LAST weekend was unusually busy for me. I had hoped to spend my time in quiet enjoyment over a few games of chess at the Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) team tournament but some last-minute developments dictated otherwise.
So, if you can permit me this week, I will just ramble along to share a few thoughts that are coming to my mind.
Firstly, one of the developments I was referring to was the demise of an old friend, one that I had known since school days. Let me tell you … outside your own family, very few things hit you more than realising that a friend you grew up with had died.
Secondly, one of my original team members pulled out at the last moment, leaving my team short of a player at the USM tournament. Last Friday night, I was desperately trying – rather unsuccessfully – to find a replacement. Come Saturday morning, I was resigned to the possibility of our team giving walkovers in matches where we couldn’t field a full line-up.
But that was actually the one concern that was furthest from my mind. My immediate task on Saturday morning was to pick up some friends from Singapore who had arrived for the funeral.
As it turned out, I remembered that one of them was a chess-playing friend during our schooldays. Would he mind filling the gap in my team? It was a long shot and to my surprise, he agreed to play!
I really couldn’t imagine someone coming from Singapore to Penang to attend a funeral and ended up playing chess in my team but that was what happened.
We didn’t even have lunch but rushed to USM immediately after the service and sat down to all three games on Saturday afternoon. Despite the rust, he played admirably by winning two games and losing the third.
Too bad I couldn’t have him present on Sunday as well as he had to fly back. But by then, all my local team members were available.
I will not want to bore you with the details of the USM event but it was a normal tournament with the usual tension and of course, the odd disagreements and both on-the-board and off-the-board disputes. But by and large, the tournament progressed very smoothly.
To cap the busy weekend, I bumped into another old school friend who turned out to be advisor to the USM’s chess club.
I introduced him to some of the committee members of the Penang Chess Association and before long, we were discussing the activities of the PCA. Next popped the question: how much more can the PCA and the USM collaborate to promote chess in Penang?
I may be jumping the gun somehow but maybe I can safely hint here that if everything goes well, we can expect a major local tournament in Penang during the school holidays. Keep May 27-31 free!
About the author
Quah Seng-Sun has been writing about chess in The Star newspaper in Malaysia since Aug 1980. This article appeared in a slightly different and abridged format in the Lifestyle section of the newspaper on 26 Jan 2007.