UTRECHT - The first day of the adventures of Alla Danilevskaya from Saint Petersburg during the World Championship.  The tournament started so great for her. But in the afternoon she is tired, very tired.

All About Alla - Day 1

As I watch the final game which Alla Danilevskaya plays today, I am very surprised. She has exposed Bamboo 3-4-5, Characters 4-5-6; in her hand she has Dots 6-7-8 and Characters 2-2-2-4.

Instead of that, it is shock and awe. She keeps her tiles and discards the Dots 5. ‘Hu’, says the player in her upper hand.

Alla looks puzzled as I tell her about her mistake. “Well, it was just 11 seconds to go, so I was stressed”, she explains. She closes her hands next to her hand. “I want to sleep.”

You had a bad flight yesterday?

“No. Just could not sleep last night.”

Picture

Just this morning, Alla looked so happy. I picked her more or less at random as ‘my central player’ during the World Championship. When, after the first session, Alla appears to have the highest score of all 208 players, I praise my good fortune. Perhaps I have chosen the winner in advance!

But after the next session, she sends me a look of reproof. “You took a picture of me”, she says. “In Russia, it is considered bad omen when you take a picture before the end of the game.” In that session, she had scored just two points.

And in the afternoon, she gets more and more tired. No wonder she makes an error by discarding that almost winning tile.

“I will go to sleep early”, she says.