Thanks to the momentary respite after the nastily exhausting prelims, I have decided to blog a short post here on the topic that is almost the closest to my heart, the RJC chess club.

Counting the years I have spent in RI as well, I realize that I have spent close to 6 years playing in the Chinese chess circuit for secondary and JC division. I have my fair share of up and downs, from killing off some sec 4s in my debut as a sec 2 player for RI team B, to losing every single game in the following year's Raffles Cup.

Along those times, I met and defeated several opponents, the most notable of which was Jia Cong, later to be the Captain for RJC 2 years before Jun Ren. There was also a constant drive to improve myself after facing opponents I simply could not defeat, such as Jun Ren and Jon Sim, widely regarded as the two most promising of chess club for my batch then.

Then a thought struck me as I was travelling home in 59. If an average player like myself can have such ups and downs, then what about the other players of RJC? Intrigued by this concept, I will attempt to chronicle the playing history of our players, so that when I grow old and senile, I will at least remember my comrades in arms.

Without further ado, I shall begin with Lim Jun Ren.

There are many that see Jun Ren as the revitalising spirit for RI chess club. This is without a doubt, true. After the graduation of Zhao Wei's batch, few noticeable players remained in the club. This was especially true among the sec 3s, where Yixian was the only player left. Due to circumstances that I myself am not aware of, several of the previous sec3s had been kicked off the club by Zhao Wei.

Yixian was a good leader, but unfortunately his chess skills were lacking. During this void of skilled players in the club, Jun Ren became the pillar of the club. His outstanding performances in many competitions has earned him a fearsome reputation, which was further raised with his landmark defeat of Hwa Chong's Zixian during the Nanyang Poly Competition. From then on, Jun Ren was simply known as Speed Chess King/Demon and it would not be an exaggeration to say that all within 3 years of our age group knew of Jun Ren as the RI captain, one of the strongest player on the circuit.

Of course, it is a foolish thought to suggest that all that Jun Ren brought to the club was his skills. He brought along with him skilled chess players, many of which were his friends from class as well as his CCA, which is a primary reason as to why chess club is still predominated by BB people (Forgive the HH author for complaining)

Among these players were Jonathan Sim, Wentao, Chunkai, Junwei, Ling Zhang, and many others. It is fair to say that the 'golden batch' of RI chess club will never have emerged if not for Jun Ren.

Now that we have retired from the circuit, I thought it fine to reveal the formations that each of us specialise in. Jun Ren was known during the secondary circuit days as the 弃马 person, but to date he has converted into a variety of formations, the most notable of which is 先后鸳鸯炮.

Jun Ren is also labelled as one of the 四大天王 by Kian Peng.

--Next up: Jon Sim, the man with unfulfilled potential.