Queen captures E7, Checkmate to His Majesty..

Last saturday was Inter Faculty Sports (SAF) for Chess event. I, along with 5 others, represent Faculty of Education for that event.

The main reason that I joined this year's SAF is that I wanna redeem myself for doing poorly last year. Last year was hell. Faculty of education sent out TWO teams, and both of them ended up twentieth and twenty-first place. I think I was the one to blame.

I was up for the first round. At that round, I was beaten by some unknown dude and it took the best of me. I became too consumed by that defeat, it carried on to my later match-ups.

Fuck that. Last Saturday, I was very determined to win.

And we came close to that.

Although the rules now has changed to each faculty must send only one team, I can safely say that it was the best team we came up at the last minute. In fact, it was better than last year's.

We got Sharol, one of the UiCC member, KARISMA player (Karnival Sukan Universiti teknologi MARA) and he's quite good. I've beaten him a couple of times while I lost count of him beating me. (Yeah yeah, I'm a sore loser).

We also got Adi Syazwandi, who hails from Kuching that has been playing Chess for pocket money during his school years. He's a tough dude to beat, you know. Khairul Azri also joined us this year, and he's quite good.

We also got another player, but he told me not to mention his name. It's a shame, coz he's very good. For the sake of this blog, I'll name him Dude. Amri was new to chess, he needs a little more polishing for his openings, and teach him basic strategies such as pins, skewers, discoveries, and he'll be a tough dude to beat.

And of course, the faculty also got me. The fat wannabe.


For the goodness of the team, I became the first reserve instead of main lineup. It's not an easy task you know, coz everytime one of the main lineups needed rest, I'm the first pick for the switch. And mind you, they need rest a lot.

For the first round, I was reserved. The main lineups were out first. Azri, Dude, Sharol and Adi were up.

I observed the Azri's match, and to tell you the truth, it was pretty much anybody's game.





Azri was down by a couple of pieces later in the game, but managed to secure a mate out of the blue. That dude really is a kamikaze kinda dude. He sacrificed some pieces, hoping that his oppenent would take his bait, and it worked.

Dude slaughtered his opponent without mercy.

Sharol underestimated a knight's power, and didn't see a mate setup coming up his ass. Poor dude.

Adi said he lost due to only one mistaken move. So, it was two wins and two loses for the first round.

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For the second round, I was up to replace Adi against FSSR. Knowing that I was up, I was feeling kinda nervous not to repeat the same mistake last year. I gathered my confidence, only to find that this was my opponent.


A FUCKING NOBODY. It turns out FSSR didn't have enough representative, and my opponent was JOE SCHMOELALALA. Crap. I was nervous for nothing. I got easy win. My teammates also kicked the opponent's asses silly all the way to Macau. We got 4 wins and no loses for the second round.

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For the third round, I was up again against Intec. The last year's defending champ.

This is my opponent which I forgot his name.


Due to his nerdy look, I figured that he has got all possible openings memorized by heart. Word has it, Intec dudes play by the book for the first 30 moves, and if their opponent decided to do their own variation, they will be puzzled.

I was sceptic for a bit. Luckily, I played white, so that made me easier to analyze his openings.

I pushed my king's pawn, and he replied with his bishop's pawn. Sicilian Opening. I took out my King's knight, he took out his king's knight also. KAWTIM. Sicilian Opening. So I played my bishop to attack his knight, and it proved a blunder. he later chased my bishop and I was down by a bishop for a pawn. Crap.

Since I lost by pieces, I need to gain space. I decided to play defensively.


(I still got both of my rooks, but out of focus. Lousy phone cam.)

He struggled to penetrate my defences, but I lack patience. I decided to counter attack, and it cost me severely. I lost the match. But I was the last man standing against the defending champ.
hihihi....


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It's too tiring to give you guys round for round analyses but suffice to say, at the end of the day, we ended up sixth out of fifteen. Out of 4 matches, I took out 3 opponents. Quite OK la... Damn Intec dudes. The second place goes to Accounting Faculty. They've got a National player in their team. Law dudes settled for third.

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This year was better than last year's SAF. And for next year, I'm looking forward for the next SAF. Hopefully I can represent UiTM Shah Alam for KARISMA....