Page 36 of Niccolo

Not only that, but I also made a few friends at work I hung out with occasionally.

There was a sort of ‘scene’ in the restaurant industry: servers and cooks would go hang out at their friends’ restaurants after closing and get drinks and food for cheap. The next night, everyone would go to a different place, until they progressed through the entire circuit of restaurants in Bologna.

The waitresses at my restaurant asked me to come along, so I did. Once I learned I could basically eat for free, I went fairly regularly.

I would characterize the people I hung out with as ‘drinking buddies’ rather than close friends, but at least I had some human companionship for a change.

It was nice.

I also got asked out on dates by boys. I even said yes a few times.

Not to men at chess tournaments. God, no. Now that I looked more presentable, I got hit on all the time – but only by sweaty nerds and ugly older men who gave me the creeps.

Instead, I actually went out with some conventionally attractive guys who worked in the restaurant scene in Bologna. However, nothing ever happened beyond a few uninspiring kisses.

The asexual thing was real for me. I wasn’t attracted to the guys I went out with at all. I felt nothing.

I think they picked up on that and rarely asked me out a second time.

By the time I turned 23, I was still a virgin – but I wasn’t interested enough to do anything about it.

I figured losing my virginity was like moving to a new apartment. If it needed to happen, I’d eventually get around to it.

So, I had something resembling a social life… occasional dates… and a thriving career as a chess grandmaster. I was quickly climbing the ranks and heading toward the top 50 players in the world at the age of 23.

However, the money was horrible.

I managed to get by – barely – but my life was one of constant scrimping and living from paycheck to paycheck.

But I was reasonably happy. And I was free.

That was enough.

Until disaster struck.

17

It happened at a fast chess tournament in Copenhagen, Denmark.

In many chess tournaments, you typically have 90 minutes for the first 40 moves, then 30 minutes to finish the rest of the game.

In grandmaster tournaments, time limits were more or less suspended. Games in world championships typically ran five or six hours, sometimes longer.

Fast chess tournaments were exactly what they sounded like: you had a very limited amount of time to finish the game. Depending on the tournament, it could be as little as 5 minutes for the first 40 moves. In bullet chess, you had one minute for the entire game.

I didn’t bother with bullet chess because you weren’t actuallythinking;you were justreacting.However, I enjoyed the challenge of playing much faster than usual – of thinking on my feet.

Fast chess was sort of a goofy, fun sideline to the more serious grandmaster scene. But it had become a popular fad.

The younger, less stuffy generation of chess players tended to like it. You could even find some of the top players in the world slumming it at fast chess competitions, largely because the purses tended to be pretty high due to fast chess tournaments’ popularity. I needed the money, so I went to as many as I could.

Copenhagen was like any other fast chess tournament…

Until the Number Two grandmaster at the time showed up.

He was a 26-year-old Danish asshole whose newfound fame and vanilla good looks allowed him to date actresses and models.

He was also undefeated in tournament play. He was slated to attend the world championship in Seoul the following month and was widely expected to win the top spot.

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