Sunday 11 November 2012

The value of hard work - by Junior Tay

Two days ago, Tan Weiliang was contemplating whether to join Jarred Neubronner, IM Lim Yee Weng and your scribe in a badminton, bowling and blitz session yesterday afternoon when he finally decided to stay home to prepare for his evening HPE league match against FM Tin Jingyao. What I found amazing was that he disclosed to me that he intended to try "catching Jingyao in a specific 4 Knights endgame". Prepare an opening to catch someone in an endgame? Goodness. This is some serious preparation.

And indeed, Jingyao walked into the setup Weiliang anticipated but the latter blew a good chance to win when he missed an advantageous piece exchange (as pointed out by the arbiter IM Domingo Ramos). Jingyao's enterprising play allowed him to retain strong drawing chances. Weiliang was chastising himself for allowing Jingyao to escape and collected his thoughts. Weiliang had already lost 6 ELO points after Ashvin Sivakumar drew against him last week. Another draw would mean another 4.4 ELO points down the drain. He then worked out an insidious plan in an attempt to win. And what an awesome idea it was indeed!

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