Playing The Name

What I find interesting is when we go to big tournaments a lot of us check out the chart to see if someone that is well-known is in our bracket or not.  And naturally we might get a little nervous at times.

Not a lot of people know this, but about 10 years ago I was married for a few years and my last name was Hinojosa.

I was playing in a tournament in Vegas for BCAPL Nationals and I'm sitting there next to my table with the score sheet waiting for my opponent.

A girl comes up and she's looking around and she sees the scorecard but she walks away.  She comes back about 5 minutes later and she looks around again kinda confused and she finally asks me (because I'm sitting there right in front of the table in front of the score sheet), "do you know who's playing at this table?"   And I reply, "I am."

And she looks at me real funny and she says "no, I'm playing some good Japanese girl."

And I am really confused, "I'm Melinda Hinojosa, who are you suppose to be playing?" 

It's funny because Hinojosa is actually a Hispanic name, not a Japanese name!  Little did I know I was already making my opponents shake a little in their shoes before they even got to the table just by seeing my last name on the tournament chart LOL.

Oh, and yes, she beat me.  Back then I wasn't a decent or seasoned player (yet!).