Young kNYghts Chess Challenge 2021

With the cancellation of the immensely popular over-the-board annual Nanyang Chess Challenge 2021 due to Covid restrictions, and thanks to the influx of sponsorship funds from an NY parent (who insisted on remaining anonymous), the online Young kNYghts Invitational Challenge was brought back in its 2nd edition, this time with both Upper Primary and Lower Primary categories (following the success of the online Young kNYghts Challenge 2020 for Lower Primary only).

Co-run by a couple of NYPS chess club parents + your scribe and with additional sponsorship of Decodechess subscriptions for prizewinners, it was decided that the Young kNYghts Invitational Challenge 2021 would be held in a similar fashion to the Nanyang Chess Challenge (a 6-round Rapid event, with the same categories (LP/UP)), albeit with the event being played on an online chess server instead of the NYPS school hall.

The promotional E-posters for the event (credit: Lim Peck Seah)

With the blessings of the NYPS PTA, the event was broadcasted to the class WhatsApp groups 2 weeks before the event, and the response was tremendous, with more than 80 signups. To make the event more diverse, we came up with the idea to invite schools with a strong chess culture to take part as well, also with an eye to what was a comfortable number of players we could manageably accept given our manpower of 3 volunteers(!). We thus invited the schools which had the highest number of participants in the 2021 National Schools Individual event and ultimately we ended up with 132 participants, 81 in the Lower Primary Category and 51 in the Upper Primary Category.

The event started at 9.30am on 31st July and after 6 hard fought rounds, it finally concluded at 1pm.

In the Lower Primary Category, Ng See Jen, a Primary 3 student from Northland Primary School, emerged the Champion with a perfect score (6/6). See Jen, who finished a clear point ahead of 6 other players, had recently represented Singapore in the U9 Girls category of the Asian Schools Online Championships. Marius Neo of Nanyang Primary School and Jarrell Cheng of Northland Primary School, both in P3, finished 2nd and 3rd respectively, thanks to their superior tiebreaks.

In the Upper Primary Category, it was Nanyang Primary's Zachary Chia Min (P6) who took pole position with a picket fence score as well (6/6), half a point ahead of Julian Wang (P4, from Singapore International School). Nanyang Primary's Jacob Wee (P4) seized 3rd place from Guangyang Primary’s Tanush Kapoor (both finished with 5/6), courtesy of his higher tiebreak.

These 6 players will get a Decodechess subscription worth $100 to go along with their big 37cm trophy! Let's not forget the other winners as well

Lower Primary Category

Upper Primary Category

Special Prizes

We would like to thank our generous NY parent sponsor as well as Decodechess for the prizes and also the participants for the tough matches to make this event a success!

Complete Results:

Lower Primary Category, 6 round Swiss, 81 players, 10min + 5 sec increment.

Upper Primary Category, 6 round Swiss, 51 players, 10 min + 5 sec increment.