I've been reduced to becoming a homemaker this holidays after something happened at home. Initially, I almost went crazy after 2 weeks of staying at home, thank gawd there's the world cup to keep me occupied and a bit of singapore pools for me to content with HAHAHA. While the returns hasn't been kind to me, I think I'm still doing okay and I hope that the claypot days will never come =x

Since the exams ended, I have been training, on a weekly basis, for the Singapore Schools Othello Championship. I think throughout this training process, I finally realised what my very big weakness is and while it will not get exposed at IHG level, it's certainly very much different at the national level. While there are some games that I should have won, this weakness hinders me which always ends up that I perform poorly in tournaments. It's probably good that I discover it before the national open so that I can rectify, and the tourney is 1 month + away. Since I finished 20th in the previous edition, how about hmmm, aiming for 15 this time round? HAHA. I think it might be hard to maintain my 20th position since everyone has improved a lot, more than me I supposed. I'm currently taking a break from it so that I can whack more from July onwards.

Having said that, my objective for the SSOC tourney was to beat this particular guy from Temasek Poly, no price for guessing who since his name appeared so big on my msn nick the day after I beat him. A few months back, this particular guy mentioned that he was one of the favourites to finish top 3 in the blitz tournament in Feb, which I didn't attend. He failed to do so. He also mentioned that, if WE (we here, probably refers to NTU students? or Uni students? I don't know) were to participate in this tourney we wouldn't even achieve one win (out of like 7 rounds?) That was a particular insult to my intelligence, especially when it's directed from a poly kid who has yet went through NS at a final year undergraduate. Well he is good but it's not as if he is at a godlike level above me and my friends. My plan was to beat him at the tourney, after losing him twice before in other tournaments. My target set after that insult was to improve to a level that I can beat him before the end of the year. I guess I was 6 months ahead of time? hahaha time to find new objectives!

On that day, my plan of beating him fell apart, I lost my first 2 games while he won his first. The system works in such a way that the pairings are done so that the people of around the same standard meet each other. Having won my 3rd and 4th game, I was surprised that I got the luck to be paired with him at 2 wins at that stage. Apparently he wasn't having a good day either, 2 wins out of 4 too. Of course at that very moment I was fired up, the mindset was almost as if the IHG title was on the line. After specially catered training just to beat him, the plan fell apart when he did not move according to his usual openings, aka deviating from the "book". Well, I took advantage and it was sweet from then on. His mistakes became worse and worse and I just kept seeing the better moves. Eventually, I believe he tilted and at one point as he forgot to press the clock when he has 8 minutes plus remaining. As I had only 4 minutes plus remaining, this was a good chance for me to calculate all possible ending moves from there. It took him 1 minute plus to realise that he hasn't tapped the clock. Well, it should be obvious because both of us know that I only have 2 good moves to go and it was impossible for me to open up elsewhere. HAA!!! I think that must have made him mad. I proceed to finish the game at 47-17, a TRASHING win. The look on his face at the end of the game was priceless. While I wanted to give my piece of trash talking at the end of the game, I decided otherwise since a few friends congratulate me on the spot and also perhaps the joy of meeting my objective made me forget my initial plans of trash talking HAHAHA.

A pity that I lost the next 2 games and finished 3 wins out of 7 and 19th position. Hopefully I'll perform much better at the nationals.

I'm also looking forward to spending my remaining holidays fruitfully and while I'm looking forward to school reopening, I can't bear to think about my stagnant FYP. I hope I will do something about it soon haha.

Signing off,

your act-inspiration othello captain