The Winners of the Chess Tournament in TNMU
The 3rd traditional online chess tournament “Chess Spring 2021 Arena” took place on April 11, 2021. 29 people took part in this sports competition. This is 7 participants more than the previous time that point to the popularization of chess among students of Ternopil National Medical University. During 90 minutes of the competition, 127 games were played and 7713 moves were made. For each victory in a chess game the participant received 2 points, for a draw – 1, for defeat – 0. The winners were:
– the first place – Olexandr Ivaniuk (group MM-507),
– the second place – Mykhailo Yakymchuk (dentist intern),
– the third place – Muhammad Talha (group IM 230), the second-year student of the International Students Faculty.
Oleksandr Ivaniuk, the winner of the tournament, noted that he was grateful to Ternopil National Medical University for the opportunity to distract from studying and spend time at the chessboard. “A week before the competition, I was preparing for the tournament, solving various chess problems, and also playing chess. My father taught me to play chess as I was a child. Then I improved my skills on my own, as well as watched free video tutorials on YouTube. My favorite chess player is Vadym Dovchenko, a Ukrainian KMS, the author of the Ukrainian Chess channel on YouTube,” added Oleksandr.
Mykhailo Yakymchuk said that he had been interested in chess since school. At the university he was able to be involbed in this sport. He took part in team competitions among the Ternopil universities. He recalls that the TNMU chess team had always been among the winners. Also, thanks to our university, he managed to take part twice in the annual chess competitions among medical universities of Ukraine, which were held in Kyiv at the University of NMU and IFNMU. He is very pleased that medical university appreciates and loves such a sport as chess. His favorite chess player is Paul Morphy, an American chess player; the best in the world in the middle of the XIX century.
Muhammad Talha also shared his thoughts: “I am very happy to take the 3rd award. My opponents were strong and it was not easy to get 18 points. I trained hard before the previous tournament; as a result I am among the top 10 players. Chess is a very beautiful game that requires concentration, patience and perseverance. I love this sport. I learned to play chess as a child, and my teacher was my father. At 17, I took chess seriously as a schoolboy. I prepared for this tournament with using several components. I was disappointed with my defeat in previous competitions, so I started training and playing different games, reading chess books and different cases. During training, I used chess.com as well as lichess.org to study and solve puzzles. I think it’s easier to learn and play online than offline, because the appearance of the board and technology helps you learn quickly, and you can analyze games and fix mistakes. My favorite player is Bobby Fisher.”
Congratulations to the winners of the Chess spring 2021 Arena. Prizes awarding with will take place after the quarantine. In the meantime, we wish all participants success and inspiration in improving chess skills.
We are grateful to the organizers, participants of the tournament, as well as Marta Ihorivna Rudenko, the Head of the Center for Educational Work and Cultural development, Yanina Chaikivska, the TNMU Press Secretary, the information sector of the Students Parliament and all those who joined the tournament “Chess Spring 2021 Arena”.