I am still upset at missing the World Mind Sports Games in Chinese
Chess

http://www.2008wmsg.org/en/news/2008-10-09/1649583.html

However, my recent trip to San Francisco on August 15-23, 2008 in
which I was able to locate and recover some of my old possessions,
including scoresheets and photos from the comparable event in 1988
which was called "The Seven Stars Cup".

Here is a picture of me playing in the competition. If anybody knows
the name of my opponent please tell me. He is likely to be a strong
and famous player.

http://www.anusha.com/cc-playing.jpg

Here is a group picture of the players and officials in the
tournament. There are many famous personalities in this picture. I am
standing at the far left wearing a red tie.

http://www.anusha.com/cc-officials.jpg

Here is a picture of me at a meeting of the "Preparatory Committee of
the World Chinese Chess Federation". I am sitting in the middle
wearing a white shirt and red tie. Frank C. Ing representing San
Francisco is to the far right.

http://www.anusha.com/cc-meeting.jpg

Here is a picture of me with Hu Long Hua, "The Bobby Fischer of
Chinese Chess". Hu Long Hua is by far the most famous player of
Chinese chess. His career closely paralleled that of Bobby Fischer
because he won the All China Championship, which was the same thing as
the world championship, in 1960 at age 15. He then proceeded to win it
ten times in a row. My daughter, Shamema, is standing to the right. We
are standing in front of the hotel where the event was played. If
anybody knows the name of the hotel, please let me know.

http://www.anusha.com/hu-sam-shamema.jpg

Here is a picture of my daughter Shamema standing on the Great Wall of
China. Shamema is the child who was kidnapped by the Jerry Falwell
Gang two years later and taken to America.

http://www.anusha.com/shamema-on-wall.jpg

Here is a picture of me standing in front of the cross table of the
event.

http://www.anusha.com/cc-sam-and-crosstable.jpg

Here is a picture of the cross table of the event. If anybody can read
and translate this, please do so. I believe that I am number 11 on the
cross table. I cannot figure out how this cross table works, but what
I remember is that it was a Swiss, everybody played two games with his
opponent, one with red, one with black. A win and a win scored one
point, the same as a win and a draw. This is because of the high
percentage of draws in Chinese chess plus red, who has the first move,
has a much bigger advantage than in chess.

By the way, I only won two games in the event, but that was an
accomplishment as it was an almost all grandmaster event. (I was one
of the few non-grandmasters). Both games I won were against a player
who was the Champion of Europe and has since written several books on
Chinese Chess, Mr. C. K. Lai.

http://www.anusha.com/cc-crosstable.jpg

The boy on the right was the big winner in the tournament, according
to my standards, not because he won the most games, but because he
married one of his opponents and took her back to England. She became
the champion of England in Chinese chess. He was not such a strong
player. I believe that I was beating him one of the two games I played
with him, but I blundered and lost.

http://www.anusha.com/cc-england-representative.jpg

Here is a demonstration board in Chinese chess. However, I believe
that this demo board is from the event in Singapore in 1990. If
anybody can translate the two names at the bottom, please do so.

http://www.anusha.com/cc-demo-board.jpg

I found about ten scoresheets of games played during the Seven Stars
Cup. I cannot read Chinese, especially not hand written Chinese, so I
do not know if these are the scoresheets of my games or the games of
other players. If anybody can tell me the names of the two players
here, please do so.

http://www.anusha.com/cc-scoresheet.jpg

Here is my best opponent from the event. Not the strongest but
certainly the most beautiful. Actually, I beat her. This was not from
the main event but a side event sponsored by a whiskey company.
Considering how beautiful some of these girls were, I am wondering
what they had in mind, especially since, as noted above, the player
from England married one of his opponents.

http://www.anusha.com/my-best-opponent.jpg

Sam Sloan