About the QCD Adults Team Chess League
Just in case the reader is not aware, the QCD Adults Team Chess League is a platform for adult chess players (aged 20 and above) to play fellow adult players in Singapore. Currently, the local chess tournaments are mostly kids/teenagers centric — to give an extreme example, Adult players no longer qualify to play the national age group chess championship =)
On scheduled Friday Evenings, teams of 4 will pit themselves against one another. Teams may have up to a maximum of 8 players, but only 4 players will play in a round. The games are unrated, so players inactive for a long time may return to “derust” without fearing the loss of rating points.
The time control is the “fastest slow chess”, i.e. 30 minutes initial time + 30 seconds increment per move made. This just qualifies as “standard” chess as a game is considered to be played under standard time control so long as each side has 1 hour of thinking time. And the convention is to assume that 60 moves are made (i.e. 30 minutes initial time + 30 seconds X 60 moves = 60 minutes).
Before the game
Today, my work department was away in the afternoon to walk around Botanic Gardens. It certainly felt healthier to sweat it out (though it could have contributed to some fatigue). Also, because I fear “falling asleep” during the game, I actually ate very little for dinner (and celebrated this dramatic game with McDonalds for supper afterwards LOL).
Also, because my team was unable to field 4 players, we actually made an apology and informed our opponent team in advance — we’d rather forfeit the game upfront without requiring the opponent player to come all the way down, just to press the clock and wait for 30 minutes to claim a win. Not a nice feeling (something my team won’t do onto others). Am glad I’m in a team that plays observes such nice gestures and etiquette ^o^
The dramatic game — yet again!
It was another dramatic game, something I’m decently proud of in certain aspects, while embarrassed in others. Here goes:
- 1.e4 — my chess friends who know me for a longer time know that this is not my “natural” opening. But I simply feel like trying it out. To be honest, the fact that my team is starting with 1 game deficit, and that I was taking the White pieces did contribute to this probably non-objective choice. Still, I don’t regret it. (I do feel like playing 1.e4 in games I really want to try winning these days.)
- The same pattern arises — Got into a bad position out of the openings, switch to complete draw/defensive mode. In fact, I don’t know how I feel when my opponent made a practical decision, sacrificing (a Bishop for 2 pawns) in an completely equal position to exploit my severe time disadvantage. But I did find a brilliant move to repel the attack at that big moment.
- Being in severe time trouble (again, I repeated my feat of pressing the clock with 1 second left! And I do proclaim again that it was not deliberate — my position was bad enough to demand that amount of time and effort), I quickly turned away and hunted down the team’s scoresheet– unfortunately, it was 2-1 against my team (But full credits to my team mate, Mark Liew, for playing with a cold and beating a much higher rated opponent in the rating range of 19XX.)
- This looking away from the Board was my biggest off-the-board mistake. BIG LESSON for me tonight. Almost immediately after this distraction, I made a horrible blunder on the board, dropping an absolutely crucial pawn and immediately went from a promising position (I could have winning chances if I defend off and simplify the position) to a dead lost position. I really was contemplating whether to resign, but because this was a team event (and every game counts in the case of a tie in the big team score), I actually played with psychology tactics and offered a draw in this lost position — if my opponent was contented with a team victory, he could have accepted it. (I won’t do this in an individual game setting — that’s not a good etiquette). Anyway, I did not pester my opponent with more draw offers afterwards.
- My opponent declined, naturally — had he wanted a draw, he won’t have declined the equal position to begin with. Still, his time was also getting low, an he couldn’t resist the temptation to take a free piece. Here, I simply had nothing to lose — if the perpetual check fails, I would have simply resigned. Luckily for me, it worked, and I saved half a point in the end (even though I blew the chance to win if I didn’t make that huge blunder). Still, this maintains my ‘title’ as the “Minister of Defence” for my team so far — 3 games played, 3 draws, my team mates are requesting I take the Black pieces for all remaining games ahead, LOL
Without further ado, here is this dramatic game! And kudos to my opponent. He has not played for decades, but I’m sure he must be quite good when he was active. And he is aware of the Singapore Chess Meetup, which is great!
Thank you for your blessing, Caissa, and thank you reader for your time!
(source: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dryades)
In honour of Caissa!
forkandpin 