Chess Fest at OFS

Overseas Family School once more organised an amazing chess event for its students by inviting Dana Reizniece-Ozola, Managing Director of the World Chess Federation (FIDE) and former minister of Finance of the Republic of Latvia.

Coming directly from the Chess in Education conference in London and heading to New Zealand, Ms Reizniece-Ozola used her stop-over in Singapore to learn more about the unique chess programme offered at OFS. She also accepted the challenge to play a game of rapid chess against a group of highly motivated OFS students, led by Singapore National U14 chess champion Heamish Sakthivel and seven-year-old chess prodigy Ashwath Kaushik. The special twist to that: the game was to be played with big outdoor chess pieces which had almost the size of humans. All players had to be physically fit to move and capture the big pieces while having to stay focussed not to lose track of what was happening on the big chess board. The countless by-standers ranging from K2 kids who just started to learn chess to more experienced Middle and High School students had a blast watching this chess spectacle play out and some were even invited to assist the visiting chess experts in executing their moves.

Ms Reizniece-Ozola was also accompanied by another big name from the chess world: International Master and Arbiter Anastasia Sorokina, Chairwoman of FIDE Commission for Women's Chess who used her arbiter experience to declare the hard-fought chess game a draw after a series of perpetual checks against the white king. Dijana Dengler, one of OFS' chess teachers and organiser of the event added another fun dimension by commenting on the moves played and giving extra insights to the audience. Her colleague Philipp Ziegler was pleased with the quality of the game and concluded that the draw can be considered as a victory for the OFS youngsters which will leave them empowered and encouraged to continue their chess journey.

Special thanks also to the Singapore Chess Federation which supported and graced the event by sending their CEO Kevin Goh Wei Ming and their national chess coach, FIDE Senior Trainer and Chess Grandmaster Thomas Luther.