Homecoming

I speak for my OFA chess mates when I say that all of us had a wonderful time at yesterday's USM team chess competition. For the first time in many years, The Old Frees' Association managed to enter three teams for a single team event. Normally, we would struggle even to submit a team of five or six players. But for this year's tournament, everything seemed to fall into place. 

Gee, there's even an OFA T-shirt for everybody!

The process began last year when we managed to convince Liong Ing Kiat to join as an OFA member. Somehow, he found that the Bay Avenue annexe was a very convenient place. Then, he convinced Evan Capel to join and use the gymnasium facilities. With these two as the catalyst, suddenly there was a lot more interest from Ronnie Lim, Jonathan Chuah and Ooi Chern Ee. These few names constitute some of the strongest chess players that Penang and Penang Free School have ever had from the 1990s onwards. We had chess-playing players like Lim Cheng Teik, Low Han Boon, Chan Kean Sheung, Chan Wei Hsien and even Chuah Heng Meng readily agreeing to return to the chess board. Wei Hsien even made the trip from Singapore.

By the beginning of this month, we had already drawn up a list of our 12 players to fill three teams for the USM team event. When we heard that Jonathan had also joined the OFA, I insisted immediately that he must play if he was interested. I would gladly step aside for him to make it happen. And thus it came to pass that the OFA's first team was quite possibly the strongest that we have ever assembled with former national champions occupying three of the four spots. 

With a bit more luck, this team could have won the tournament except for a mishap in the sixth round when they lost narrowly to the eventual champion team. Nevertheless, the invaluable camaraderie forged between the OFA chess players can only be the start of many more collaborations and cooperation. After all, we are of one family, or maybe two families: the Gens una Sumus and Fortis atque Fidelis families.

I should also mention that we discovered another team of entirely Old Frees. I had referred to them as the unofficial OFA team. Two of their players are already members of The Old Frees' Association: Benjamin Chee is a Life member, and Vesyal is a Junior member. It is now our task to persuade the remaining two players to join.

OFA Autobots

OFA Barbarians

OFA Zugzwang

FTW - the unofficial OFA team