

12th July, 2024. It was my wife, Mona’s birthday and though we planned and enjoyed it well, I faced the biggest set back when I came to know about the pricing of the tables and chairs that we have to use in the mall just for 100 players. 

When we were making the budget, none of us could have thinked of such an amount and we already could understand that this was the only offer that we could take.Getting our vendors inside the mall with all the permissions will be a huge thing to deal with. Though we could have got the same things at half the price, we had to go with this. We started to reach out to more people who will be winning to help in any way possible. Naveen from SLAN came forward and showed his interest in joining us. SLAN is actively doing so much with chess and we had a long conversation of the things we can. They agreed to pay an amount of Rs.10,000 per quarter.

Naveen also spoke to some of his colleagues about the tournament and that is how Mera Hoardings became a part of the event. Sai from Mera Hoardings made sure that our tournament is widely promoted and we were actually blown away when we saw our brochures being displayed in shopping malls and grocery stores.

15th July, 2024. We were trying to reach out to more people as just five days were remaining and we were not even close to halfway of our budget. We were going through our expense sheet as to where we can save some money and then we got a great news that Hyderabad Chess Centre is willing to donate 50 chess sets and clocks. This was indeed huge as we can save a lot of money there.

On the same day, even Ramu Kandi from Chess Mavericks confirmed that they are willing to pay a sum of Rs. 5,000 for the event and the next day, CRG Chess Academy and Maestro Chess Academy also joined, contributing Rs 5.000 each for the event.

17th July, 2024. It seemed that these contributions came in at exactly the right time and we were looking set for the tournament. We opened the registrations and boy what a response we got. We had to close the registrations within a few hours. I was definitely not ready for this and I was happy to know that we are doing something right.

Meanwhile Satanick Mukhuty, our problemist and chess puzzle expert, had sent me the questions for the puzzles and I was really happy to see them. Himank Ghosh helped me in finalizing the question papers as we jumbled the puzzles and gave the paper a professional look. 

18th July, 2024. We almost finalized everything and started focusing on the last minute details like, designing and printing ID cards, certificates for volunteers and winners and a lot more. We decided to make the tournament a paperless one so no results were printed and everyone just saw their pairings on their phones or chief arbiters desk. 

There was a huge confusion about the backdrop as we were once told that we can be getting an LED backdrop but we forgot to follow up on it and we had to arrange for a banner at the very last moment. Thanks to Rishpal who did all the groundwork and managed to get the vendor to make the backdrop at the very last time. And after multiple changes, this was our final design for the backdrop. 

19th July, 2024. Just a few hours to go for the event and as we were going through the last minute preps, I received a call from Ali and I understood that something was not right. And so it was. Where are the queue managers? Ali asked. I felt a little numb for some time and had to quickly gather my senses to understand that we would need queue managers to control the crowd to avoid disturbing the players and the event. Not even a single time in all these days I thought of it and it was just the night before the event that we had to get them arranged. I asked Ali for helping us as we were unable to arrange them in such a short notice but that came at a cost which made all our calculations go out of the table.

We ended up paying more than arbiter fees for queue managers. We paid Rs. 8,000.

While I made the payment for the tables and chairs previously going way outside our budget, I had a thought in my head if it was even worth it and I tried to make some calls but nothing worked out putting us in a corner. This was certainly another huge blow but without discussing this with Rishpal I took the decision of going ahead without spending time to deal with it anymore. I told myself that I will own up to all the losses but I will make this event happen.

In the evening, I and Rishpal decided to go to the mall to see if everything is ready and that is when we saw the mall area getting slowly converted in our tournament hall. To be honest, this was the first moment that we could see anything happen physically and that was a great feeling. It felt we are giving shape to a dream. 

It was already 12am and we were waiting for the backdrop to arrive which was supposed to come by 10pm. Finally it arrived at around 1:30pm and that for the first time really felt like we made it. From your design board to reality which thousands of real people with get to see tomorrow.

We reached home quite late and it was time for a quick sleep and wake up for THE DAY. The next morning when I woke up, I made the accounts and felt a little bad that we felt way short. My parents came forward and contributed Rs, 10,000 so that the event could go smoothly as they believed that I was doing something important.. Mona, my wife, made sure that all the question papers of the puzzles were properly arranged and also helped me with sorting and arranging the prizes. She gave me the courage to take the loss and move on and have a fantastic event.

I wanted to keep everything crystal clear so that anyone can access this document where the money was used and what challenges they can face as an organizer. So here is break down of all the income and the expenses we incurred in the tournament. 

When I reached there, the players had already started to arrive. We had some time before our first event. The puzzle solving competition was about to start when we got to know that the chess boards hadn't arrived yet. The first thing we wanted to maintain at our tournaments was time and it seemed we were left with no choice but to wait for the chess sets and without them I couldn’t have allowed the competition to start. Thankfully we received them soon and the volunteers and arbiters were quick enough to set them up and the competition was started.

During our initial conversation, I was thinking that even if fifty players come to play I would be happy and cut to this day, we see so many players have come up just to be a part of the event who couldn’t register. I was feeling sad for them but it gave me the hope that no matter what I will conduct many more tournaments in Hyderabad just to keep the spirits high. 

And the puzzle competition ended smoothly and it was time to start the blitz tournament. I was amazed to see how Rishpal coordinated with everyone and we kicked off the blitz tournament before we expected after the delay. It took us only a few rounds to make up for the delay and we almost finished all the rounds and prize distribution in time. 

While the rounds were going on and I was looking at everyone around me, for a moment I realized that all this that I am witnessing here was just one step behind the first step which was filled with doubts and questions. Fifteen days ago, I couldn’t believe that moment existed in the future and I will have a part to play. Maybe that’s how the universe works, it makes us take the difficult first steps and guides us and makes us stronger by throwing various challenges and that’s what makes life beautiful. Isn't it?

One of the biggest finds of the tournament was Pavan who agreed to join in as a volunteer. Pavan traveled almost halfway across the city to play an important part in the event. And it was also nice to have Lokesh Natoo who also was a part of the event.

And within a few hours before we could know, the tournament was over and a winner was crowned. I wonder what I could have done without all these people coming together? I don’t know and I believe that there is no point in knowing that. It’s time to move forward to the next event.

If you have reached this far, thank you and if you want to ask me if it was worth it, I would say that this is the most liberating thing I have ever done and will look forward to doing many more. I hope these tournaments inspire many more players to take up chess and give a platform for the players to play and be better, the organizers and the sponsors to come together and create many more such events. 

Yes, we made some losses and earning profit from these tournaments was never the idea. We wanted to break even and in case we had some extra money, we thought of giving some cash prizes to the players. But, there was so much to learn and we can only look forward. 

On the brighter side, there were so many moments which are worth more than any sum of money that the setbacks and the challenges look so minuscule in front of them.

I want to end the article by saying that sometimes the voices in your head can stop you from doing wonders. You will never know what lies beyond, It's all about taking the first step. 

This article was edited by Himank Ghosh

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