zh-hansen

Summer Tour 2nd Tournament Review

Summer Tour 2nd Tournament Review

As a competitive sport, chess teaches kids some valuable life lessons. Some of the areas positively influenced are:

 -Preparation and performance. If kids are aware there’s a tournament coming up, chances are they will prepare more diligently which results in better performance on the big day. Someday when they will be doing a presentation at work or preparing for a job interview, they would have already have acquired the correct mindset.

-Being cool under pressure or mental toughness. Playing in tournament comes with pressure-filled moments. Kids learn to manage anxiety and keep cool under pressure. This can translate to other things in life like big exams, job interviews and dates.

-Goal Setting. The objective is to win when competing but kids learn that this is not the only goal. They will soon learn to strive to continually improve.

-Sportsmanship and discipline are two other positive things that youngsters begin to understand when they start playing competitive chess.

Every Sunday, SCA Chess Academy from Shanghai holds a series of online U15 Rapid tournaments on www.chesskid.com to give the students of the game a chance to put into practice their gained knowledge. Players collect Grand Prix points from each tournament they participate in.

SCA’s Summer Tour 2nd Tournament was played last July 26. 80 juniors from around the world competed. Time control was 8 minutes + 2 seconds, 7 rounds. Here are the results:

1st Julia Alicante (PHL-JuliaA) – Philippines   

2nd Lucia Stoll (FRA-StollL) – France

3rd Donald Wen (SUIS-DonaldW) – Shanghai Chess Academy

William Harter (France) was 4th and Ethan Zhu (Shanghai Chess Academy) was 5th.  Fatemeh Yazdani (Iran), Elias Stoll (France), Joaquin Ernesto (Peru), Simon Ju (Shanghai Chess Academy) and Oscar Yasunaga (Shanghai Chess Academy) round up the top 10 places.

Bravo!

We present you some exciting moments from the tournament.

The first game shows Donald Ren dominating the game with his Bishop pair and paralyzing pin on the knight on g4. He was quick to pounce on White’s mistake of playing Qe1, allowing the deadly blow Qf4! threatening mate in 1.

Julia Alicante has won a piece and now puts the nail in the coffin with Bb5! leading to checkmate on f1.

Stoll of France was successful in a thematic line of the Ruy Lopez Exchange variation where capturing the bishop on g4 would lead to a fatal mating attack on the h file. White played Bg5 (Be3 is better) but after Bxf3, the endgame was winning for Black.

What a battle of nerves and wits it has been!

Congratulations to all participants!

The 3rd and final Summer Tour will be held this Sunday, August 30. Don’t miss this one!

There’s so much to be gained in joining tournaments.

During a chess competition, a chess master should be a combination of a beast of prey and a monk. – Alexander Alekhine

By AGM Giovanni Dy, WFM Kinga Polak, Charlotte Sun