Nations Cup 2020 (I Copa Naciones Ordum 2020) - a decent showing by Chess Club Balestier!
Following the completion of the #ChessAgainstCovid charity drive where GM Kevin Goh, a truckload of young masters and a bunch of volunteers somehow raised $84,000 for those affected by the Covid19 crisis (the government matched dollar for dollar and doubled the contributions to $168,000), we thought it was time to take a well deserved rest...
However Kevin sprung this event on us, and it looked very appealing...a sort of online Chess Olympiad. The big draw was that strong GMs and IMs were amassed on the South American teams that already registered - way before the deadline. We had just overcome the New York team in a friendly charity match 41-31 by game-points and 21-15 by match-points so what's stopping us from having another go at a few countries this time?
After some virtual canvassing, we amassed 3 teams, with an all-titled lineup on Singapore Chess Club Balestier team captained by Kevin, an all ELO 2000+ (with 2 GMs. mind you) led by CM Advait Bagri representing Singapore B, and a ladies team headed by Megan Kwok.
The good thing was Kevin had set up a whatsapp group for us to trash talk before and between games and so we could psyche each other and commiserate when we blunder (frequently).
Seeded 11th out of 44 teams, we (Sgp CCB) wanted to give a good showing from the start but we had a rude shock when we lost game after game quickly and only managed to scrape back points to draw 5-5 with 33rd seed Brazil B.
So not surprisingly, we started grumbling about the long wait till round 2....which was like 40 minutes...it was like 10.50pm already..yada yada...So Kevin had to tell us to chill it and if this carries on, we consider withdrawing...We were also told by Irene that Australia had beaten Ukraine 7-3! So our mood wasn't that great....
And of all opponents to get in rd 2, we had to get Ukraine. We braced ourselves for some serious damage. To our surprise, we did an Oz.
More grumbling followed...and Kevin told us that a sort of protest was happening in the captain's chat, with ultimatums of withdrawals if Round 3 didn't start at 11.20pm...Kevin psychoed us into continuing, musing that after this big win, it would be a pity to leave, isn't it? OK...we bought his line and stayed online...with more grumbling.
We carried on our fine form with another win.
We were spurred on by Kvon's incredible 14 move demolition of his GM opponent. Xiangyi started his massive run of 'lucky' wins from desperate positions and suddenly, we were vying for the top boards. By now we were trash talking about how we might actually win the event if enough teams withdrew. It was clearly a tough task for the organizers to get to the games proper, having to key in the results of 44 teams into chess-results.com before starting the next round (not to mention handling the ladies event as well). Already it seems they have mobilized close to 30 volunteers for this massive task.
We took out the top seeds this time! However, our win was marred by 3 walkovers (not sure if they got disconnected or the players decided to go for a siesta). And since we were already on a roll, as Xiangyi put it, might as well go all the way...easy for him to say, he keeps winning those absolutely lost positions.
We held Russia! Jingyao won convincingly against the world class GM Mikhail Kobalia by calculating a combination a tad further than the Russian Olympiad team coach. Qianyun also did the impossible, turning an utterly lost game to a drawn one and then, winning it as well. Xiangyi's luck finally ran out. But 5-5 against Russia is quite something, isn't it?
At this point, there was talk in the captain's chat of the event ending by the 5th round. A few members of Singapore B actually went to sleep (it's midnight in Singapore by then) and had to be roused up to play by their frantic team members.
We were now in 3rd place but bellyaching about backaches and talking of playing Catan (Kvon claims he meant Catalan) during the intervals.
A narrow defeat to Chile dashed our hopes of finishing top 3. Not that we didn't try but their GMs really hit us badly on the top boards. Kevin grumbled he and Jingyao lost to the same Chilean opponents at the 2016 Baku Olympiad too...What can you do? Well, one more round to go...and we get...India (...gulp...).
A crushing win for us...but it was only because of 4 walkovers. Well, that's the end of the event and we had already scored 4 points from the other 6 boards so I think we did well anyway.
So we finished 6th overall, not bad for a team seeded 11th, right?
The Singapore B team finished 13th after being seeded 25th...more pats on the back (virtual ones...no thanks to Covid19) while the Ladies team's 8th position when their ratings meant they should finish 2nd last (out of 15 teams) was really impressive!
Xiangyi scored the highest among us with 6 out of 7 points but the 'board prize' goes to the 'Hobbit' - FM Lee Qing Aun, who earned the 'bronze medal' on Board 6 with this result.
The champion of the event was Chile (too hot for us to handle) with Greece and Rest of the World A rounding up the top 3. Congrats to them!
I shall now show you one game each from the team members (except Xiangyi, who gets two because you really got to see how much luck he can ride on).
Games Section
IM Tin Jingyao, our current National Champion is our next best hope for the GM title. He has one norm and according to GM Daniel Fernandez, can calculate impressively and accurately. Here, he takes out a world class Russian GM with impressive calculation.
GM Andrey Kvon has been coaching and developing top juniors for quite a while in Singapore already. Here he demonstrates his fearsome theoretical prowess. When was the last time you saw a GM decimated in 14 moves...with Black?
GM Kevin Goh hasn't been training much, focusing all his efforts on the ChessAgainstCovid charity but he still knows how to put them away on demand. We don't call him Rex (the Tyrannosaurus type) for nothing as he is inclined to seize the whole board and then take a big bite to end the game.
Nobody really knows why Tim with 3 IM norms and 7 points to claim the title, doesn't go on to complete it. Now that he is a full fledged lawyer working crazy hours, it's even harder. He still packs quite the punch for a retired dude...
Irene comes to Singapore to train regularly and probably knows all the food joints as well as us. She is quite the traveller and must have amassed a truckload of frequent flier miles (which she can't use now) . Here, she brings us from London to Greece in 21 moves.
The Luck of the Liu just keeps flowing...Xiangyi really rode it all in this event, winning game after game from crap positions to emerge our MVP with 6/7! Watch these two examples and shake your head...he can't believe it himself...
Our 'Tahan' Queen, WGM Gong Qianyun waited for her Russian opponent...and waited and waited...and he appeared with 6 seconds left on the clock...so he was virtually playing 0.something min+ 2 seconds increment against her...and proceeded to outplay her totally. She just kept the game going and in the meantime...borrowed some of Xiangyi's fortune cookies....and this was what happened.
FM Lee Qing Aun continues his fine vein of form from the Sgp vs New York match, and made an 'online IM norm' (no such thing of course) by holding his own vs IMs and GMs. Here, he was on the ropes but conned a GM with an unexpected bishop poke.
FM Lee Jun Wei loves to play with space, the more the merrier. He just takes it all and doesn't give anything back (what a miser) in the next example.
OK. Finally, your scribe's game. I confess I was just playing for time and didn't have a concrete plan to finish my opponent off after getting a big position. But all's well that ends well...
Thanks for reading! It's nice to participate in such team initiatives amid the bantering with pals indeed!
