GZAAT Chess Tournament

2020 has been a year governed by unexpected events that have come to affect virtually every aspect of our daily lives. To cope with these changes, we have had to be flexible and innovative. Fortunately, as almost all school activities have been moved online since March, our school’s innovative students have had numerous opportunities to get flexible. For example, the School Culture Committee organized the second annual chess competition but now held it online. Students from almost every grade level got involved in this contest. It can be said that now, thanks to the school culture committee, students' passion for playing chess has remained, even in the middle of a pandemic.

The second GZAAT Chess Tournament was held online on the internet chess platform lichess.org, on 11 - 20 December. The website (lichess.org) is a free platform for playing online chess and is known for the popularization of chess in general;

We spoke with Liza Jariashvili, a member of the School Culture Committee, and Beqa Ramishvili, one of the tournament competitors, to learn more about this event.

Gazette: How did the School Culture Committee come up with the idea of hosting an online chess tournament? What were the expectations? Did they come true?

Ms. Jariashvili: This is the chess tournament’s second year. Chess has always been popular at AAT: last year, for example (when we still had our classes at the school building), many kids would rush to the student lounges at the start of every lunch break to spend their free time playing and watching chess. Therefore, the decision to organize a tournament was an easy one to make: it seemed like the natural thing to do. When we held the first tournament last year, we had already decided that it should be an annual event. This year, because of the ongoing pandemic, we had to move the tournament online.

Since this tournament is already established, and it is something that our students are familiar with, it was easy to publicize. Not only was the overall response tremendous, but we were quite pleased to see that several players from the lower grade levels signed up as well. This seems particularly important now that we have been physically separated for so long: the tournament became an opportunity for students from all different classes to get to know each other or, simply, keep in touch with one another.

Interviewer: Mr. Ramishvili, as a participant, what were your expectations for this tournament? Did you enjoy this experience? How is playing online different from playing face-to-face?

Mr, Ramishvili: My expectations going into the tournament were quite high. I’ve played chess since childhood and, during the quarantine – and especially during the last 5-6 months – I have played about 10-15 games daily. I have been learning many chess openings and spending time analyzing a lot of grandmaster games. I’m quite proud of myself as I currently have a rating of 2000-2100 on Lichess (the internet chess server). So, when I entered the tournament, I was confident in my abilities.

I enjoyed the tournament immensely, as it was fun playing with people I knew and I was inspired to try my best. That said, I do wish that the last few matches could have been played face-to-face because being aware of your opponent’s mood adds a complexity to the game that is missing when everything happens online.

The results of the second Annual GZAAT Chess Tournament are as follows: Beka Ramishvili took third place, Alexandre Tediashvili took second, and Giorgi Enukidze won first place. In total 37 students participated. Finals and semifinals were 15 minutes long, and the rest of the games - 10 minutes. To gain access to the more detailed and precise content of the tournament, you can wait for the broadcasting club to edit their recordings of the games and then watch it with a lot of excitement!

But before watching the video provided by the broadcasting club, I can give you a little sneak-peek into the “drama” of the final game. I think it is crucial to mention that although Giorgi Enukidze became the winner, the last game was a little bit confusing, and for some quite debatable. During the final match - between Alexandre Tediashvili and Giorgi Enukidze - Alexandre made a wrong move that was not so much expected of him since he is considered to be a great player. Soon after, it turned out that he pressed the wrong button accidentally or his mouse glitched.

He immediately told the judges and commentator about this technical error, and they advised him to ask Giorgi Enukidze to allow a so-called “take back” of his move (which is pretty usual in online games, due to the technical difficulties - a player can ask the other to take back his move, and the second player can either allow or deny this “take-back” request). However, Giorgi declined this request, which was followed by Alexandre’s resignation, since – because of the mistaken move – he had no chance of winning. Giorgi Enukidze declined to be interviewed for this article. Alexandre himself states that this type of confusion could be avoided if the games were held at school; if they would play face-to-face, nothing could be an “accidental” move. Commentator Ioane Kapanadze expressed his opinion that it would have been better and more interesting if Giorgi would have let Alexandre take his move back to truly see how the match would end. However, Giorgi Enukidze did technically win the tournament since the “pure chess rules” (according to chessU.com https://www.chesscoachonline.com/chess-articles/chess-rules) were not broken.

At the end of the day, the online tournament turned out to be a pretty exciting and interesting challenge; once again, it brought the students together even in times of COVID-19. In general, it is really important to have this kind of activities in school, even if it’s online, for maintaining school spirit and helping our students prove themselves in the field of their interest. The last game may have been a bit debatable and confusing, but it still fulfilled its main purpose. Once again, we thank the school culture committee for organizing all of this, and of course the students, for being so passionate about chess and motivated to participate.

Edited by Mashiko Lortkipanidze