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THE TOURNAMENT

It was business as usual but owing to some entries that came in after closing date causing some confusion, the tournament start was delayed by 20 minutes. Eventually we managed to close the gap in between rounds to finish at 6pm regardless.

For the Seniors section we have Lee Qing Aun, Edwin Lam, Shawn Yong, Osric Mooi and Jimmy Ng while Alexander Chan, Marcus Chen and Jeremiah Xie were the top seeds in the Juniors section. A good mix of adults and children.

The Thomson Chess Club Championship is unique in that we do not offer cash nor trophies as prizes, but used chess books. This is to entice the good habit of self-learning amongst chess-players. I vividly remember the days where chess instrruction was only available if you go to chess clubs and well-meaning seniors show you a thing or two if they chose to. Hence my fondness for collecting good chess books, which I now offer to the next generation so that they too can benefit.

8 prizes out of 40 participants per Section meant 16 happy prizewinners, the Champion being Lee Qing Aun who scored 6.5 pts followed by Shawn Yong.Osric and Jimmy Ng. Royce Tan performed impressively on 5 with wins over Jimmy and Anoop Jayaraj and had Shawn Yong on the ropes before blundering near time trouble. Zhong Kai lost the first 2 but regained his form to finish on 4 (including a walkover from Winston Low).

Alexander Chan made perfect score of 7 pts, followed by Marcus Chen  and Jaryl Lee on 5.5 . My students Isaiah, Nash and Nicholas made 4 pts and 4.5 respectively while Qi Xuan only managed 3.5. Ryan was still finding his way in the openings so he only got 3 along with Cadence. Bringing up the rear was Caleb. 

I'd say most of the players enjoyed themselves and we hope that they will join us on our Friday sessions taking place from 730pm to 10pm. I am revising the opening hours because I realise nobody comes on in at 7. We have our adults league and endgame league still on-going. 

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