THOUGHTS OF A CHESS ADDICT

  I had 8 students playing in this tournament, as I believe that they can practice their thinking and vision skills better in a 1 hr per side game. All except 1 won trophies, which was a good result for any trainer. Here I want to give some comments on their performance: Mitchell, being the oldest in terms of age but relative young (in terms of tutelage) in my group, once again topped the list of my students' performance with a solid 5.5/7 score. His game against Alfred ,although blemished at the end to a draw, was well-conducted in accordance to his style. What I was impressed about him was the determination he set out to play each game to fully utilise his time and made generally good decisions. I am sure this will translate into another 30 rating pts thereabouts.  Adrian as usual, missed the chance to end up in the top 10 finishers not because of lack of playing strength but lack of determination. His last round game against Lew Zhi Hong started not well but he managed to ...

The tournament has 2 sections, the Open for those 1601 and above and the Novice Section for those rated 1600 and under. Shi Hao and Mitchell took part, with Shi Hao ending on 3.5 and Mitchell on 4.5. He was placed 23rd in the field of 96 players, beating Foo Kai En in the last round who's rated 1392. He should get about 30 rating pts from this tournament. What matters to me is not so much just the results but tbe valuable lessons one learns during the course of the seven games. When Mitchell started off his first game, he lost it in about 20 minutes. What he was not aware of is the time management of his game which needs a little adjustment. He was working out 1 variation which he saw and did not try to see other moves which could be better. After explaining to him that the purpose of spending time was to first SELECT the candidate moves, evaluate the resultant position of EACH candidate move and then picking the best of the lot. Hence the need to take one's time to do this, es...

7 students took part in the just concluded Queenstown Age-Group with varying results. There were 2 prize winners, Nicholas Low who was 5th in the U10 and Matthew Sim who was 4th. The Primary Section was won by Ashvin Sivakumar while Ting JinYao won the Secondary Section.  WIth my prize-winning students Both got 4/7 pts. Dan Peng lost his last game to finish at 4/7, which is already great improvement considering that he did only 2.5pts at the National Schools Individual in March. I was pleasantly surprised when my first-time participant student T  had Gregory Loh on the ropes on her first major chess game! She was totally winning but stalemated. T showed great composure, taking her time and diligently followed my instructions in recording her moves and looking at threats. She certainly has the temperament for chess if she pursues it with more fervour.  For those who did not achieve the desired 4pts, they would need to examine the games to reflect on the typical mistakes ...