Overview

On entering old-SAC in the evening hours, one hears a series of distinctive ‘clicks’ – the sounds of chess-clocks being tapped. A single corner of a largely vacant room is occupied by members of the Chess Team, whose gazes are locked to the boards in front of them.

Practice sessions for the Chess Team started on 21st August – right after recruitments came to an end. The team trains from five to eight every evening and plans to follow the same schedule until BOSM.

Chess in BOSM consists of three events: the classical format uses a time control of ninety minutes plus thirty seconds for each move played; the blitz format uses a time control of five minutes; a special puzzle-solving event in which teams are given strategy problems. In the latter event, teams are given a variety of puzzles, ranging from “Mate in X moves” to “White to move and win” problems. The teams are ranked based on the number of puzzles solved and their difficulty.

While chess is usually played as an individual sport in other tournaments, it is played as a team sport in BOSM. Each team comprises four players and a substitute. Each player is assigned one of four boards; players from opposing teams with the same board number face-off against one another with points being awarded separately for each board. The points are summed up once all four games are complete. The team with more points is declared as the winner of the match.

Past Performance

Of the twelve teams that participated in the last edition of BOSM, BITS placed third in all three events that were conducted. The team also went to the University of Delhi last year, and won silver in the classical event. While colleges with sports quotas tend to have an advantage in sports meets, the BITSian team consistently defeated a few of them in earlier tournaments.

Recruitments

An aspiring member of the Chess Team would first have to play matches against other potential recruits. If one’s gameplay is deemed worthy, one would then play matches against members of the team as well as partake in a few puzzle-solving sessions. A satisfactory performance till this stage will help one in securing a place in the Chess Team. Regularity in attendance of practice sessions is of foremost importance to maintain one’s spot in the team.

Sixty students turned up for recruitments this year; fifteen made it to the next round. After further scrutiny, the team decided to pick up seven recruits – a massive jump from three in the previous year. The new batch of recruits includes two freshers each from the undergraduate and postgraduate level.

Captain’s Interview

Simantini Huchche, now in her final year, is well prepared for the role of captain; she was the captain of the team last year as well. Her father played chess at the university level and taught her the fundamentals of the game when she was in the second grade. At a young age, she won the Maharashtra State Under-11 tournament and was also the runner up in the Under-13 tournament. She placed first in the School Games Federation of India (SGFI-2008), and placed third in the two years after that. Realizing her potential, her father enrolled her in a coaching program held by an International Master – a player with a World Chess Federation (FIDE) rating between 2400 and 2500. She ascribes the IM’s coaching to her fondness for the sport. Until the eleventh grade, she had aspirations to pursue the sport professionally but has been playing it as a hobby since then and retains of an FIDE rating of 1681.

“The lack of seniors to guide me is a little unnerving, but I’m looking at it as an opportunity to step up.”, she said when asked how her captaincy this year would differ from that in the previous year. She added that the institute had helped over the past year with some inventory problems plaguing the team. One may think that ‘captain’ is a namesake title for a chess team, but the captain is responsible for deciding the strategy for board order since chess is played as a team sport in BOSM. A good board order can lead to a team victory even if the players are less skilled individually when compared to those of the opposing team. Furthermore, as new recruits have large gaps in experience, it is the captain’s responsibility to suggest an individualized training regimen.

She is cautiously optimistic about the team’s performance this year as the level of participation has fluctuated in recent years. One hopes that this optimism is not misplaced and that the team puts up its best performance yet.