Amsterdam - from my view

Hello Friends, it has taken me a while to get around to putting this blog post together, but I wanted to reflect on my experience before putting it into writing.

To get my full perspective on the Amsterdam experience, we need to go back in time to the year 2001. I was 24 years old, living in Pensacola, Florida. I was in US Navy flight school, which for those of you who do not know, is a very challenging experience. The training is highly demanding and requires studying on par with any University program. You have to perform at a high level in both the classroom and in the cockpit. It is all in order to earn US Naval Aviator "wings of gold." At that time, my life was 90% flying, and the remaining 10% was divided between dating girls, hanging with buddies from flight school, and ... antichess.

In 2001, 90% of my time was spent on obtaining these wings, 10% on girls, friends and antichess

By that time, I had played antichess for a little more than two years and I had become one of the best speed "suicide" players on FICS. I was still learning theory from some of the great early players like pminear (Peter Minear), biltv, sandstrom, and others who were pioneering the game at that time. Unfortunately, I had committed to essentially only playing speed antichess so I was really not considered a serious player, but I could still win against the best theory players at that time if given the chance.

To my surprise, I was invited to play in the 2001 OTB tournament played in Utrecht, Netherlands. I really wanted to go to the tournament and I tried to figure a way to get out a few days of training, but I was denied all requests to leave town. So, I sat back and heard about the tournament from afar. The top theory player heading into that tournament was "thabit" on FICS. He was around 2450 rated and the top rated human player on FICS. As we all know, noodrem (Tim Remmel) ended up winning, but heading into the tournament he was not well known. In the years that followed, he became the best theory player on FICS and was widely respected within the community. If you would like to read more about the 2001 OTB, please read @cflour 's excellent blog post here cFlour 2001 OTB blog post

Here is a picture from the 2001 OTB tournament:

I always regretted not going to this event

I ended up playing antichess pretty seriously from that point until around 2011 when I got married. I also left the Navy at that time after three deployments overseas. Then in 2021 I received an email from an old friend who I used to play with on FICS. He pointed me to @RTPonting s youtube series documenting the FICS days of antichess. One of the videos profiled my account on fics "tone" among other players and I was genuinely shocked. My friend also told me about lichess and the vibrant antichess community. So, I started to play again and you know the rest ...

Due to other commitments I could not attend Amsterdam 2022 or 2023, but the dates of 2024 were open and my wife encouraged me to go. I really regretted not being able to go in 2001, so this was important for me. I reached out to @theunkownguyreborn and @kex09 about going and they confirmed they would attend. Then so many other great players decided to go such as @neverplayfastanti , @drunkpolo, @bertfighter, @chessdemon989, @mental_suicide and many others.

On the evening of June 20 I boarded an overnight transatlantic flight headed to Amsterdam. At one point in the flight, I looked at the screen that shows current position and we were right in the middle of the Atlantic near Greenland. It was a little surreal, I said to myself "I cannot believe I am doing this to play antichess" with a little laugh to myself.

At the airport I waited a short time for @theunknownguyreborn to arrive. It was great to meet him and we grabbed an uber to the place we were staying and grabbed lunch at an authentic Dutch restaurant.

when in Rome ... (or Amsterdam)

After lunch, Kex arrived and he and TUGR almost immediately played a game on our kitchen table:

That evening I was lucky enough to have a great steak dinner with @theunknownguyreborn, @kex09 and @neverplayfastanti. We had a great time talking, of course about anti and lichess, but also our families, our lives, etc. It was a great evening.

Three of the best antichess players in the World ... and me

Preslav joined us after dinner for more antichess in our kitchen. I am obviously old and was not able to stay up any longer (I barely slept on the flight). However, I did get to see Kex, TUGR and Preslav play a game of anti on the 3D board (see it in the above picture). That was too much. I went to bed excited for the first day of the tournament.

We arrived and almost everyone had reached the venue. It was such a funny experience meeting people and then hearing their lichess handle and immediately "knowing" who they are. Richard and Andre had the tournament very well organized and it was run in a highly professional manner. I know Richard (@zendiscar) is going to publish a blog with some of the games etc. so I will not spend much time on the actual games.

What a great event put on by Richard and Andre (@zendiscar and @BBLGL)

However, that first day there was a strange phenomenon for many of us ... we could not see the board in 3D. We were all so accustomed to the lichess board that it took several games to get some vision.

I had a rough first few games, but ended up having a pretty strong first day. I played three games on board 1 (on the stream) against @alfredduffyer, @bertfighter, and @neverplayfastanti. I ended up winning all of those games, which was very lucky (especially against Preslav).

That evening after the first day of play we ended up having dinner with almost everyone from the tournament. It was another great evening full of lively discussions about antichess and other topics.

Tough to find a better trio of antichess players than these guys

On day 2 the top players really picked it up (well Preslav just maintained his level of winning everything), but TUGR really got going and put himself into contention. Unfortunately, TUGR and Preslav did not get matched on day 2, but both played incredible and ended up 1 and 2.

Kex and @drunkpolo ended up tied for 3rd and they played a playoff game, which was won by @drunkpolo.

On day 2 TUGR got serious and wore "the hat"

The tournament was a tremendous success and I had a great time. Preslav proved clearly that he is the best player in the World going an incredible 23-1-2 over the 2 days.

I missed out in 2001, but 2024 Amsterdam was truly an incredible experience for me personally and it was such a pleasure to meet so many great people who also happen to be great antichess players.

Cheers,
tone