Today was the last day of HC cup, went to watch the competition and our juniors did really well. For C Chess, HC team A got CHAMP :D while HC team B got 3rd. My juniors are really good and they have something that my batch didnt have and that's strategy.

In terms of gameplay, the 4 of us (zixian, leslie, jinx and me) won't lose to our juniors but I must say that our juniors have strategy when it comes to team competitions and that's why they deserve the championship. Just like soccer leagues, it isn't always the strongest team that gets the championship.

On the first day of the competition, the star player of AJC team A(our greatest rival) had a fever and couldn't make it for the competition, they didn't do very well in the first round and they drew with some not so strong school. In the third round, HC team A met HC team B and they decided to draw instead of throwing HC team A up. By sacrificing that 0.5 match point, HC team A was able to meet AJC team A(who subsequently won round 2 and 3 so they had the same match points as HC team A and B) and fight them with their star player down and of course they won. With that, they took down their greatest rival.

What about the 4 of us? We were undoubtedly the strongest team but we failed to get the championship for HC cup and Raffles Cup last year. We failed to get champ for HC cup because we underperformed against NJC and AJC. For Raffles Cup, we performed well, taking down both AJC and NJC. In the last crucial round, we got drawn by RJC becoze we fought them with one board down (I couldn't make it for the competition coze of H3 exam) while AJC won. We got caught up on the points and we lost on opponent's score (dui shou fen).

Our greatest mistake was that we bashed through both competitions with just 4 men, no reserves. We didn't put a reserve for R cup even though we knew we had to fight one board down on the last day of R cup long before the competition started. We were too good, we wanted it to be purely a 4 man effort and that cost us the championships for both HC and R cup. For HC cup, AJC and NJC had reserves so they could rotate players to keep themselves fresh but we didn't have that. For R cup, we were so good we didn't mind fighting RJC with one board down and we got drawn.

It takes more than just skill to win the team competition. We were too confident of ourselves, we had the skills and we thought that would be enough. Big mistake.

Fortunately, our juniors aren't like us and I have utmost confidence they will clinch R cup this year.

Great job juniors :)

{/5:29 AM}

Posted by innocent boy