My gate changed while I was wearing noise-canceling headphones. I noticed a crowd in matching jackets moving quickly toward a door, assumed they were on my flight, and followed them with complete confidence. Nobody checked my boarding pass. A staff member even loaded my suitcase under their bus. Ten minutes later, a man with a clipboard started assigning seats by board number. I asked whether he meant boarding group. He stared at me and asked which regional chess team I belonged to. I was on a charter bus full of teenage chess players headed to a tournament on the other side of the airport. My actual flight was boarding two terminals away. The driver radioed someone to retrieve my suitcase while the entire team watched. As I climbed off, one kid called out, "Good opening, terrible endgame." I made my flight, but only because an airport cart driver took pity on me.