Month: May 2020

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News Upcoming Events

ChessAgainstCovid Event to Celebrate Prof Lim Kok Ann

extracted from GM Kevin Goh’s Facebook post

Chess players of a certain generation would be very familiar with Professor Lim Kok Ann, or more affectionately known as Prof. Much has been written about Prof, for instant in the Legend, Dr. Li Yang Hsu‘s blog (https://miphidic.com/2015/08/30/lim-kok-ann-professor-of-microbiology-and-father-of-chess-in-singapore-1920-2003/) with regards to his legacies in chess but to give an example of his attention to detail, and how much he cares for others, I have attached a letter that he wrote to me in 1995. Many thanks to Bernard Carleton Lim, for recovering his Grandfather’s copy and for sharing it with me. I remember being completely shocked that a highly respected man would write such a detailed and elaborate letter to me, a mere Primary School kid but this was really just the tip of the iceberg. Later on in the year, he would pay the air tickets for me and my friend Tan Chee Chong to play in the World Disney Rapid Chess (U-12 and U-14) Championships in Paris. He also brought his good friend along, IM Nikola Karaklajić who would coach us throughout the event. Prof soon found out what a total geek I was – all of us had free passes to every ride in Disney Land, for every single day but on the only rest day that we had, I begged Nikola to play blitz with me instead…From 1995 to around the year 2000, I received the highly popular “Inside Chess Magazine” on a monthly basis thanks to Prof’s generosity. I would devour each copy happily from cover to cover. Even in the early 2000s when I was preparing for the National championships, I was heavily reliant on these old copies of Inside Chess. It is a common sight for my army mates to see me reading a torn and tattered magazine on my bunk bed, and playing out moves over a small chess set. The common question they asked was why I was playing chess with myself and whether I was losing my mind. It didn’t matter to me as I qualified for the National team for the first time by finishing 5th…….This year, Prof Lim would have been 100 years old and to remember his many accomplishments and countless acts of kindness, #ChessAgainstCovid is proud to annouce the SG Grandmasters’ Simultaneous Exhibition. 4 Singaporean GMs, 100 players, all pushing wood concurrently. I hope that chess players would join us for this historic and special occasion#Donotstopuntilperfect

Categories
Upcoming Events

ABC Tournament for Non-FIDE Rated Chess Players

Our very first ABC Tournament for non-FIDE rated players will be held on next Wednesday 20 May 2020 from 5.30pm to 7.00pm.

Players can request for post-game analysis at the start of the tournament. Please indicate in the chat box if you will like your games to be analysed.

1) What is this event?
It is a short online Swiss tournament (up to at most 1.5 hours) meant for Advanced Beginners and Casual non-FIDE rated players who want to get some decent games.

2) Why is this event not available to FIDE rated players?
They are too strong for the target group of players and there are already many other events for players with FIDE ratings.

3) Who else shouldn’t play in this event?
Those without FIDE rating but are clearly strong players. These players are typically highly rated on online chess platforms and simply do not have the time to play competitively.

4) I (or my son/daughter) want to play this event to spar. What do I need to do?
a) Click on this link:
https://lichess.org/team/chessagainstcovid-swiss-event-for-non-fide-rated-players.
b) Click ‘Join Team’.
c) Key in your name/school (if applicable)/HP number and email address (to contact you for next event) in the message box.
d) Solve the mate in 1 question.
e) Click ‘Join Team’.
f) We will then send you a link to join the tournament. To enter it, click the link, click ‘Join’ and wait for the tournament to begin.

Categories
past events

Celebrating 100Years, Celebrating Prof Lim Kok Ann – SG 100 Boards Grandmasters Simultaneous Chess Exhibition

Professor Lim Kok Ann is widely known as the “Father of Singapore Chess” within the chess community. He has helped countless chess players in his lifetime many of whom have gone on to represent Singapore and become the nation’s best chess players. A lesser known fact about Prof is that he is also known as Singapore’s Flu Fighter. He was the first to discover a strain of the Asian Flu that killed millions between 1957-1958.

Prof Lim would have been 100 years old this year and to celebrate this special occasion and to remember his legacies in chess and in microbiology, the #ChessAgainstCovid team is proud to announce SG Grandmasters Simultaenous Exhibition – celebrating Prof Lim Kok Ann’s 100 years.

On 23rd May, from 4pm, our very own Singaporean Grandmasters will each take on 25 brave challengers concurrently. Despite being located in different cities at this juncture, our Grandmasters have decided to join forces in a concerted effort to remember Prof Lim and also in the name of charity.

Registration for this event is free and can be done via https://tinyurl.com/GMSimul and if you like to pick your favourite GM to play against, you can do so at a minimum donation of S$50 only.

Be a part of this historic event and see you soon! ☺️

Categories
past events

Thrilling Showdown at 2nd Chess960 Fight Night

By CM Junior Tay

Chess Against Covid held the 2nd Fight Night Tuesday: Chess 960 event earlier today, and it was a thrilling showdown!💪🏼

65 players participated, and the main contenders were FM Jarred Neubronner, Singapore’s first ever Chess960 champion, FM Daniel Chan, our 2010 National Champion, FM Timothy Chan, our 2011 National Champion and FM Andrey Terekhov, all of whom possess IM norms. We also had FM Ashvin Sivakumar and CMs Goh Zi Han and Advait Bagri to make life difficult for the trio.

It was Daniel Chan who sprinted to the top of the table right from the start, collecting two berserk wins before the rest completed even 1 game. And he just kept going with 10 wins in a row within 1/2 an hour before he was forced into an opposite coloured bishop endgame draw against Andrey. By then, only 4 players could barely keep pace with him, the unknown Myozz and Timothy Chan, Terekhov and Sivakumar, all of whom lurked more than 15 points behind.

Jarred was soon to join the leading pack, but Daniel and Myozz kept their winning ways, way into the 1 hour mark. Tan Meng Wei and Advait threatened to muscle in at this point at the halfway mark, and three young juniors also figured in the top 10, CM Goh Zi Han, Cristal Lee and Lim Kai Jun!

10 minutes later, Daniel had extended his lead to 16 points but it was then he suffered his first loss to Bagri. With two more losses in the next 3 games, Jarred and Myozz soon got within striking distance of Daniel but at this point, Myozz hit a purple patch with 5 consecutive wins, inclusive of 2 over Bagri. Daniel however could not shake off Jarred and in fact, the long protracted game between them allowed Myozz to propel pass them, towards the 90 minute mark.

Daniel’s 3 wins over Myozz was overridden by the latter’s ultra fast wins with an incredible 26 games played (5 more than Dan or Jarred). Daniel noted that his strategy of ‘berserking’ every single game (which meant he only had 1.5 min per game) probably worked against him as he started to get flagged often in the last third of the event.

After the event, we were beset by many calls on the identity of mysterious winner Myozz. Our money is on GM Daniel Fernandez (for a variety of reasons) but we have not received confirmation on this from our GM Masterclass lecturer yet 😊.

Final result
🏆: 1st the mysterious Myozz,
🥇2nd: FM Daniel Chan,
3rd: FM Jarred Neubronner,
4th: FM Timothy Chan,
5th: CM Advait Bagri.
6th: PickledKnights
7th: Cai Mingzhe
8th: Tan Meng Wei
9th: FM Ashvin Sivakumar
10th: Tang Yiheng.

Congrats to all players😊

Final scoretable and games: https://lichess.org/tournament/uzINIYGm

Categories
News past events

4G Team Battle Reflection by CM Junior Tay

Singapore chess used to have a National Interclubs event with about 5 to 6 teams in 3 to 4 divisions. For aspiring juniors who wish to have a go at the top local masters, they had to be part of the Combined Schools teams to contest in the Premier division. There were teams like Caissa Patzers and Queenstown CC which were chockful with IMs, FMs and NMs.

So ever since the event’s departure, we seldom see the tussling of strong local teams in tournament praxis.

However, the 4G Team Battle event demonstrated that our top players spanning the last 30 years can be relied on to return to play, albeit online with a worthy cause – the #ChessAgainstCovid Charity.

30 top local players from 4 different generations took part in the 6 teams, 5 players per side event with the time control of 3+1 second. We also managed to attract sponsorship of Eu Yan Sang, Q & M Dental, QCD Technology and the contributions by Shaun Lim, Mark Ong, Timothy Chan and WHOM Pte Ltd came in handy to attract local luminaries such as GM Zhang Zhong (who has also donated substantially in his own private capacity), WGM Gong Qianyun, IM Hsu Li Yang, IM Jason Goh and FM Daniel Chan. As a result, $5199 will go to Lakeside Family Services to aid the poor affected by the Covid-19 crisis.

The first 14 minutes saw Crazy but Not Rich Asians storm into the lead with 4 of their 5 members scoring early wins. The SEAS team, (the only one without a ‘professional’ hired gun) surprised all by edging close to the Crazy Asians thanks to Ng Sheng Feng’s double wins. What was worrying to the onlookers was the Rusty Half Masters who were on 0 points for 12 whole minutes(!) which really made their moniker a self-fulfilling prophecy. Their Half – Masters name is also an inside joke, as 3 of their players, Jarred, Daniel and Tim have a total of 6 IM norms between them, before they retired to their fledgling careers (inclusive of a double norm – as GM Daniel Fernandez was quick to point out in the CAC whatsapp group chat).

1 minute later, WGM Gong Qianyun showed why she is the SEA games champ by pushing her Skrubs team to even terms with Crazy Asians. But it was a short-lived reign for the two teams as Bruh Force 1’s IM Tin Jingyao and CM William Woong exerted their presence to bring the Generation 3 team into the lead. It was neck to neck with these teams but at the quarter time mark, Bruh Force 2 and Bruh Force 1 brutally forced their way into the top two spots. By now the Rusties had their engines chugging already and rust removed, only 1 point behind the Bruh-lies. Amazingly, they even surged into the lead at the 30 min mark, thanks to FM Jarred Neubronner’s 12 points.

At halftime, it was a 4 horse race with Bruh Force 1, Bruh Force 2, Crazy Asians and Rusties all equal with 37 points. The players were tiring and tilting, mixing wins and losses. The two exceptions were IM Tin Jingyao (Bruh Force 1) and IM Hsu Li Yang (Crazy Asians) who matched each other win for win to lead the MVP standing at 14 points, leaving the rest of the field in smoke…

After 1 hour, the Legendary Dr Hsu and his good buddy FM Mark Ong Chong Ghee kept the lead for Crazy Asians with a 6 points distance from the Bruh Force teams. But the Rusties weren’t gonna just watch the proceedings and surged past these team. It was insane as the lead kept changing hands every few seconds. With 10 minutes left, the Rusties and Crazy Asians were on 73 points, furiously chased by the Bruh Force duo with 71 points. That was when GM Zhang Zhong stepped up a gear. He took out GM Kevin Goh and FM Ong Chong Ghee consecutively, thus terminating the Crazy Asians’ chances of clinching the title. With Jingyao continuing his awesome winning streak, there was no stopping Bruh Force 1 as they built up a 6 point winning margin over the Rusties.

Congratulations to Bruh Force 1 for emerging the Champion Team of the 4 Generations Team Battle, the strongest team event in Singapore! As for the Most Valuable Player of the event bragging rights, the top scoring player was IM Tin Jingyao with 41 points, followed by IM Hsu Li Yang with 34 points. Young Jayden Wong’s impressive 27 points gave him 3rd place, with GM Zhang Zhong and FM Siddharth Jagadeesh taking equal 4th with 23 points.

BRIEF POST TOURNAMENT CHAT WITH BRUH FORCE 1

We had FM Ashvin Sivakumar to interview the winning team on their amazing feat in a Skype interview.

Ashvin: It was fun, wasn’t it? How do you feel about this win?

Bruh Force 1: We are really elated and it was unexpected and really fun! Jingyao really carried the team!

Ashvin: How did you find the format of the event? What did you mean when you said it was fun?

Bruh Force 1: The format was really fun because the games can get really crazy. We were also very glad to have a chance to play the older generation, masters we hear about but seldom get to challenge.

Ashvin: GM Zhang Zhong started slowly and started mopping up the opposition, didn’t he? How did you fellas come across the idea of ‘buying’ him for the team?

Bruh Force 1: We gotta thank Eu Yan Sang’s sponsorship for allowing us to get our ‘Messi’. It started as a joke…when we jestingly said, OK, let’s get GM Andrey Kvon…he’s the highest rated player in Singapore…and it dawned on us…why not GM Zhang Zhong?

At this point, we interrupted the interview to ask Bruh Force 1 and Bruh Force 2 with a question.

CAC: Why did the boys split their players into 2 groups? Surely the winning chances are higher with the highest rated players in a team?

Bruh Force 1 and 2: This has always been our style. Form 2 equally strong teams and see which team can win the event, say like the Racial Harmony team event over the past few years.

CAC: Can I have a screenshot of the winning team?

Bruh Force 1: No, we paiseh…

CAC: 🤣

Thanks to all for a memorable event. I would like to especially thank our sponsors and contributors for their support which is most important, as our main aim, apart from connecting the top players of the last 3 decades together, is to raise funds for ChessAgainstCovid’s beneficiaries.

Final result and games : https://lichess.org/tournament/E9ANJDAh

Event Livestreaming: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/615778614 courtesy of GM Kevin Goh

To our generous Corporate Sponsors for this event – our Sincere Thanks.

Categories
Upcoming Events

FM Mind & Body Chess Challenge

FM Ashvin Sivakumar and FM Lee Qing Aun will be hosting a FM Challenge: Mind and Body Chess Challenge!

At 6:00 p.m. today 7th May, you can log in to lichess.org and challenge both of them @ qa123 😁! The challenge is open to all players☺️
A Mind and Body Chess Challenge is when one player will tell the other which piece to move, and the other player must move it. For example, Ashvin will tell Qing Aun to move his pawn, and Qing Aun must decide which pawn to move🤪
They will be streaming the challenge live on twitch.tv/fmqa123 so check it out there as well❗️
Please do consider donating to our #ChessAgainstCovid Campaign @tinyurl.com/donatechessagainstcovid Hope to see you there! 👍
Categories
Uncategorized

FM Mind & Body Chess Challenge (7 May 2020)

Categories
past events

4Generations Team Chess Battle – 9 May 2020

Chess Against Covid is bringing to you a 4 Generation Team Battle on Lichess.org at 8pm (Saturday) 9/5/2020.

This tourney is probably the strongest ever Singaporean team event with a record number of top local players. How strong? Let’s see….

2 GMs, 4 IMs, 8 FMs, 1 WGM, 7 CMs and almost all the current top local young juniors rated above Elo 2000.

So what does 4G mean and why did we structure the event in this manner? Well, the main aim is to get all the top players from the last 2 decades or so back into action to support the charity of course. Generation 1 are those who generally became prominent in the late 80s or early 90s, Generation 2 mainly excelled in the late 1990s to 2000s before settling down to their careers. They are followed by Generation 3, the mainstay of the mid 2000s onwards. Generation 4 is made up of our current top juniors.

However, you will notice each team has a star (*) player from the posters beneath. These are the sponsored players who are definitely no fish, all rated above 2000 and top players of their generation too. Our sponsors have paid for them to appear for the various teams to enhance their winning chances…hmmm…that certainly sounds like the EPL or La Liga..doesn’t it?

Another outstanding feature is that we managed to get the support of Eu Yan Sang, Q and M Dental, QCD Technologies as well as generous contributions from Shaun Lim, Mark Ong, Timothy Chan and WHOM Pte Ltd for a whooping $5199(!) sponsorship, and these will go directly to the #ChessAgainstCovid charity beneficiary Lakeside Service Centre to help the families affected by the Covid crisis.

To watch the event tomorrow, please tune to:
https://lichess.org/tournament/E9ANJDAh to watch the action,

as well as:
https://www.twitch.tv/gm_kgwm
for GM Kevin Goh’s livestreaming of the event.
See you there☺️

Categories
News

Chess.com Blog by FM Andrey Terekhov – My First Chess960 Tournament

 

 

Categories
past events

1st Online ChessAgainstCovid Chess960 – 05.05.2020

The 1st Online ChessAgainstCovid Chess960 Arena concluded earlier today as a resounding success!👍

It attracted 75 players and featured an extremely strong field with 15 titled players: GM Andrey Kvon, GM Kevin Goh Wei Ming,  IM Tin Jingyao, IM Li Yang Hsu, IM Terry Toh Chun-Eng, WGM Qianyun Gong, FM Qingaun Lee, FM Siddharth Jagadeesh, FM Andrey Terekhov, FM Ashvin Sivakumar, FM Jarred Neubronner, FM Timothy Chan, CM Olimpiu Urcan, CM Benjamin Foo and CM Advait Bagri!
The first third of the tourney was dominated by CM Advait Bagri who streaked to 25 points, thanks to four consecutive wins before being held to a draw by Cameron Goh. At this point, FM Mark Ong Chong Ghee remarked that ‘too strong a start might not be a good thing’…and it proved prophetic…Advait was to  hit a brick wall subsequently in his 7th to 9th game where he had to fight GM Andrey Kvon, then GM Kevin Goh…and then GM Kvon again. Such is life.
Kvon took over the pole position and maintained it for the next 40 minutes. By then, Kevin, Cameron, FM Lee Qing Aun and Jayden Wong were hot on his heels. At this point, Cameron Goh and Qing Aun surged past him on the strength of their 7 and 10 consecutive games winning streak respectively.  For the un-initiated, Lichess Arena awards 4 points per consecutive win after the 2nd win in a row.
FM Lee Qing Aun used the ‘Berserk option initially, before realizing that he had to sacrifice the 3 min + 2 seconds time control for 1.5 minutes with no increment.  From his 6th game onward, he ignored the ‘Berserk’ button and just kept winning and thus ended up 3rd with 40 points.
GM Andrey Kvon emerged 2nd, just two points shy of Cameron’s 44 points. The other GM in the event, Kevin, who was live-streaming as well…(where did my time go? – said the befuddled GM after ‘berserking his extra time away and not realising he had no increment subsequently) finished 4th with 38 points even though he had beaten Cameron in the final round.
After the dust settled with an intense 80 minute arena battle, it was Cameron Goh, (a former RI boy who is currently serving his national service)  who emerged the champion of the event (and the unofficial Chess 960 king😜!).  He played a brilliant event, shrewdly refusing to go ‘Berserk’, which as previously explained,  limited one’s time in exchange for the potential of extra points. He also had a remarkable 74% record in his 19 games played❗️
In Cameron’s own words, “I wasn’t expecting this [such a good performance] at all. It was a nice way to chill after a day at army camp and maybe being so relaxed about it helped me in the end. Good to know that my chess brain hasn’t completely rotted away even as my book knowledge is gone, which works in my favour in the 960 format”.
Final results (80 minutes Arena event with 75 participants).
1st: Cameron Goh
2nd: GM Andrey Kvon
3rd: FM Lee Qing Aun
4th: GM Kevin Goh Wei Ming
5th: Jayden Wong,
6th: IM Tin Jinyao
7th: Royce Ho
8th: IM Hsu Li Yang
9th: CM Benjamin Foo
10th: Jonathan Goh.
The winners of the GMs Daniel Fernandez/ Kevin Goh Masterclass lesson goes to Cameron Goh, Jayden Wong and Royce Ho. Congrats!
Kudos to all players for taking part in the one of the strongest ‘local’ events (well, sort of 😊)!
GM Kevin Goh’s streaming coverage is at https://www.twitch.tv/videos/611822736
Full results and games can be found at https://lichess.org/tournament/YTo9lBYF