Or a complete shark? On Monday night I took part in a very exciting charity fundraising event organised by my boss Duncan Glassey and the folk at the Apex International Hotel in Edinburgh. We played chess for charity and one game out of 20 is still to be concluded…
The evening started off with short talks from the 5 charities we’re supporting through Duncan’s Millionaire Chess Challenge, namely:
- – Bobath Scotland
- – BackUp Trust
- – Children’s Hospice Association Scotland (CHAS)
- – Disability Snowsport UK (DSUK)
- – RNIB
And each charity representative spoke passionately about the the positive impact their charity has in the everyday lives of the individuals and families that they support.
And then we moved onto playing chess. Why chess? Well…
My boss is committed to supporting families with specialist care needs, to make smarter investment decisions whilst organising and simplifying their financial lives. His first love was chess which he began playing competitively at the age of 9 and next week he is taking part in the Millionaire Chess Tournament in Las Vegas. Through playing chess against amateurs, professionals and grand masters alike, he will be raising money for the charities listed above.
“By taking part in Millionaire Chess I am fulfilling a personal dream and pursuing a really exciting opportunity to raise money for charities that I know make a difference to people’s lives. In my work as a Chartered Financial Planner I advise and support a number of families with specialist care needs, and it is charities close to their hearts that I am fundraising for.”
This evening Duncan played 20 simultaneous games against 20 people and I was one of those 20 opponents. At the end of the night, the state of play was that in 19 of the 20 matches, Duncan had achieved either an outright win or his opponent had conceded an inevitable defeat.
However one match is still to be concluded and that is against me, as I was the only person still in play at the end of the evening. I can’t quite believe it as I’ve never played chess competitively and the last game of chess I played must’ve been over 15 years ago. But like Duncan, I first started playing chess when I was about 9 years old – maybe there’s a chess champ lurking within me too!
We are concluding our game this afternoon – will Duncan score 20/20 or will I be victorious?
You’ll just have to wait and see!
If you would like to find out more about the charities we are supporting, please view this blog post where our 5 charity representatives give a brief talk about the work the do.
If you would like to make a donation, that would be very much appreciated. We are hoping to raise £10,000 by the end of the year and have set up a Virgin Money Giving page to enable people to donate online easily. Find the page here.
Thank You!
