ISCA Singapore Chess League - Dreamers retain their title

Generally, chess tournaments in Singapore are held over the weekends so that the main group of competitors - students and youngsters can unwind over the weekend after tough schooling weekdays. There are exceptions of course, like Bishan Chess Club frequently holds Swiss blitz or rapid events during their weekday sessions. Singaporeans are generally not known for work life balance - we are widely recognized as one of the most overworked places in the world.  So it is quite a challenge for the fatigued Singaporean wage earner even to spend the weekends trying to outwit those definitely way underrated juniors in the heavily packed events (nowadays not uncommon to see a hundred plus players in a local swiss).

SCF's ISCA League is a great way to get those who still enjoy competitive play and especially team chess where part of the fun is in bonding with fellow players and opponents. Also, by scheduling the rounds once per week on Friday evening, the players will not burn their precious weekend and then obsess over what might have been during the next work week.

Allowing the teams to have up  9 players also makes it much easier to field 4 players at a go.  The event was played in the heart of Singapore's commercial district - Shenton Way, at ISCA  House.

So 16 teams competed and there were also 16 masters in their folds. Former top juniors, university players, Filipino chess trainers, tournament regular 'unkers', Civil Servants were also well represented in the event.  The top seeds for the event were chock-full of 2000+ type players as you can see below.

Intchess comprises mainly Filipino chess trainers/masters (including 1 IM and 3 FMs) and they also have a couple of former Singaporean National players in their ranks.  On Kramnik's Radar is no less formidable, with many strong master level university students  in their fold (1 IM, 2 FMs and 1 CM). As I explained in my previous blogpost,  Dreamers are made up of working professionals aged 30+ and above and the very youthful Skrubs team members are all 20 year old youngsters. It is also evident that the Sa-fice team were all former National Junior Squad members /buddies from the early 2000s (they were all born in 1989 and 1990) and they have 3 former Olympians to beef up their current 'squad'.  

Skrubs gave notice of their intentions to contend for the title by edging out On Kramnik's Radar  2.5-1.5. The team had 2 players who were on red-hot form throughout the event with Marcus Chen scoring 6/6 and Christian Sean Goh 7/7.

Skrubs and Intchess/Mind Movers struck mortal blows to their rivals when the former edged out Dreamers 2.5-1.5 while the latter crushed Sa-fice 3.5-0.5 in Round 3. 

The other teams were left to play catch-up to Skrubs when they became the only team to win  the first 4 rounds but subsequent 2-2 draws against Sa-fice and Petrosian Horse allowed Dreamers to catch up on match points by the end of Round 6. So it all boiled down to which team could amass more game points in the final 3 rounds to decide the champion team. As mentioned in my previous blogpost, Dreamers surged into the lead (by tiebreak) with a 3.5-0.5 crush of On Kramnik's Radar.

The battle for 3rd placing was decided on the 4th tiebreak(!) (Buchholz Tie-Break - Gamepoints, Cut1) when Intchess and On Kramnik's Radar were evenly matched on match points, game points and personal enounter. Both teams also crushed their final round opponents 4-zip. One crucial game that secured 3rd place for Intchess was this.

Intchess Team in Round 9 -(facing camera) photo credit- Dr J Nithiananthan

At the end of  Round 8, Dreamers led the event by 1 game point (match points both 14, gamepoints 22.5 -Dreamers, 21.5 Skrubs). By the time Skrubs had beaten  SiVIKA Oldies 3-1, Dreamers had scored 2-1 against 64 Shades of Black and White  and Dreamers' WFM Liu Yang had to hold a draw against Aldrin Wong with Black in order for Dreamers to clinch the title by 1/2 pt.

We follow the action in this crucial final game -

So Dreamers once again won the event on tiebreak (the last time in 2019, they won the Singapore Chess League (sponsored by QCD) from the largely German dominated Chess Mates team.
Dreamers selfies from earlier rounds - Credit - Joshua Lim

Here are two interesting games from the event -

Teo Hong Ming, an NTU business major freshman, is currently in the SCF NTP Men's squad  and he dealt GM Wong Meng Kong the only loss he had in the event. with a powerful 'first serve' and the GM was backpedaling throughout the game.

Dreamer's FM Jarred Neubronner decided to gamble on a complicated Tal-like piece sacrifice against On Kramnik's Radar's FM Lee Qing Aun with the latter in time trouble...

Final Results - ISCA Sg Chess League