A Great Chess Event on 29 July 2018 (part 1)

It was the Nanyang Racial Harmony Team Chess Challenge 2018! (You can probably play around with this link to see how much fun everyone had ^o^)

As per my usual style, I have randomised the order of the games and not identify my opponents to discourage their identity be linked to the specific games. But I do want to do some special shout-outs on the following!

First, there were many more teams consisting of players from the QCD Adults Chess League! I did a quick "conversion table" below:

QCD Team -> NYCC Team
1. Woof! Woof! + Woof! Woof! Woof! -> I Move You Resign
2. Pokemonsters Resurgence -> Pokemonsters Rapid
3. Wolverines + Thomsformers + 8.c4! -> O-O-O (my team!) 
4. The Asia-Squared Bishops -> Knight Promotion Team

Second, but more importantly, I wanted to zoom into my encounter with Knight Promotion Team. I happen to know all the 4 players from the team and I have played chess games with all of them at least once. I didn't know I was so "hated" by their team captain, Julien, telling his team mate and my opponent, Anthony, that he would have wanted to play on Board #3 to face me, lol. What's more important, was the sportsmanship display from Knight Promotion Team. During the game, there were multiple occasions of my team including myself pressing the wrong clock (because the boards were packed so closely together to cater to the over-whelming response). And there was 1 occasion whereby I had even forgotten to press my clock, but my opponent, Anthony, was sporting enough to remind me about it. I think their team fully deserves to beat us 4-0 in round 3 =)

My team 0-0-0 on your left, the Knight Promotion Team on your right.

Enough said. Here are the "Best" and "Most" games I played:

Most Educative Game (we learn most from our losses)
So much I have to say about this game -- you have to read all the text I wrote in the annotations.

Learning Points / Reflections on this Game:

• For true improvement, I think I should've bite the bullet and learn to play against KID head-on. Right now, I have been trying to side-stepping the issue with 1.e4, hoping to get into specific setups I like against it, but see how fragile things become when even I got lost in the whole set of complications/transpositions. I should not have betrayed my nature (to be honest 1.e4 doesn't go well with my personal style -- though I have to say it does generate quite interesting games of more direct attack / defence). 
• No complaints about the loss -- I was genuinely outplayed from start to finish. My opponent demonstrated clear understanding of the demands of the position. Also, from a chess-karma point of view, I deserve to lose for betraying my own nature =)
• Maybe I should just go back to what I play best and forget about 1.e4 altogether...

Too tired to finish up the coverage in 1 go, but these are remaining category of games I have:

Games that I should not have lost (2 games -- lost because of endgame grind. poor time management played a part too)

Games that I should not have won (2 games -- 1 was against an opponent who lacked tournament experience. His general play was good but his mistake was to try to beat me on time and he compromised the quality of his moves as a result Another game went similar -- just that surprisingly, it was against a regular tournament player -- goes to show that "common sense in chess" is not so common after all.

Games that "didn't matter" (2 games -- 1 was against pure beginner who unfortunately still hangs pawns and pieces -- no shame as we were all there once, another was a horrible blunder-fest committed by myself under fatigue). 

My team consisting of Santoso, Warren, myself and Thai Ee

Last but not least, let's end this first part with my team's photo and the Name Plate Card I stole after the end of the tournament  =) 

Thank you for reading!

Yours sincerely

Ong Yujing

(a.k.a. newbie_learner)