Photos: Aki Lye

Reported by Clement Tay

Hall V C.Chess team has reached the semis!

The team comprises of:

Zhengyong (Captain), Boon Liang, K Luon, Derrick, Lance, Yong Leong and Jiawei.

With an initial target of improving on last year's results, the team aimed for quarters this year. The team trained hard as they played chess hours after hours with each other. They held sessions to exchange tips, and also let the experienced players give pointers to the freshies. The seniors also gave inputs on their experience last year to the Captain, and together helped to decide the best strategy to field the players. Knowing that the substitution system for the game was, unlike most others which used the push up system, going to to be direct substitution, they planned the best was to field the players. This proved crucial to Hall V's push for the top.

Our first match would be against Hall 6, who were never going to be easy opponents. We won the game 4-1 though, with K Luon beating the capped player of Hall 6. With the first victory under our belts, the team was seemingly confident. However, the next 2 matches were close games against Hall 8 and Hall 13, and we managed to draw both Halls. The draw against Hall 13 was even more so exciting, as K Luon managed to beat their Captain, who had played for NTU. A huge sigh of relief was seen on their faces when they realised that they did not lose, but draw with us when the last board ended.

The next day proved to be equally exciting, with a close fought 3-2 victory against Hall 2, which reached the semis last year, and a 5-0 victory against Hall 3. On an undefeated streak, the team looked to face Hall 14 and Hall 4 in the 3rd day. They emerged victorious again for both games. However, with Hall 13 also being undefeated, and having 0.5 pts more than us, we took 2nd seed for the group.

The excitement of being in the semis did not daunt our team. Coupled with the fact that Hall 9, our next opponents and the defending champions, had just lost their last match to Hall 11, the team felt that it was possible. The team stayed up till 3am to train and discuss further strategies, as well as after repeating Hall 9's moves after observation through umpiring their games.

 ----- TBC-----