Ping pong and chess

Over the last couple of days, I have been practicing for the upcoming Inter-Seminary Sports Fest, which is exactly what it sounds like. I don't recall having an event like this when I was in seminary in the States, but that's a secondary matter relating to how seminaries of different traditions interact with one another. If the results of my "friendlies" are any indication, I should be out of the two tournaments for which I am registered in relatively short order.

I have signed up for chess and ping pong. I realize you cannot get two more opposite sports (except maybe darts and decathlon) but whatever. On Wednesday I was obliterated in four chess matches against one of our students who is also signed up to play, though he may not because he's going also to be taking photographs of the event. I made some blunders, and he capitalized on them brilliantly, and I got smashed.

In ping pong, the results were the same. Last night I was defeated in three straight games by a student playing ping pong in ISSF (though a different one from the chess guy). The scores were 21-14, 21-13, and 21-10, convincing and crushing defeats. My only decent performance was in the first game, in which we were back-and-forth tied until 9-9, then he pulled out ahead 12-9 and didn't look back.

Incidentally, this brings my overall ping pong record at APNTS to a disappointing 1-3.