Early man, Reginsky and chess

I earned this tag during my college days when I continued as an early riser and arrived ahead of most people at the tambayan of our organization. I remember at the time and maybe even now, everyone had a pseudonym and early man seemed the most appropriate for someone who regularly came early to university ahead even of dormers and others who lived nearby.

Of course, there were other tags we invented ourselves but were used mostly in games or other activities mostly for fun. At the time, chess was a popular pastime for many organization members and this, I suppose, is due to many being competitive players at the college level. We even had 2 good female players who played against the guys. The organization, after all, had a very good reputation as a chess power at the College of Engineering, winning the Geoid Cup twice and back-to-back in its first 3 years of existence. We eventually regained the cup and successfully defended it before I graduated from university.

We had our chess nicknames recorded in the organization logbook where we wrote from the back towards the front. I even remember us recording games and results as if we were actual chess players. And, modesty aside, I had a very good record against most players at the time. In fact, I only had negative results against 2 players, one of whom was my close friend Val who was perhaps the strongest player among us. Some of the names that are now part of history included Filipcher, Fidocher, Randsky, Reginsky, Judith, and Valerie. Of course, all of us were GMs or grandmasters in as far as what seemed like a weekly tournament that we called the AggreCup. The highlight of each match was the asaran or kantyawan where in many cases it seemed like the spectators were the ones dictating the way the matches were played, to the point where they were already making the moves instead of the players!

I miss those days playing chess during our free time. I also miss playing chess at a competitive level at the Geoid Cup tournament during Engineering Week. I'd like to think I played my best then and had games my cousins and uncles would have been proud to watch themselves.