CRYchess 2018 concludes
KUWAIT: Organized by FOCC (Friends of CRY Club, Kuwait), the CRYchess 2018 successfully concluded on May 11, at the Gulf Indian School, Fahaheel. FOCC is highly grateful to GIS for providing the facilities for the last 4 years and hope we continue our relationship well into the future. The event was sponsored by Talal & Lulwa Education Fund, supported by Dr Hind Al Bahar, and we are highly indebted to her for her continuous support to the FOCC mission.
Our mission of supporting deprived children back home is met through our allocated project “School the Spark”, which supports children in rural areas. The other face of our mission is to sensitize children in Kuwait on the main purpose behind participating in CRYchess.
CRYchess tournament is open to all school-going children in Kuwait, with no minimum age limit. Just as in the past, we are delighted to see children starting at a very young age. The youngest player this year, Nitesh Vidyasagar was just 5 1/2 years old, whereas the total number of participants topped 165. Thanks also to the parents for supporting their children and CRY.
Children and parents moved about freely in the open, between the auditorium and the chess rooms. The Kid’s Corner, with exciting games and gifts, and the Buy for Cry stalls kept the children busy between the rounds. Both the stalls are entirely run by the “CRYbuddies”, children who have dedicated their time and effort contributing towards the FOCC mission. Big thanks to all of them Qaisarali Merchant, Hamza Kachwala, Andrew John, Kiruthika Sruthi Saravanan, Kiara Reaven, Kiruthika Deepti Saravanan, Insiya Ibrahim Patanwala. Amma Kitchen offered delicious meals and snacks, thanks for their continued support to FOCC. All our arbiters and technical team are volunteers, offering their services for the cause, who have a good chess playing background. FOCC thanks all arbiters for their continued support and time.
Participating children were placed in one of the 6 groups, based purely in the descending order of their age - maximum 32 children in each group. The names of the participants in each group are entered in a Swiss-Pairing software, where the first round pairing is done by the software in a random order. In every subsequent round, they are paired based on their ranking. Each participant plays all the five rounds. After the 5th round, only one person would be in 1st rank, provided he has won all the 5 rounds. In case of no one winning all the 5 rounds, children are listed in the order of their round wise wins. Depending on the ratings of the opponents defeated, the software gives a clear ranking to all players. This was not a knockout system. Thus even after losing any one game, a child could still hope to be a winner in his group, based on the ranking. There were 1st, 2nd and 3rd place trophies in each group.
The winners in each group were (in the order - first, second and third place): White Opal Group (youngest) : Rose Sanju Thomas, Ashwanth Saravanan and Aahanashree Ramakrishnan; Yellow Citrine Group: AlenShinu, Chenul Methsuka Ranasinghe and Dhaanu Balan P.V. Blue Sapphire Group: Maheshwar Sibi, Rosanraj Balamurugan and Aaron Sanju Thomas; Red Ruby Group: Krishna Green Emerald Group :Chaitanya Koduri, Ditto Ben Joseph and Swastik Goth: Daniel Liang Mohan, Aman Mansoori andAkshat Jain; Violet Amethyst Group (senior-most) :Ebin Shibu Nanthalathu, Karthik Thomas Mathew and Allen Thomas Molekunnel.
All the participants were awarded medal and a certificate. The round-wise results for all groups and the event pictures are published on our website www.focckuwait.org. Congratulations to all the children. “With CRY, everybody wins”.