Well, I have just returned from my annual year-end holiday sojourn to Singapore and I must say that this year's trip had an added attraction.
The 11th Asian team chess championship was going on at the National University of Singapore and I had the opportunity to renew my acquaintances with some old chess friends and make new ones.
Let me tell you how thrilling this year's championship turned out to be. Kazakhstan, the defending champion, got off to a flying start and they led the field of 20 teams for the first five rounds.
The Kazakhs, however, allowed the Philippines to catch up with them in the sixth round and after that, well, the Kazakhstan challenge just fizzled out.
It was strange, but I believe the Kazakhs were playing more cohesively and steadily as a team when their number one player, grandmaster Vladislav Tkachiev, was not fielded.
Unlike two years ago in Kuala Lumpur when Tkachiev played round after round and doggedly scored point after point, here in Singapore he played only four games and could win only one. The other three games were drawn.
By the crucial seventh round, Kazakhstan had dissipated all their early advantages when they fell to Uzbekistan by a big margin. But the Filipinos also lost, to the Chinese, so the leaders after this round were: Uzbekistan 19 points, China 18 1/2 points, Indonesia 18 points and both Kazakhstan and Philippines 17 1/2 points each.
In the eighth round, Uzbekistan and Indonesia played to a draw while China, Kazakhstan and the Philippines all won their matches. The Filipinos had the biggest score, beating Iran 4-0, and so as the championship went into the final round, the Philippines found themselves leading for the very first time.
But it was a very slim lead. Both Uzbekistan and China were only a half point behind, with 21 points each, while Kazakhstan had 20 1/2 points and Indonesia 20 points. A tight finish was in store for the final round.
The Philippines were paired against the United Arab Emirates while Uzbekistan were to play New Zealand. Meanwhile, China faced the daunting task of facing Indonesia while Kazakhstan was paired with Singapore.
The UAE and the New Zealanders were not expected to provide much resistance, so the Filipinos and the Uzbeks were expected to score nothing less than 4-0 victories. If this had happened, the Philippines would be comfortable winners of the Tun Abdul Razak challenge trophy.
But it did not happen this way; both these teams conceded a drawn game each, so they were restricted to only 3 1/2-1/2 wins.
Normally, this would be sufficient for the Philippines to win the trophy but China confounded everybody by whitewashing the Indonesians in all their four games. So we had the Chinese team finishing the championship with the same points as the Philippines.
Who would be the new champion then: China or the Philippines? The tie-break would decide and as it turned out, it was the Kazakhstan match with Singapore that would provide the answer.
For China to be the champion, Kazakhstan would have to take at least three points from Singapore; otherwise, the Philippines would earn the trophy. When three games in the Kazakhstan-Singapore match ended, Kazakhstan had scored two wins to Singapore's one.
It was thus the crucial final game between Tkachiev and Singaporean international master Dr Wong Meng Kong that would decide the fate of the trophy. The Kazakh player tried his hardest to win but his opponent put up a dour defence to steer the game into a draw.
Thus, Kazakhstan could only win by 2 1/2 points and by virtue of this result, the Philippines became the new winner of the Asian team championship.
Kudos to the Philippines. In the 1970s, they were probably the strongest chess-playing country in east Asia but the last time that they won the trophy was in 1986. Thereafter, they were eclipsed first by China and later by Kazakhstan when the former Soviet republics joined the Asian chess fold.
In Singapore, the Filipinos were without their grandmaster Eugene Torre but another of their grandmasters, Rogelio Antonio, was a capable replacement on first board while international master Rogelio Barcenilla was deadly on third board. International masters Nelson Mariano and Ricky de Guzman played regularly on second and third boards, while Barlo Nadera and Ricardo Nolte propped up the team as reserve players.
Malaysia
The Malaysian team finished joint 12th to 15th in the championship. Ours was almost a totally teenaged team comprising national champion Mas Hafizulhelmi on first board, Ooi Chern Ee on second board, Tan Wei Sin on fourth board, Lim Yee Weng as first reserve and Abdul Haq Mohamad as second reserve. Our third board player, Julian Navaratnam, seemed oddly out of place among this array of Malaysian "power rangers".
Mas Hafizul was a little out of his depth playing on the first board. He had three consecutive losses followed by two draws before winning against Singapore's Dr Wong Meng Kong and then he lost a fourth time. On second board, Ooi fared better with five wins, two draws and two losses.
Julian scored a win, a draw and three losses; Tan had two wins, two draws and three losses; Lim obtained three wins and two losses; and Abdul Haq won one and lost two.
Women's game
For the first time since the inception of the Asian team championship in 1974, a women's section was introduced by the Singapore Chess Federation. It was very encouraging to see 12 teams taking part.
China was led by their women's world champion, Xie Jun, and it was a foregone conclusion that the Chinese team would be the first winner of the Far East challenge trophy.
They led from the word "go" and even a slight hiccup against Kazakhstan in the fourth round (the Kazakh women won 2-1) could not prevent Xie Jun and company from claiming that trophy.
Theirs was such a comfortable lead that against Indonesia, Malaysia and Iran in the middle stretch of the championship, they could afford to drop half points against these teams. But towards the end, the Chinese again turned on their full power to annihilate the opposition.
During the championship, there was a general feeling that Xie, a full-fledged grandmaster, was not playing to her full strength. Who knows, perhaps she was afraid to disclose her preparations for her forthcoming defence of the world championship title against Hungary's Zsuzsa Polgar.
She only played five games out of nine rounds but her contribution was four points towards the Chinese team's total of 23. But even without Xie, the other Chinese players, comprising two woman grandmasters and a woman international master, were formidable enough.
Again, Malaysia put up a women's team and the pleasant surprise was that we were not outclassed in this field. The Malaysians may have lost four matches but they also won four matches and drawing one.
Khairunissa Wahiduddin, the current national women's champion, was in good form to score five wins and two draws. She lost only one game. Eliza Hanum Ibrahim obtained four wins and four draws; Roslina Marmono had four wins, two draws and two losses, while Norfatitah Saranon lost all her three games.
Final standings (Men): Philippines, China 25 points; Uzbekistan 24 1/2; Kazakhstan 23; Mongolia 22; Vietnam 21; Indonesia 20; Iran 19 1/2; Singapore A, UAE 19; Singapore B 18; Japan, New Zealand, Malaysia, Hongkong 16 1/2; Qatar 16; Sri Lanka 15; Asean 13 1/2; Macau 8; and Brunei 5 1/2.
(Women): China 23 points; Vietnam 19 1/2; Kazakhstan 18 1/2; Indonesia 18; Uzbekistan 17; Malaysia 15; Iran 13 1/2; Sri Lanka 11 1/2; UAE 8 1/2; Singapore A 7; Singapore B 4; and Singapore C 3 1/2.
JOHOR OPEN
The Johor Chess Club will organise the Johor open chess championship on Jan 21 at the Pelangi Leisure Mall in Jalan Serampang, Taman Pelangi, Johor Bahru.
This is a one-day Swiss event run according to the World Chess Federation's Rapid Chess rules.
There will be three sections - an open, an under-16 and an under-12 - and for the men's and women's sections, and separate prizes will be given to the men and women.
The men's open section offers a top prize of RM1,000 and for the runners-up, RM700. There are 13 other prizes in this section with a total prize fund of RM1,650. For the other sections in this tournament, the collective prize fund is RM1,495.
Entry fees for the open section are RM30 for the men and RM15 for the women. However, special discounts are given if you are among the first 50 players to register for the tournament. In this instance, the men need pay only RM20 and the women RM10.
Entry fees for the under-16 and under-12 sections are RM8 per player. There is also a discounted fee of RM5 for the first 50 players in each section.
Games start at 9am on Jan 21 but the organisers require the participants to report to the tournament hall by 8am.
Those interested should contact either Sumathy or Stephen Cheong for the entry forms.
Closing date for entries is Jan 16.
No comments:
Post a Comment