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2011 King's Cup Commentary: Round 14

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We have moved this morning to the Royal Paragon Hall, on the fifth floor atop the Siam Paragon complex (400,000 m² of retail space); or as Kunihiko Kuroda (JPN) puts it, beside the IMAX theatre. We are using all 12,000 m² (for Americans, about 130,000 sq.ft.) of the space to fit about 6,000 students participating not only in our beloved crossword game (in English, Thai and math versions), but also seriously competitive Sudoku and many other intellectual events. We're on a riser in the middle of the larger portion of the hall, surrounded by a wall of decorative boxes of the lead sponsor, Brand's, with banners for each event and flags of each participating country hanging high above the room. The music is louder than it was in the mall, and has switched from dance music to loud drums and pipes, frequently interrupted by announcements in English and Thai. Everyone's used to it by now. The air conditioning is comfortably cool, as it has to be at the beginning of a large event, and getting into the playing area wasn't as chaotic as I've seen it in past years, though that could be because Amnuay Ploysangngam (THA) and I arrived a little early.

We are playing one round first this morning, then taking a break to rehearse the parade of nations. The real parade will take place according to the schedule of our royal sponsor, Her Royal Highness Princess Soamsavali, The Princess Mother of the King's First Grandchild; it will most likely be between the second and third rounds.

We have updated the standings with final versions of this year's handicap points, determined by Amnuay last night based on his knowledge of player strengths, supplemented in the case of new players by observation of their play so far. There will be three cash prizes awarded for handicap standings: THB 10,000, 5,000 and 2,500 (THB 10,000 is about USD 300); and the top handicap winner also gets a trophy. The way the handicap system works is that players get two points for each win, one point for a tie and zero for a loss, plus a base handicap value that ranges from 0 for anyone in serious contention for the main prize money (ranging from USD 10,000 for first place down to THB 2,000 for tenth) to 20 for anyone who has gone winless in the first two days.

Although, unusually, nine of the ten leaders in the handicap race are Thai, this is due in part to their generally good performance this year, and also because past winners of handicap prizes are given a lower handicap, and we have a lot of foreign past winners here this year.

Repeat Swiss pairings start this round, so at Board 1 we're back to having Komol Panyasophonlert (THA) play Charnrit Khongthanarat (THA); at Board 2, it's Odette Carmina Rio (PHL) vs. Siu Hean Cheah (SGP). An earlier version of this paragraph reportedly incorrectly based on simulation data that was being used to test a minor adjustment to the floor plan; thanks to Joel Sherman for pointing out the discrepancy. Komol beats Charnrit 566-341 and is now 13-1 +987; Charnrit is knocked back into the peloton of six players at 10-4, which also includes Cheah, Charnwit Sukhumrattanaporn (THA), Chollapat Itthi-aree (THA), Nigel Richards (NZL) and Odette Carmina Rio (PHL).

Leading the handicap race are three players at 26 points: Thanapong Kukiettikulchai (THA) 8 wins 10 handicap, Charae Worapojpisut (THA) 9 wins 8 handicap and Bundit Chomkularb (THA) 7 wins 12 handicap.