(Photo and video credit to Lefong Hua)
This was my first volunteering project ever.
Lefong, the initiator of Ligue élite du dimanche, hosted a chess camp at Collège Jean-De-Brébeuf. This camp took place during the holiday vacation, from the 2nd to the 6th of January. It was called “The Ultimate Chess Player.”
https://youtu.be/R9i_rK0r3Yg
Two teams with one captain each battled against each other in different small fun competitions. The team who scored more points than the other wins. I’m a captain. My friend Shawn is the second captain.
There were eight people who joined the chess camp with us. They had a relatively lower rating compared to us. Now, you may wonder: “What is a rating?”
To answer that question, let me first say something important: the rating doesn’t matter in chess. Our real skill is what matters the most. A rating, or ELO, is a complicated system. Each chess player has a rating: a number that indicates the player’s strength. Under the International Federation of Chess rules, if you beat someone in an official tournament, your rating will go up. If you lose, you lose some points.
Let’s take the World Champion of Chess, the almighty Magnus Carlsen, as an example. His rating is of 2860. That is a lot compared to me and Shawn’s rating of 2175.
Back to the chess camp. As I was saying, the kids that joined the camp had a relatively lower rating: around the 1000s. Shawn and I chose our teammates. Each of the two teams had four people. These eight kids were all new to me. It was difficult to choose. In the end, we made up the teams and the first competition began.
My team:
Two teams:
The first day: Hand & Brain
Hand and Brain is a very interesting twist of the modern game of chess. I will spare you the details, and simply announce that my team won. Thanks to our effort, we were one point ahead of Shawn’s team.
Team QiuYu: 1
Team Shawn: 0
As usual, Lefong was there with his digital camera. He interviewed Shawn and me, asking: “How did your team do in this first competition? What is your feeling about the upcoming competitions? Do you think you picked the right team members?”. Lefong will post the videos on YouTube. Hello YouTube!
The second day: Simultaneous Exhibitions of Captains
What is a simultaneous exhibition? The name says it all. Both captains play four games at a time against the members of the opposite teams. The goal is that we both win against the four people. That’s why Lefong added another rule to the game, making it more interesting: “The one who beats all opponents in the least number of moves is the winner.”
Team QiuYu: 1
Team Shawn: 1
That was the first time in my life doing a simultaneous exhibition. It’s fun but challenging at the same time.
Simul: what am I doing?:
The third day: Blitz “Lichess” style tournament
A blitz chess game is a game where the moves need to be played quickly. We use a digital electronic clock that gives five minutes for both players to win or draw the game. These games last about ten minutes, because we give five minutes to both players.
This tournament lasted about one hour:
Team QiuYu: 1
Team Shawn: 2
The fourth day: Ultimate Blitz
In Ultimate Blitz, each member of the team plays one move each time and we alternate. It sounds simple, but it’s complicated. A famous Grandmaster said: “Chess is very simple; someone who knows how to play and calculate well can beat anyone in the world.” Sounds quite easy right?
Team QiuYu: 1
Team Shawn: 3
The week: Slow chess games
Unlike the fast-paced blitz games, slow chess tests your patience and ability to manage your time. This competition was spread across the week, two hours a day. Everyone plays against everyone, except for me and Shawn. While the others are playing, we are playing bullet (faster than blitz) games on a chess website, lichess.org. When one of the others finish, we rush over to analyze their games. Normally, all games finish within one hour, while for us, the more skilled players, we often use our time and make the game last for two hours or more.
Team QiuYu: 3
Team Shawn: 3
Game Analysis:
The last day, Friday: Chess variants
Chess variants are something that serious chess players aren’t really good at but play for fun. A kid who is a master in King of the Hill (one of the variants) can beat the World Champion (normal chess) in a game of King of the Hill, because the World Champion doesn’t invest time to study or analyze that variant.
Variants in chess have completely different rules from normal chess. All these variants have one thing in common: they both use chess pieces and a chess board.
Sadly, my team did not perform well and the Ultimate Chess Player was concluded:
Team QiuYu: 3
Team Shawn: 4 (Winner)
Lefong’s camp was a great experience for me as captain of a team and nurtured my leadership skills. I would really like to do this again.
The winner:
Having fun PKing with college students:
Interesting! 😀