Maintaining their focus consistently during a demanding week will be a key component of the Madibaz chess team’s bid for success at the University Sport South Africa tournament next month.<\/p>\n
The week takes place at Rhodes University in Makhanda from December 1 to 7 and the Nelson Mandela University players are looking forward to the challenge.<\/p>\n
While their preparation has been good, Madibaz chess chairperson Khaka Nonyongo said it was now a matter of keeping their composure under pressure.<\/p>\n
“We’re ready and now we need to stay cool, calm and collected in order to perform to the best of our abilities,” he said.<\/p>\n
“The week-long tournament is one which takes its toll on the body and the mind. This starts showing later in the week, with players beginning to battle a bit by round six. But it is something we have discussed in depth.”<\/p>\n
Last year the men’s team came within a whisker of being crowned champions, eventually being edged by one point, while the women’s team ended fifth.<\/p>\n
Nonyongo, however, says they have a much less experienced team this year.<\/p>\n
“In 2018, Sahaj Grover finished No 1 in the male section of the tournament, while Waldo van der Merwe was seventh and Marcel Roberts eighth,” he said.<\/p>\n
“But many of our senior players have completed their academics and the team is full of new, young and vibrant players.<\/p>\n
“That also means we lack experience, but we are ready to perform to the best of our abilities and will be satisfied with whatever outcome we achieve.”<\/p>\n
With the chess club holding practices on Mondays and Wednesdays, Nonyongo said the USSA players did much of their training during those sessions.<\/p>\n
“At the beginning of the second semester we also started training every second Saturday morning to add some extra time to our preparations.”<\/p>\n
The USSA tournament will consist of teams of 10 males and five females.<\/p>\n
“Team members play as though it’s an individual tournament and points are added together at the end. There are prizes for the men’s and women’s sections and then also a combined prize.”<\/p>\n
He rates University of the Western Cape, who are the defending champions, as a team to watch, while other varsities who could come into contention are Wits and Pretoria.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Maintaining their focus consistently during a demanding week will be a key component of the Madibaz chess team’s bid for success at the University Sport South Africa tournament next month. The week takes place at Rhodes University in Makhanda from December 1 to 7 and the Nelson Mandela University players are looking forward to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":58746,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2647,1809,2800,2093,1967,5712],"class_list":["post-34132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-more-sport","tag-chess","tag-madibaz-sport","tag-nelson-mandela-university","tag-university-sport-south-africa","tag-ussa","tag-ussa-chess"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34132\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}