Saturday morning...my duty as a human guardian of two angels that few years back descending from heaven is sending them for their earthly music lesson at Wangsa Walk Mall...(Ah, how i hope they trade their music notation with chess notation..)
At its main lobby, Wangsa Walk Mall's is currently organizing a knockout chess tournament for kids ( Jax Tham, they must be borrowing your idea...) when suddenly there is announcement from a deejay (yeap, shopping mall's deejay, not an arbiter) "Stop! Stop playing!...now let's count the pieces to determine the winner!"
Hmm, chess game decided by counting chess pieces...an old, primitive, orthodox ways to determine winner that somehow survive and still exist in 21st century...
It sure bring back memories...
Hey Ilham,
ReplyDelete1. selection criteria based on number of fide rated games played,
vis-a-vis
2. game result based on number of pieces captured
I must be living in wonderful Malaysia.
Hope this is not an April Fool joke.
rgds
seng
"I see selection based on games...based on you know who...
Deletei see winner...based on pieces...
and i think to myself...what a wonderful Malaysia " :)
Hey all the best to Li Tian in Brunei Open
Ilham,
ReplyDeleteIt had also happened before in a local bank (name of bank withheld :), in year 1998/99. I was invited to be the arbiter, not because I was qualified, but bcoz of my availability and rate (I was not expecting it, but they couldn't afford regular arbiter's rates). In the team managers' meeting I proposed to use FIDE's rules & regulations, which the organising committee rejected in favour of the said rule.
In the last round, at the top board (it was an individual tournament) White player sacrificed his Queen for mate-in-3-moves. His opponent took the Queen, and before his last move, he didn't execute it but let his time ran out. I had no choice but to do as per organising committee's rules - to count the pieces!
The Black player won the 1st place, but everyone felt bitter about it. I hope the organising committee had learned their lesson!
Rules that change chess to counting game like boxing...when you are ahead in points, just dance around until bell rang!
Delete