How did the league come about?
(newbie_learner's view)
If you are an adult chess enthusiast like myself, you may come to the (same) opinion that there are not that many local tournaments available for adult players. For standard chess, there are only 2 major ones I participate in religiously, namely the SG City Open (some time in June, open to all players) and SG Amateurs (some time in December, for players rated within 2,000 FIDE Elo points). If your FIDE Elo points is higher than 2,000 you can play in the National Championship (some time in December). Adults are excluded from local tournaments such as the "National Age Group", which is meant for kids / teenagers to compete within their own cohort.
I'm sorry I can't bring myself to recommend other local standard tournaments which are played under non-incremental formats. I personally HATE non-incremental formats, but that's another story to blog about ^o^
For adults who are keen for blitz games, you can also consider playing at the PubXChess meetup, held on Sunday afternoons. They hold weekly free-to-play blitz tournaments, and introduce different features and initiatives from time to time to keep the format fresh and interesting.
Identifying this lack of chess avenues for adults in the local chess scene, and perhaps inspired by the great success enjoyed by the Singapore Chess Meetup initiative founded by Mr Bradley Loh, dr_chess_dad created the Adults Team Chess League (by adults for adults!)
The gist of the league format
While there may be changes introduced in the next run in 2019, which I will update once known, the format and experience should be comparable to the previous 2 runs in 2017 and 2018, especially the latest run in 2018). You can consider referring to last-year's rules and regulations, as well as the entry form on your own.
- This is an UNRATED tournament. This means that if you are an inactive player seeking to de-rust, your rating points are intact. Registration-wise, this also means that you do NOT need a FIDE ID to play in this tournament. I'm sharing this in advance because this was enquired by the new teams in the 2018 run.
- Form a team between 4 to 8 players. (This is how my team name, 8.c4! came about. It's about the mathematical nCr, "out of 8 players we have, choose 4 to play in each round", but stylised to mimic a chess move notation ^o^)
- On scheduled Friday evenings (7:30pm), field 4 players to play in the round.
- Depending on the number of teams, there will be 8-10 rounds. There were 17 teams playing 10 rounds in 2018.
- Time control is 30+30, i.e. we have the initial time of 30 minutes. With each move played, our time will be increased by 30 seconds. This qualifies the format as the quickest standard chess.
- The captain holds several important admin roles. There will be a what's app group created with just the Chief Arbiter for the tournament and the Captains. All important communications and updates are done through the Captain's Chat group, and the captains are expected to keep their team mates updated. Some specific roles include the following:
- Captains shall submit the team's lineup (i.e. who is playing on which board) by 6:30pm, 1 hour before the commencement of the round. Please submit this to the Chief Arbiter in a private message and do NOT submit it in the Captains' Chat group! Do note that you can field any player to play on any board, regardless of the players rating or playing strength (i.e. Board #1 need NOT be the strongest, and Board #4 need NOT be the weakest). The board pairings will then be published on chess results. This makes it much more difficult for any pre-game preparations as you won't know the exact opponent you are playing against.
- Captains need to update everyone in the Captains' Chat group should the team be adding players along the league. Based on last-year's convention, a newly added player can only start playing for the team after 7-days from this update. So the Captain should try to make the update of new players asap. This is to be fair to teams who are concerned with "pre-round preparation" of sorts.
- Captains will also be representing their team to vote whenever there are any issues / disputes arising, brought up in the Captain's Chat group.
- This is not really a concern for the more "social / recreation" teams, but for teams with high rated players, the current rules is that the average rating points for the 4 players fielded in any round cannot exceed 2200.
- Another important house rule is that players are not required to record moves, but if a player choose not to record moves, he/she cannot make certain claims (e.g. draw by same position occurring for the 3rd time, 50 moves made with neither captures nor pawn advancement). However, the house rules also allows players to start recording moves for such purposes at any point in the game.
On management of expectations
Do take a look at the teams composition last year. There are titled players, high-rated players (2,000 and above) playing in the tournament. Personally, I don't see this as any deterrence at all. In fact, I am always looking forward to playing them and try to learn from the games afterwards. If you are aware, we often have to pay to play titled opponents on chess servers like the Internet Chess Club (ICC). Nevertheless, I can understand that some (new) teams or players unaware of this may be in for a rude awakening. Hence, it'll be better that one manages his/her own expectations upfront.
Overall, I have made many new friends over the League, and some of my friends whom I helped to form a new team with thanked me for their wonderful experiences. Although I have received largely positive feedback, there are also chess friends / players who candidly shared that they were not placed in a team with team mates of similar playing level. All these are truthful, valuable feedback to me to reflect and improve! Ideally, I really hope that all interested players can find team mates they enjoy playing with on their own. By all means, I hope you can form a team with your own friends, or identify some of the existing teams and offer to join them.
For any "lone wolves" out there, these are my personal suggestions:
- Consider seeking out your chess friends, even the "retired" ones as early as possible. This tournament is unrated, so they don't need to be concerned about losing their rating points.
- Consider playing at one of the chess sites I'd listed on "Where to play chess in Singapore 2019". Make your intention known that you are keen to join the league when playing at these sites. The biggest source of players for the league are, without a doubt, the Singapore Chess Meetup and PubXChess. I know of Captains who immediately offered a slot for players who demonstrate good play at these sites, as well as enthusiasts who simply gather enough players to make their own team.
- Similar to last year, I don't mind playing the role of the facilitator to help any lone wolves find a team as a last resort. Based on the feedback from last year, other than providing basic information required in the application form (as well as basic contact information), I think I will also add a required information on the players expectations of their (potential) team mates. Also, I can't guarantee that I can help each and every lone wolf, as there are some very last minute ones whom I could not help. Furthermore, not all the existing team Captains are keen to take up new players, and some teams prefer to keep their membership low so that all the players get to play more games. Hence, despite offering to help, I also need to qualify that I may not always be successful (I will try my best, of course, since I am very supportive of the league, and I hope as many adult chess enthusiasts get to enjoy playing in it.)
Lone wolves who would like my help to source for a team may contact me via ongyujingAToutlookDOTcom.
Thank you for your time and consideration!
Yours sincerely
Ong Yujing (Eugene)
a.k.a. newbie_learner
Siglap South CC Chess Quartet
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