Observers of chaos…

Last Saturday, the 17th Shell Active Youth Chess Tournament was held at SM.  I had registered three of our Lapu students for the tournie, but the man responsible for delivering the applications to the Shell office… didn’t… and didn’t under less than legitimate circumstances.  I had to give the school a chance to do it this time for respectful reasons… but as the old adage says, you fool me once, shame on you; you fool me twice, shame on me.  It won’t happen again.  The kids were very disappointed… and after watching the tournament with them on Saturday, I had full confidence that Gerald Y. would have placed in the prize category.

I took nine students from the Roaring Rooks to the tournie as observers.  My goal was to show them what a real (Filipino version) chess tournament looked like so that they would not have any fear when they actually do attend one.  For me, it was an eye opener.

The tournie was supposed to start at 10 a.m… the ceremonial first move was done at 11:30 and since the food for lunch had arrived, they broke for lunch and didn’t start the play until after 1 p.m.  Although it was taking place in a roped off are in the foodcourt, they allowed the players to eat their lunches at the playing tables if they chose, which meant that when the actual play started, there were still players finishing up their boxed chicken from McD’s.

In preparing the club for the tournie (prior to finding out they weren’t going), I stressed the need to record the moves.  USCF/FIDE rules require it, or you have an incomplete score card and your game can be disqualified [the tournie was under FIDE rules btw].  I watched both the Kiddy group (up to age 14) and the Youth (up to age 20) and the first group only signed their names on the scorecard and at that was it… the Youth, I saw only about 1 in 30 recording and noticed that not one finished recording all the moves for the game as far as I could tell and I was watching that.  I told the kids that they WILL be able to record all the moves and do it in the correct sequence – write then move.

The atmosphere was total chaos… now each board had a mechanical clock, but I witnessed one board who were still playing during regulation, being told by the officials that they had to stop playing (I’m supposing taking half a point each) because the next group was coming in to play!  I saw one board that didn’t have a clock raising their hand to tell an official and the official waving it off and telling them to play!  Yikes!

I’m standing with J.J. observing one game in front of us… White moved his knight, then took it back and castled instead.  Black immediately raised his hand for an official as was correct (the touch rule of course).  The official comes over and I watch Black explain what happened.  The official rolls his eyes in disgust at Black!  He went to get another official (the TD I suppose… it was unclear who had authority and who maybe were just babysitters – they all had on shirts that had “official” embroidered on the right breast)… the official came over and I witnessed them looking at each other with sarcasm as Black finished explaining what had occurred, belittling Black who was absolutely correct in asking for adjudication.  The TD(?) with obvious reluctance, told White that he had to move the knight, which he did to d2.  I watched the officials walking away laughing.  This gave me opportunity to explain to J.J. that it didn’t matter if the officials liked it or not, but that it was important to continue with following the rules… you see, dear reader, the Deaf are very aware of facial expressions and seeming to be made fun of… I have already experienced in our chess tournament last year, the reluctance to call for the TD (in that case it was me!) for a rules infraction by the opposing player (who was hearing in that case)… so this was definitely a teachable moment.

I believe the boys had a meaningful time watching the tournament… and for me, I know I learned quite a bit about Filipino scholastic tournaments and also the relative playing strength of our Deaf players… they can do well, without a doubt as it stands!  Right now they know some fundamentals which I was hard-pressed to see in any of the games I witnessed.  At any rate, we are on the right track in the chess teaching area AND, most importantly, they are learning the ways of Christ and being discipled for His sake THROUGH chess simultaneously!