In the late evening of lucky Friday the 13th, six of Caissa’s Advanced group players, accompanied by several supporters, boarded our national carrier to fly to Singapore and participate in the 2013 Serangoon Inter-Team Chess Championship.

 

Team 1: Open Rated Mixed 4 Members Team – David, Koji, Richard and Miguel Angel

 

Team 2: U16 Unrated Mixed 2 members Team – Bryant and Mei Jing

 

The tournament was not that large scale with a total of some 25 teams, but it was well organized and pleasantly located in a quiet residential neighborhood it was a worthwhile test for our Caissa teams gaining experience playing abroad. It was nice also, that Bryant had secured a handful of local supporters through his family who watched with interest how this chess tournament evolved over two days.

In 7 rounds Swiss, first 4 rounds on Saturday afternoon and 3 on Sunday morning, the top teams would qualify for the knock out rounds on Sunday afternoon.

 

Koji played very convincingly and with 6 out of 7 grossed most points for Team 1 in this stage of the tournament, followed by David with 5 points, Richard with 3 points and Miguel Angel, who at the airport was doubtful to even join us because of slight fever and other such symptoms, with 2 points.

 

In the overall ranking Team 1 ended 5^th and in the Open Rated category all players could collect a medal for 3^rd prize – and on to the knock out rounds!

Mei Jing and Bryant in Team 2 actually played a round robin and Mei Jing was in very good form scoring 4 wins out of 6 and with Bryant’s win that was also enough to qualify for a 1^st Prize medal in U16 Unrated category and play some more chess in the knock out stages…

 

Team 1 in the 1/16 finals steamed on with 3 wins and a draw (Miguel Angel) and went on to 1/8^th finals. Unfortunately this time the scoring engine Koji had a small hick-up and the point scored by David and the draw by Miguel Angel was not enough to go to the quarter finals.

In Team 2 Bryant had a good chance to repair Mei Jing’s loss in a King + Pawn against King end game but a stalemate prevented Bryant to claim the full point and Team 2 was also out in the 1/8^th finals.

 

A good chess experience richer, Caissa will definitely be going to other places.