Organized by FOCC (Friends of CRY Club, Kuwait), the CRYchess 2017 was successfully concluded on the 12th May 2017 at the Gulf Indian School, Fahaheel. Our mission of supporting unfortunate children back home as well as sensitizing children in Kuwait on the main purpose behind participating in CRYchess, continued.
We have seen many children coming for participation, year after year, and seen them growing into young energetic youth and were very pleased to see their awareness about CRY activities increase steadily.
This year two of the last year’s participants, Issac Abheek (4 times winner) and Prasanna Reddy came of age and offered their time as Arbiters. It was a delightful moment for FOCC family.
CRYchess tournament is open to all children of any age, while they are at school and with no minimum age limit. As has been the case in the past, the youngest player this year Rahyan Anees, was just 5 ½ years old. The number of participants topped 150 this time. Thanks also to the parents for supporting their children and CRY.
A major change of the two main events of CRYcket and CRYchess by interchanging their scheduled dates. This shifting was necessary to facilitate a greater number of teams to participate in the CRYcket tournament. The chess tournament has been shifted to May and the CRYcket will be scheduled in the first week of November 2017. The weather had gotten quite hot, but it did not deter the enthusiasm of the children one bit. Apart from the cool rooms where the games were going on, they were enjoying running around in the sun between the rounds. The parents though stuck to the cool of indoors.
All the participating children are placed in one of the 5 groups, based purely in the descending order of their age - maximum 32 children in each group. The exact group numbers and placement of each participant is only known after all the registrations have been completed. On the spot registrations were entertained in place of absentees and to fill the group where ever possible. The Arbiters are volunteers, who have a good chess playing background, and have offered their services for the cause. FOCC thanks all Arbiters for their continued support and time.
Each group's participant's names 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, 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 is 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 to be won in each group. For the first time this year chess clocks were introduced into the senior most group when the arbiter felt that the game is progressing beyond the stipulated time. This feature was welcomed by all participants and the Arbiters.
FOCC is highly grateful to GIS for providing the facilities for the last 3 years and hope we continue our relationship well into the future. The event was sponsored by Dr. Hind Albahar for the 3rd year. And we are highly indebted to her for her continuous support to the FOCC mission.
"With CRY, everybody wins". The children were reminded that in addition to giving their best to be a winner in the game, their presence here is also making winners out of those unfortunate children back in India, who barely have opportunity to be a child.
The “Kid’s Corner”, with numerous games and gifts, as always attracted huge number of children, between the round. The Corner is entirely run by the “CRYbuddies”, children who have dedicate their time and effort contributing towards the FOCC mission. Big thankyou to them all – Qaisarali Merchant, Kynara Fernandes, Tamara Fernandes, Moiz Godhiwala, Mohammed Godhiwala, Hamza Kachwalla, Nafisa Basrai and Sukaiyna Ghasia. The food stall was set up by Amrutha Kitchen, Kuwait, providing delicious snacks, meals and beverages throughout the day. We thank them for their continued dedication to FOCC.
The “Buy for CRY” stall was full of books, toys and household articles on sale at a huge bargain, as well as some interesting outside FOCC partners who took this opportunity to support the cause, by marketing their services under “Buy for CRY”.
The winners in each group were (in the order – first, second and third place): Yellow Citrine, the youngest Group : Aaron Rajish Joseph, Mathew George and Reuben Darrius Pereira; Blue Sapphire: Hitesh Kumar Puvvala, Ram Tewari and Aduaith Rames Pillai; Red Ruby Group: Sanskar Mishra, Ditto Ben Joseph and Swastik Goth; Green Emerald Group: Rajeev Ram Prasad, Rohit Ram Raghupati and Akshat Jain; Violet Amethyst, the senior-most group: Rushil Magazine, Jonathan Vinay and Ebin Shibu.
All the participants are also awarded a medal and a certificate. Congratulations to all the children.