Yuhua Chess Club

Congratulations to our IGL, FM Siddharth Jagadeesh for attaining his 2nd IM norm! And he made it by wearing our Yuhua Chess Club volunteer shirt too. 😍

𝐎𝐧𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐩 𝐭𝐨𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐈𝐌 𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐥𝐞 - 𝐅𝐌 𝐒𝐢𝐝𝐝𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐡 𝐉𝐚𝐠𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐞𝐬𝐡 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐬 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝟐𝐧𝐝 𝐈𝐌 𝐧𝐨𝐫𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐰𝐚𝐲

After a month and 3 closed GM events in Hungary where probable wins and draws turned to naught, Siddharth Jagadeesh was reeling from the missed opportunities where desperation during play drove him to take overt risks. So First Saturday GM September 2021, Vezerkepzo GM September 2021 and White Horse GM 2021 came and went and despite him pushing hard for the IM norm, all he could achieve was to retain his 2336 rating after 27 games.

And finally it all clicked together in the First Saturday GM October event. Although he only won 3 games in that final event, 2 of them were against Grandmasters, with GM Misa Pap and Lajos Seres on the receiving end after marathon games of attrition. In the final round, a 30-move draw against the eventual tournament winner GM David Berczes ensured that Siddharth had clinched the IM norm with his 5.5/9 score and a TPR of 2485!

The Round 2 win over Serbian GM Misa Pap was particularly fulfilling for Siddharth as he had overpressed against the latter in the 2018 Boblingen Open and lost an IM norm opportunity.

Click link below for FM Siddharth Jagadeesh – GM Misa Pap FSGM Oct 2021 game
https://share.chessbase.com/SharedGames/share/?p=SnuKzUq/XYcaSYbBOQSIt6dqbn46EjR1cEHcbjNycr/9B4qwUicSlM4zAEDrZRTi

So congratulations to 14 year old Siddharth as his 18.5 Elo point gain brings him up to 2351, and 6th position in the Singapore chess rating. Not a bad way to end a month long chess expedition! There is an apt quote from the late, great Winston Churchill to describe his situation - “Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”

𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐒𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝐆𝐌 𝐎𝐜𝐭 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟏 𝐜𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞
http://chess-results.com/tnr581936.aspx?lan=1&art=4&flag=30

𝐒𝐢𝐝𝐝𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐡’𝐬 𝐑𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐬
http://chess-results.com/tnr581936.aspx?lan=1&art=9&fed=SGP&flag=30&snr=7

The results of the SGChessHub@JurongSpring National Day Online Blitz Chess Championship 2021 are published on the website
https://chessagainstcovid.com/2021/08/24/sgchesshubjurongspring-national-day-online-blitz-chess-championship-2021-results-and-prize-winners/

All winners will be notified by email when the prizes🏆are ready for collection. Congratulations to all who took part😊

The first *SGChessHub@JurongSpring* Interest Group session will be held on Saturday, 28 August 2021. If you wish to sign up as a member, you can do so at https://tinyurl.com/SgCHMemberRegn.

Thank you for supporting the event! 🤗

Cheers,
SGChessHub@JurongSpring

SGChessHub@JurongSpring Membership Application Thank you for your interest in applying to be a member of the SGChessHub@JurongSpring. Th SGChessHub@JurongSpring Chess Interest Group (IG), supported by the Jurong Spring Community Club, is led by Grandmaster Kevin Goh and run together with volunteer SG chess masters and enthusiasts (aka IG Leaders...

Hi all! :D
Registration for the SGChessHub Jurong Spring National Day Online Blitz Chess Championship is closing soon!
Registration Closing Date : 17 August 2021 @ 2359hrs.
Registration form is at : https:/tinyurl.com/SGChessHubBlitz21

So far, we have 123 registered players. For those who have signed up and would like to look for team members to form the Racial Harmony Team, you can view the list of participants (as of 14 Aug) at:

https://chessagainstcovid.com/2021/08/14/sgchesshubjurongspring-national-day-online-blitz-chess-championship-2021/

Cheers.😁

SGChessHub@JurongSpring National Day Online Blitz Chess Championship 2021 - Chess Against Covid Join us as we celebrate National Day with the launch of SGChessHub at the newly renovated Jurong Spring Community Centre on 21 August 2021. We look forward to the restarting the physical over-the-board session of the Chess Interest Group (IG) at Jurong Spring CC once the Covid-19 safety management m...

Have you signed up for the National Day Online Blitz Championship yet? 😊
Stand a chance to win up to $300 in individual prizes and $200 in team prizes!🏆
Sign up now at tinyurl.com/SGChessHubBlitz21

Dear all,
I would like to announce that with effect from 9 August 2021, the "CAC" team will be moving to Jurong Spring Community Centre located at 8 Jurong West Street 52, Singapore 649296. With this move, Yuhua Chess Club will officially be closed.

We would like to thank Yuhua Community Centre, especially Dr. Ang Hak Seng, Mr. Goh Miaoguang and his team members for the invaluable support they had provided us. In having over 150 registered members from all over the island, a weekly schedule filled with different activities conducted by various chess masters and enthusiasts, an active discord server, and several highly successful online initiatives, I believe Yuhua and CAC have built something truly special and I hope that we could partner again in the near future.

We have put considerable thought in this and while this was a really difficult decision, we believe that this move would better cater to the needs and demands of our club. Jurong Spring is a freshly renovated facility with bigger capacity that can accomodate the size of our membership. I would like to thank Mr. Shawn Huang, MP for Jurong GRC for Jurong Spring, and his team for supporting our quest to build a Chess Hub that we would be proud of.

We will provide information on how to register as members of this new club at a later date.

And to celebrate the launch of SG Chesshub @ Jurong Spring, we are pleased to announce the first SG Chesshub @ Jurong Spring National Day Online Blitz Championship 2021. This will be a 11-round online blitz event with attractive individual and team prizes with Shawn as our guest to address us.

Do scan the QR code to register for further details and we look forward to seeing you!

Follow our new page on Facebook SGChessHub Jurong Spring :)
Kevin
On behalf of CAC

Our warmest congratulations to IM Tin Jingyao for his remarkable performance at the 2021 Asian Invitational Hybrid Chess Championship and we will all be rooting for him in the World Cup 🇸🇬💪🎉

Thank you to everyone who participated enthusiastically in our online puzzle challenge!🤓

Below are the answers to the 4 puzzles (note: first 2 are Black to play, last 2 are White to play).

Puzzle 1: 1...Ng3+! 2.hxg3 Ra8! -+ (Checkmate with Rh8 is virtually unstoppable). If 2. Qxg3 then Rxb1 -+
Puzzle 2: 1...Qxh4 2.gxh4 Bh2 #
Puzzle 3: 1.Nxh7! Kxh7 2.Nxf7 Rxf7 3.Qxg6+ Kg8 4.Qh7+ Kf8 5.Qh8 # (2.Nxg6 does not work due to either 2...f5 or 2...Kg8)
If 1...Nxe5 then 2.fxe5 Kxh7 3.Rxf7! Rxf7 4.Qxg6+ Kg8 5.Qh7+ Kf8 4.Qh8 #.
Puzzle 4: 1.Rxe6 Bxe6 2.Qxa6 Kf7 3.Re3! Bxb3 4.Qa7+ Kf8 5.Rxe8 Kxe8 6.Qxg7+-
(If 1...Rxd6 then 2.Rxe8 Kh7 3.Rh3 Qh6 4.Re7 Kh8 5.Rxh6 #

Hope everyone learnt some new chess ideas from these puzzles!😄

Here's the 4 Puzzles for the SGChessHub-Jurong Online Chess Puzzle Solving Challenge! 😛

The first 2 puzzles are Black to move and win, while the last 2 are White to move and win. Do DM your answers to our page or our Instagram page to see if your answers are correct 😄

Happy Solving!

In last Saturday's (8/5/2021) session, led by FM Lee Qing Aun and Ryan Chua, the 1st SG Chess Hub- Jurong Blitz event was conducted! The event was a hard fought Swiss among 28 players, with Royce Ho eventually emerging champion with an almost-perfect 10/11! He was followed by Kek Wei Chuan in 2nd and Sanjay Vasu in 3rd.

FMs Lee Qing Aun and Ashvin Sivakumar also provided live Twitch commentary during the event! You can check out the stream at twitch.tv/fmqa123

Thank you to everyone for your enthusiastic participation :) See you guys at the next event!

Check out some cool shots of our Yuhua Chess Club players from last Saturday’s session! Such concentration and seriousness💪🏼

Much thanks to Bernard Carleton Lim for his wizardry with the camera and on the chessboard!😊

This week featured a “Beat the IGLs Segment”, where we had IM Tin Jingyao and Carleton battling members of the interest group, simultaneous exhibition style! IGLs rotate in their ‘pods’ and combatants must make their moves once the IGL arrives at their boards! Rapid time control of 10+10 is imposed on the final remaining 4 boards!

In the first half of the session, both Jingyao and Carleton went unbeaten in their pools. Honourable mentions to Royce who gave the IM a complex middlegame arising from the Caro-Kann defence with neither side castling for the entire game. By move 30, Royce had advanced his h-pawn to the 7th rank and had several opportunities to win, but one fatal mistake caused his king to be trapped in an inescapable mating net and checkmate in 3 was forced on move 37.
Velmurugan put up the strongest resistance in Carleton’s pool, having forced him to play an awkward open King side structure (in almost B**g cloud fashion) in the middle game, leading into dangerous unobstructed batteries in the e file. Alas, an unfortunate miscalculation towards the endgame meant playing with one minor piece less, and that was enough to turn the tides to the IGL’s favour.

IGL blood was spilled in the second session! Sudarsh was the only participant to score a win against the IM, and did so in extremely convincing fashion, forcing resignation in a mere 18 moves! In the Caro-Kann defence once again, a dubious opening choice followed by a crucial mistake on move 8 by black gave Sudarsh a dominating position the computers declared to be decisive. After a series of accurate and active moves from the contestant, Jingyao found his king to be trapped in the centre of the board with no better way to escape checkmate than to sacrifice his Queen.

In Carleton’s group, Sanjay stormed Carleton’s King side early on and asserted positional dominance to secure crushing victory! Honorable mentions to Aaradhya and Haresh who managed to lock down their positions to draw their games!

In total, the IGL pair scored 27 points and Members secured 3 points! We thank the community for their time and support in attending our weekly sessions! Do drop us your comments and feedback, and we will strive to improve your Saturday chess experience!

The last couple of sessions featured deep instructive content from our volunteer IGLs!

Firstly, in the week of 10th April, FM Siddharth Jagadeesh and his Dad FI Jagadeesh Balakrishnan presented a short introduction of the legendary Viktor Korchnoi who many consider as one of the strongest players in history to have never become World Champion. The following key points were presented:

1) Korchnoi faced several personal challenges but he fought on for the love of chess
2) His longevity in chess ( playing for over 70 years) at the top level is an inspiration for parents who want to groom kids to play chess for a lifetime.
3) Chess can be a child's best friend and can go wherever the kid goes when he grows up.
4) Korchnoi's exceptional hardwork in preparation is a model example of how hardwork pays off.

The IGLs then went through a fine win of Korchnoi where he defeated the Romanian Grandmaster Florin Gheorghiu in spectacular style. The audience enjoyed the brutal finish to the game indeed!

In the following week, childhood chess mates Ms Joanne Loh (a former National U-10 Champion!) and Mr. Seow Yongli took charge of the session.

The weather was absolutely horrendous on that day but despite such a heavy thunderstorm, we had full attendance for both sessions.

The sessions started with the much-valued over-the-board play. Beginners benefitted from Joanne’s booster lesson on chess notations, paving the way to analyse their own recorded games and learning from the vast body of knowledge in chess literature.

The more seasoned players produced many dynamic games and Yongli would discuss some of the interesting elements as some of the games concluded.

The sessions ended with Yongli sharing 4 broad intermediate aims in chess: force, time, space and pawn structure. The younger members were enthralled with Yongli’s explanations as he went through 2 positions in great detail.

Tomorrow, we have a blockbuster event for the club - a simultaneous exhibition by the current National Champion and Singapore number 1, ! Expect fireworks as Jingyao certainly not be showing any mercy to his unsuspecting victims....... @ Yuhua Community Club