In a must-win situation after a devastating loss in the penultimate round, the Humanities and Letters (HUMLET) Wolves secured a crucial point in the final round against the Social Sciences (SS) Dragons to claim gold in the Palarong Atenista 2026 chess men tournament.

HUMLET Wolves’ Xavier Dane Lou shared that he entered his first chess tournament in high school, drawing on his experience and training as a former national player when asked about his preparations.

“In terms of trainings, to be honest, I didn’t really train because I was a former national player so I just relied on my experience and my trainings from the previous years.”

Lou decided that his strategy in the first few rounds would entail risk-free play, anticipating the opponent’s errors and taking advantage of them.

“For the first few rounds, I think from round 1 to round 3, I really played it safe. I didn’t try to take any risk. I made sure that I let the opponent make a mistake before I do anything.”

Lou’s strategy would soon shift into aggressive play—involving successive attacks.

“I switched it up. I just kept attacking and attacking and attacking and that’s how it went.”

Despite a losing position in the final round, Lou reached a king-and-pawn endgame, where he saw an opportunity to gain the upper hand, and won a crucial tempo via a check on the king in the ensuing pawn race towards the 1st and 8th ranks. 

“I’m not supposed to win… ‘I’m losing’… pero there was that decisive moment where I was like ‘I think I’m gonna win’ and then I did,” he shared.

Although both HUMLET Wolves and SS Dragons were tied with 8 points, the application of the “direct encounter” tiebreak delivered gold for the HUMLET cluster.

As HUMLET Wolves captured gold, SS Dragons nabbed silver, while the School of Nursing (SON) Panthers took bronze with a score of 7.

The chess tournament was held at F213 Multipurpose Room last September 22.