Categories
Announcements Upcoming Events

SGChessHub@JurongSpring National Day Online Blitz Chess Championship 2021

Join us as we celebrate National Day with the launch of SGChessHub at the newly renovated Jurong Spring Community Centre on 21 August 2021.

We look forward to restarting physical over-the-board sessions of the Chess Interest Group (IG) at Jurong Spring CC once the Covid-19 safety management measures have been relaxed. Meanwhile, let’s connect and play chess online together with our IG Leaders, chess masters and chess enthusiasts at the upcoming online blitz event.

Catch-up with fellow chessers from all over Singapore and form teams to compete for the Racial Harmony Team prizes.

All Individuals and Racial Harmony Team prizes are sponsored by the Jurong Spring CC with 3 Lucky Draw prizes specially sponsored by CM Olimpiu G. Urcan, historian, journalist and author of the lucky draw book prize – Singapore Chess : A History, 1945 – 1990 (co-authored with Dr Shashi Jayakumar).

Don’t procrastinate anymore. Sign up today!

List of Registered Players as of 14 August 2021 – Here

Rules and Prizes Information:

In collaboration with Jurong Spring Commnuity Club, #ChessAgainstCovid and SGChessUnited invite you to participate in the SGChessHub National Day Online Blitz Championship 2021. Along with celebrating our nationโ€™s founding, this competition launches the SGChessHub @ Jurong Spring โ€“ a center for community chess in the west. Join us to win attractive individual and team prizes!

Registration closes on Tuesday, 17th August@ 11.59pm.
__________________________________________________________________________________
๐Ÿ. ๐„๐ฏ๐ž๐ง๐ญ ๐ƒ๐ž๐ญ๐š๐ข๐ฅ๐ฌ

๐ƒ๐š๐ญ๐ž: 21st August 2021, Saturday
๐“๐ข๐ฆ๐ž: 2.00pm – 5.00pm [Partipants Check-in from 1.20pm]
๐‘๐ž๐ ๐ข๐ฌ๐ญ๐ซ๐š๐ญ๐ข๐จ๐ง ๐…๐ž๐ž: None
๐„๐ฅ๐ข๐ ๐ข๐›๐ข๐ฅ๐ข๐ญ๐ฒ: Singaporeans, Singapore PRs, Long-Term Residents or Student Pass, Work Permit, Employment Pass Holders or Individuals with a FIDE Singapore Flag (Winners may be required to provide proof of Citizenship/PR/Residency).

Although this is an individual competition, participants may register as a team consisting of 4 participants with a minimum of 2 ethnicities to compete for the Racial Harmony Team prizes.

Team rankings are calculated based on the total number of points scored by individuals in the team.

๐Ÿ. ๐“๐จ๐ฎ๐ซ๐ง๐š๐ฆ๐ž๐ง๐ญ ๐’๐ฒ๐ฌ๐ญ๐ž๐ฆ

๐“๐ข๐ฆ๐ž ๐‚๐จ๐ง๐ญ๐ซ๐จ๐ฅ: Each player has 3 minutes + 2 seconds increment per move [with 1 minute interval between Rounds]

๐…๐จ๐ซ๐ฆ๐š๐ญ: Individual Open Competition, 11 Rounds Lichess Swiss Pairing. (Note: Players from the same team will not be paired to play against each other)

๐“๐ข๐ž-๐›๐ซ๐ž๐š๐ค (๐ˆ๐ง๐๐ข๐ฏ๐ข๐๐ฎ๐š๐ฅ๐ฌ): Lichess Tie-break system will be used. First Tie-break โ€“ Total number of points after 11 Rounds (Win is 1 point, Draw is ยฝ point and Loss is 0 point). Second Tie-break – Sonnebornโ€“Berger score.

๐“๐ข๐ž-๐›๐ซ๐ž๐š๐ค (๐“๐ž๐š๐ฆ๐ฌ): First Tie-break โ€“ Total number of points accumulated by team members after 11 Rounds. Second Tie-break – Sonnebornโ€“Berger score for the team. Third Tie-break – Total direct encounter between members of the team.

๐Ÿ‘. ๐๐ซ๐ข๐ณ๐ž๐ฌ

๐‚๐š๐ญ๐ž๐ ๐จ๐ซ๐ข๐ž๐ฌ:

โ€ข All participants are eligible for the Open Prizes while only female participants are eligible for the Women Prizes and only Seniors (above 50 years old) are eligible for the Senior Prizes.

โ€ข Participants must indicate which category prizes they are competing for. For Juniors, these includes categories for Boys/Girls Under-10 to Under 20. Individuals are not allowed to register for a category below their age.

โ€ข For Teams, these include categories for Racial Harmony Open and Age-Groups of U10, U14 and U20 Teams (ie Team must have members comprising of minimum 2 ethnicities). Teams must register for a category that all are eligible for (i.e. it must follow at least the oldest member of the team).

๐๐ซ๐ข๐ณ๐ž ๐‘๐ฎ๐ฅ๐ž๐ฌ:

โ€ข Participants are only allowed to win 1 individual prize and 1 team prize. There will be no sharing of prizes. If participants are eligible for multiple prizes, they will receive the prize of higher value as explained below.

โ€ข If an individual qualifies for both an Open and Women/Senior prize, the former will be awarded. If an individual qualifies for both an Open/Women prize and a Junior Category prize, the former ie higher value prize will be awarded. Consequently, the next highest ranked individual within the category rankings will be awarded the category prize.

โ€ข However, teams are only allowed to win prizes within the category they have registered for.

โ€ข Organisers reserve the right to make adjustments to the prize list.

๐๐ซ๐ข๐ณ๐ž๐ฌ:
(A) Individuals
Open Category : 1st ($300 + T); 2nd ($$250 +T); 3rd ($200 +T); 4th ($150); 5th ($100); 6th ($90); 7th ($80); 8th ($70); 9th ($60); 10th ($50); 11th ($40); 12th ($30); 13th – 15th ($20 each)

Women Category : 1st ($100 + T); 2nd ($$80 +T); 3rd ($50 +T); 4th ($30); 5th ($20)

Seniors Category : 1st ($100 + T); 2nd ($$80 +T); 3rd ($50 +T); 4th ($30); 5th ($20)

Boys Under-20 Category : 1st ($50); 2nd ($$30); 3rd ($20); 4th ($10); 5th ($10)
Girls Under-20 Category : 1st ($50); 2nd ($$30); 3rd ($20); 4th ($10); 5th ($10)

Boys Under-10, Under-12, Under-14 and Under-16 Categories : Trophies for Top 5 in each category
Girls Under-10, Under-12, Under-14 and Under-16 Categories : Trophies for Top 5 in each category

*T = Trophy

(B) Team Section
Racial Harmony Team (Open) Category : 1st ($200); 2nd ($160); 3rd ($120); 4th ($80); 5th ($40)
Racial Harmony Team Age-Group (U10, U14 and U20 ) Categories : Trophies for each member of Top 3 Teams

4. Fair-Play Measures

โ€ข Final ranking and prizes will be confirmed following post-tournament games review. This will be reviewed by the Fair-Play Committee which includes GM Kevin Goh and GM Andrey Kvon. The Organiser will take the decision of this Panel as final.
โ€ข Any participant flagged by the server for violation of its Fair Play policy will be barred from receiving prizes. If the participant is a member of a team, the whole team will be barred from team prizes. Please encourage your teammates to play fairly and honestly!
โ€ข During games, players are required to join the tournament zoom call with their video cameras turned on and without a virtual background
โ€ข Tournament arbiters may specify additional fair-play measures where applicable.

5. Enquiries
Should you require clarification, please email us at [email protected].

Categories
Announcements past events Upcoming Events

1st Singapore International Chess Day Online Tournament

To celebrate International Chess Day, the #ChessAgainstCovid team is pleased to organise the first Singapore Online International Chess Day Tournament on Monday, 20 July. This event will be held from 8pm – 10pm Singapore time and up to 20 attractive prizes sponsored by various chess platforms and individuals will be announced very soon.

The tournament proceedings will be streamed live with commentary from GM Kevin Goh and FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich will join the stream to share some messages with the chess community.

At the end of the event, we will also be announcing the team line-up representing Team Singapore in the upcoming FIDE Online Olympiad!”

You may register via https://tinyurl.com/SGCelebratesIntChessDay

Remember to join this lichess team https://lichess.org/team/1st-singapore-online-international-chess-day-tournament when you submit your registration and sign in to the tournament by 7.55pm on 20 July 2020.

Winners Prize List

Categories
News Upcoming Events

List of Prizes for 1st SG International Chess Day Online Tournament – 20 July 20

We are grateful to the following sponsors:

Mr Joshua Lim Geok Hock

Mr Chua Chee Peng

Grandmaster Avetik Grigoryan of ChessMood

Mr Daniel Vanheirzeele, the CEO of Thinkers Publishing

Grandmaster Grigor Grigorov of MODERN CHESS

Check Out the following Prizes 
1) Vouchers on the popular chess education CHESSMOOD platform
2) CHESS24 Premium membership
3) Modern Chess Master Class Workshop (25-26 July 2020) on Improve Your Play in Closed Position

Book Prize List (by Thinkers Publishing)
1)       David Navara - My Chess World
2)       Francesco Rambaldi - The Caro Kann Revisited, A Complete Repertoire for Black
3)       Daniel Hausrath - Double Fianchetto, The Modern Chess Lifestyle
4)       Vladimir Tukmakov - Modern Chess Formula, The Powerful Impact of Engines
5)       Alexey Kuzmin - Together with Mamedyarov
6)       Milos Pavlovic - The Modernised Stonewall Defence
7)       Pridyadharshan Kannappan - The Modernised Berlin Wall Defense
8)       Ivan Ivanisevic - The Modernised Delayed Benoni
9)       Adrien Demuth - The Modernised Dutch Defense
10)       Christian Bauer - Candidate Moves

Happy International Chess Day!

Categories
Upcoming Events

International Online Chess Challenge – Singapore vs New York City, USA (Live!)

There are a few ways to follow the action for tonight’s match.

Official broadcast page on Chess24, with live commentary by GM Pascal Charbonneau, GM Daniel Fernandez and WGM Sabina Francesca Foiศ™or here:

Also, the Russian Steamroller, FM Andrey Terekhov has kindly agreed to host his first stream. As he is highly familiar with many of the Singaporean players, expect more personalised and emotionally charged commentary on the SG Team from Andrey here:

https://www.twitch.tv/ddt_ru

Special Thanks to our generous Sponsors: Singaporean Chess enthusiast, Mr Mr Zhang Changjie of Theme International Trading SPC, Mr Lim See Wah of Ocean Health Pte Ltd, Mr Joshua Lim and an anonymous donor, together they have generously donated a total of SGD 18,000 to Lakeside Family Services, a Singapore based charity which helps families severely affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

Categories
Upcoming Events

1St ChessAgainstCovid BugHouse Chess Challenge

CAC Online Bughouse Challenge
Date/Time: 22 May (Friday)/8pm
Venue : Chess.com server
Time Control: 3mins + 2s increment
Format : 9 Round Swiss
Register @ https://tinyurl.com/CACbughouse

A detailed writeup on the Bughouse rules are at: https://support.chess.com/article/349-bughouse.

For those who may already know the rules, but may not know the strategies, you can read some new tips and tricks here
https://www.chess.com/article/view/bughouse-chess-tips-for-beginners

Categories
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 Karaklajiฤ‡ 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 shouldnโ€™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 โ€˜Join Teamโ€™.
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 โ€˜Join Teamโ€™.
f) We will then send you a link to join the tournament. To enter it, click the link, click โ€˜Joinโ€™ and wait for the tournament to begin.

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 ๐Ÿ˜! The challenge is open to all playersโ˜บ๏ธ
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 move๐Ÿคช
They will be streaming the challenge live on twitch.tv/fmqa123 so check it out there as wellโ—๏ธ
Please do consider donating to our #ChessAgainstCovid Campaign @tinyurl.com/donatechessagainstcovid Hope to see you there! ๐Ÿ‘