The 26th Nigerian Universities Games (NUGA 2022) took place earlier this year from the 16th through 27th of March, 2022. I was opportuned to represent my prestigious institution; The University Of Port Harcourt in the game of Chess.
I had been looking forward to this opportunity for a while as I had missed the pervious event; the 25th NUGA back in 2017 as a result of allegedly not being good enough at chess. I took that as a challenge & worked on my game, I improved alot to the extent I could not be denied a spot in the team this time around.
The 26th NUGA 2022 was hosted by The University of Lagos in Lagos State, Nigeria. Lagos is known as the biggest city in Nigeria & popularly dubbed; Small London. This was my first time in Lagos & I must say, it lived up to all the hype. From the level of traffic to the luxury places, to the the locals, it was everything I had imagined.
The experience was a great one all round. It started with our journey from Port Harcourt, Rivers Stare where my University is located.
The journey lasted about 12 hours 😪. Tiresome but exciting still. We arrived in Lagos pretty late, around 1 a.m & we had to do covid-19 test before we could be allowed to do anything else. It was a tiresome night. Luckily, the event wasn't starting that day.
Chess is a game of Kings, it is a highly intellectual game that requires high level of concentration & calculations. In this competition, Chess was a team event. We had to play a 4 v 4 each round against rival institutions. It was also a classical event, meaning we had over 1 hours : 30 minutes of time each for the whole game, with 30 seconds added anytime you make a move. As a result, a game could last about 5 hours & we had to play 2 rounds daily.
It wasn't just a test of Chess strength, but of stamina and resilience as well.
The Chess event began 19th March and I was opportuned to play on board 2 along side my teammates : Fide Master Abimbola Osunfuyi, International Master Daniel Anwuli,
Fide Master Eugene Uwana, Clinton Igoche and Alex Udoye.
It was a pretty tense and difficult event as all our opponents were forces to reckon with in their own rights.
My greatest test came in round 4, we had won all previous rounds and we were up against The University of Benin. We had lost in board 4 already just about 30 minutes into the round putting us 1-0 behind. Sometime later, FM Abimbola was held to a draw on board one keeping us 1½-½ behind. IM Daniel Anwuli went to to win making us even on 1½-1½. My game therefore was the decider. I needed to win in order for us to win the match.
I played against Emmanuel Idara,a very talented chess player who would go on to beat beat Grand Master some months later. The game position was somewhat equal for the most part, some would argue I was worse even. But, I kept my composure. I said to myself; "All you need is to not lose".
Sometime around move 30 I went on to offer my opponent a draw as I could not see any clear path to win and he declined. He got into time trouble and ended up missing a simple tactics that'll lead me to check mate in 2 moves. So he resigned. I ended up taking the W both for myself and the team.
Below is the pgn GIF of the game
I finished the tournament with a solid 5/7. Losing only one game against IM Isaac Okeke and drawing 2 other games, one of which I was completely winning but got impatient & drew. And that's the thing about chess, it teaches alot of life lessons, it teaches one the art of patience & proves time and again that: "It's not over until it's over!"
This enabled us win the event & I personally got a bronze medal for my board along with the team Gold.
The female team, lead by Woman Fide Master Perpetual Ogbiyoyo also performed phenomenally well, placing 1st also in their event.
After 4 days of alot of Chess, both the male and female team triophed. Coming first place ahead of UNILAG and other institutions. Also, we had couple of board medals as well to go with the Gold. It was as a tough event but very much fulfilling in the end.
