AAG2013 HAPPENINGS

The Standard Chess event started on Saturday 8 June at the Imperial Mae Ping Hotel in Chiang Mai Thailand. Singapore has the largest contingent of trainers here, working hard round the clock to guide the players before each game and post-mortems after.

I was taking care of my 3 charges, 2 of which were ill from flu and recovering from fever and cough. But I am very proud of them as they showed good spirit, played their games with grit and managed decent scores.

Royce Tan is currently on 2.5 out of 3 points, scheduled to meet the Indonesian 4th place finisher at Hue last year. Our preparations have been most useful in anticipating the positions that we are confident in scoring. Most U10 players do not pay much attention to their openings so it is a great boost of confidence when we see our preparation yield results. I am counting on 2 more wins today from Royce so that he gets the award of going to the next AAG with a 50% subsidy as promised by SCF President Ignatius Leong!

Hui Ling scored 1 out of 3 games, but she had a winning attack which could have been converted to a full point if only she had remembered her plans shown in our earlier lessons. Having known her Rd 3 opponent was the WCM Teh De Jen, she managed to hold the Malaysian star to a draw in spite of her health condition
and I was very proud of her achievement. Today she will be playing White.

Shi Hao has so far scored 1 out of 3 inspite of an incessant cough that bugged him from the start of the event, but recovering. Hopefully he gets to do well today.

Seeing the familiar faces from the Malaysian contingent like Greg Lau, Mok, KK Chan reminded me how long it has been since the last Singapore vs Malaysia match. It was good catching up on news and happenings and forging stronger bonds of collaboration and understanding.

More to come.

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