Road Warrior
by Pete Karagianis
This
issue’s installment of Road Warrior is brought to you in similar
fashion to a Star Wars episode – from a long time ago in a land
far, far away.
I
was talked into playing into a tournament called the “Catfish Days”
by my friend and fellow tournament enthusiast, Ivan, this past
summer. At first I had not been too keen on heading up to Minnesota
for what appeared, in both name and location, to be more of a
backwoods chess hoedown rather than a serious tournament.
“But
look, man, you can even send entries in to Farmer James!” Ivan
said. I suppose this was some kind of argument in
favor of me going,
but I did not see how it helped his case.
For
the inquisitive among you, Minnesota is that state to the north of
Iowa that the Vikings play in. For Chicagoans, think “Canada.” It
has a lot of lakes, a couple airports, and one or two cities.
“And
they also have a cookout after the first round if you’re hungry!
Free food and chess, you can’t pass that up.” Ivan could see I
was unimpressed. “They’ve even got the Catfish Days festival,
it’s like a tradition. How many people can say they’ve played in
the Catfish Days?” He put his arms on his hips and stood as if he’d
made a profound point.
“Do
you even know
what that festival is?”
“No,
but I’m sure it has something to do with Catfish.”
“You
don’t say.”
“Maybe
they go fishing or something in between rounds.”
Franklin,
MN, the site of the Catfish Days, was not even a dot on the map. To
get there, one must travel (coming up I-35 from Iowa) seventy miles
of back-road, small-town highway on US-14, MN-4, and Route 68. The
drive itself is actually quite scenic, after you get off the
interstate, if you can avoid the typical summer construction and,
while en route, do not become hopelessly lost in a maze of detours
and dirt roads.
How
had I been talked into this tournament - a small, chess “reunion”
held, seemingly, in the middle of nowhere? The convincing had not
come at the hands of Ivan’s varied arguments concerning nostalgia,
experience, or even catfish. What had ultimately changed my mind was
a couple sheets of paper Ivan handed me Wednesday, two nights before
the tournament.
“Here
are the cross tables from the past few years,” he said, “have a
look.”
I
took the papers. Usually, when I consider playing in tournaments, the
first things I look at are the prize fund ratios and the possibility
of competition. Particularly in the Midwest, it is difficult to find
either of the two aforementioned commodities in large quantities,
especially since the former always tends to affect the latter.
However, the information Ivan procured struck me and spoke for
itself.
The
past two annual Catfish Days tournaments had featured a plethora of
experts and masters, as well as a guaranteed prize fund, supported
not by entry fee, which was a paltry twenty dollars (twenty-five at
the door) but by outside sources. Here, I thought, was a man who
knows how to organize.
And
he goes by the name of Farmer James.
Father
of the town’s pageant winner, amiable, picture-friendly,
twelve-year organizer of the Catfish Days reunion, and finder of
outside, financial
support for chess, a sport that is not exactly at its height of
popularity, Farmer James gets International Masters, FIDE Masters,
National Masters, and various other strong players to travel to the
middle of nowhere and fight it out on small, seven-year old sized
tables (which my knees banged into quite a bit) in a non-air
conditioned elementary school library the size of a small apartment.
I
had a blast.
For
the past year I had been lobbying in the state I go to school, Iowa,
for precisely this type of thing, and now I had found it in a town
two-thirds the size of my high school graduating class. In Illinois,
the problem is often the same. One is stuck (one might say) between a
rock and a hard place – either a very high entry fee with lots of
prizes and lots of competition, or a more modest entry fee with
equally proportionate prizes and turnout. Recently, organizers in the
Chicago area (and elsewhere) have been turning to sponsorship –
trying to find outside funding for their efforts. Unfortunately,
chess is not college football and this undertaking is not the
simplest route available.
At
first I was surprised that the Catfish Days tournament could promise
so much, but after appending the weekend in Franklin, the answers
slowly presented themselves.
I
didn’t need to ask Farmer James how he had done it, how he had
gotten the support he needed, how he drew the strong class of players
year after year, how he could give so many
awards to long-time returnees (You get a clock for ten years and a
wooden carving for five years straight of playing in the Catfish
Tournament). All I had to do to get let in on his “secret” was
receive one handshake and a smile.
Here
was an organizer, excuse me, a farmer, (for I don’t believe he
would appreciate any other title) who realized the importance of
respecting the players, of thanking them for coming, of giving them a
reason
to come not just for chess, but for what chess was meant for: to have
a great time.
I
remember crowding around the top board (located between the
Encyclopedia Brown
series and the Hardy
Boys collection)
during the tournament, watching IM Viktor Adler play, surrounded by
chess players from all walks of life, each leaning in to watch
quietly, respectfully the master. But my eyes were not on the board
or the squares or the pieces, for the moment anyway. I looked instead
at the clock trophy in the background reserved for the ten-year
Catfish veterans thinking “Nine more years.”
I
smirked, because I knew that I would be back. Oh
yes, I would.
You
can bet the farm on that.
