SEA Games 2023: Alvin Woo, Low Yi Hao turn the tables to secure historic xiangqi gold

PHNOM PENH – Xiangqi (Chinese chess) is a lot more sedentary compared to a lot of other sports being contested at the SEA Games.

But Alvin Woo and Low Yi Hao experienced a roller-coaster of emotions on Monday in the men’s blitz team competition at the Royal University of Phnom Penh, before claiming Singapore’s first gold in the event.

The duo had beaten Filipinos Jan Emmanuel Garcia and Paulo Bersamina, Thais Tawee Danwirunhaw and Pairoj Panicjkul, as well as Heng Chamnan and Chan Keung On of Cambodia in their first three matches.

With the perfect start, they planned to hold defending champions Vietnam to a draw in their penultimate match, which would have given them the gold. But that strategy failed as they lost to Ha Van Tien and Chu Tuan Hai.

Woo and Low were desolate, before being told by team officials that they could snatch the gold after Malaysia’s Yeoh Thean Jern and Sim Yip How stunned the Vietnamese.

An emotional Low, 30, said: “We thought we could get silver at best, and Vietnam would be champions because we had lost to them from winning positions. But we were told we could still win gold if we won both our matches against Malaysia.

“In the end, all three teams could have won gold. As such, it was a big test for us and to complete both wins under such circumstances was not easy.

“We had to have good emotional control and be mentally strong to believe we can turn things around even when the situation was unfavourable to us.”

Ultimately, the Singaporeans lived up to their end of the bargain to force their way into a three-way tie with Vietnam and Malaysia on eight points with four wins and a loss each.

The first tie-breaker, individual scores, relegated Malaysia to bronze as they had 14 points to the top two’s 16, before Singapore pipped Vietnam to the gold by 8-7 in the number of individual wins.

Xiangqi is a two-player strategy board game that is similar to international chess.

Compared to the standard event where each player has 60 minutes to beat an opponent, with 30 seconds added to his or her clock after a move has been made, in the blitz event each player has just five minutes and an extra two seconds after a move. Players will also lose if their clock runs out.

Woo, 39, who clinched silver in the men’s standard individual event on Saturday, said: “We are very happy because this is an unexpected gold. When we lost to Vietnam, we thought all hope was gone.

“But we persevered to get the favourable result we needed.

“The most challenging part of the blitz event is the time factor, the pressure is a lot more than the standard format, so we have to be precise with our moves, even if we sometimes play by instinct.”

With the historic gold, Singapore’s xiangqi exponents finished their SEA Games campaign with two golds, one silver and two bronzes. This bettered their haul of one gold medal from Hanoi a year ago, when the game made its debut.