Big challenges ahead

IF YOU think that running a regional chess competition is a piece of cake, you should think again. Better still, ask the students of Universiti Malaya’s second residential college what it is like to hold an ambitious project like their annual Grand Asian Chess Challenge (GACC).

They will tell you that it is not easy. The biggest headache is the daunting task of tracking invitations after they have been sent to the universities and other tertiary-level learning institutions in the region. There is the nail-biting suspense of waiting for these institutions to say whether they are participating or not.

Even if they had said that they are coming, anything can still happen between their confirmation and arrival. Nothing is ever certain until you actually meet them at the airport’s arrival hall.

Take this year, for example. According to Teh Ooi Kock of the GACC organising committee, there were quite a number of foreign universities that had told them that they would be coming but because of the Sept 11 tragedy in New York, many universities have decided to change their plans.

At this point, only the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, Lahore University of Management, Mulund University of Commerce (India), Pure University (India), University of Colombo, University of Peracheniya (Sri Lanka), Catholic University of Parahyangon (Indonesia), Gunadarma University (Indonesia) and Sharif University (Iran) are among the confirmed entries.

It will be another two weeks before the tournament finally starts on Oct 19 and until then, it will be a nervous wait for the GACC committee.

Nevertheless, Teh is confident that the reduced number of foreign teams and players can be offset by the support from the local universities and colleges.

At present, however, only the Selangor and Malacca campuses of the Multimedia University, Universiti Utara Malaysia, Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris, Universiti Malaya and Universiti Sains Malaysia have confirmed.

It is still rather uncertain whether others like the Tunku Abdul Rahman College, International Islamic University and the University Malaya Sarawak will register for the GACC this year but the organisers are rather hopeful.

Said Teh: “We wish to appeal to our friends in the local institutions, especially those who have yet to commit themselves, to support this annual event and confirm their entries early so that Malaysia can continue with this fine tradition.”

The GACC started six years ago as an experimental project by the Universiti Malaya’s second residential college’s students. Back in 1996, it was confined only to the Asean region and there were only 11 teams taking part.

The inaugural title was won by the Nanyang Technological University of Singapore, which had entered four teams for the competition. The university even took the second prize, and it was left to the home-grown team from the Universiti Malaya to take the third prize.

The second year’s tournament was won by the Gunadarma University from Indonesia with Vietnam’s Hue University taking the second prize and the Institut Teknologi Bandung of Indonesia coming third.

By the time the third GACC was organised in 1998, the organisers had decided to expand their coverage to the whole of the Asian continent. There were teams from West Asia taking part for the first time.

Iran’s University of Khorassan emerged champion in the third GACC but the local teams from Universiti Telekom and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia had their best show by taking the second and third places.

The 1999 edition of the GACC produced one of the most interesting results. The title went to the Mongolian State Pedagogical University, which was playing for the first time. Second was Indonesia’s Gunadarma University and third, the Rizal Technological University from the Philippines.

Last year’s GACC was one of the most successful. Taking part were teams from as far away as Beirut (the American University of Beirut) and the United Arab Emirates. The Gunadarma University won the GACC for the second time, and finishing second was the Higher College Of Technology from the UAE. University Of Peradeniya from Sri Lanka was third.

This year, Royal Selangor steps into the picture by sponsoring a beautifully handcrafted challenge trophy that is crowned with gold-plated king and queen chess pieces. Standing 38cm high and designed by the company’s in-house designers, the handcrafted trophy took two craftsmen a month to complete.

The GACC tournament will be played as a nine-round Swiss event at the university’s second residential college from Oct 19. There will be both a team and an individual event.

Time control is two hours per game for each player. For every round, each team is required to field at least one woman as one of their four players.

According to Teh, the firm favourite in this year’s team event is the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics. Among their players are two of China’s top players, grandmaster Peng Xiao Min who has an international rating of 2,629 points and woman grandmaster Wang Pin who is rated at 2,504 points.

The GACC website is at http://www. geocities.com/gacc_malaysia/index.html while enquiries can be directed to Tong Wai Yee (% 012-676 8582), or Yap Chee Keong (% 012-662 4843) or e-mail: gacc_6@hotmail.com.

St Nicholas turns 50

The St Nicholas Home for the Visually Impaired in Penang is 50 years old this year and as part of its jubilee celebrations, the Home is organising a special chess tournament on Oct 13 and 14.

This event, run with the technical expertise of the Penang Chess Association, will pit a maximum of 20 visually impaired players against an equivalent number of sighted players from Penang.

The visually impaired players will be from the Society of the Blind Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, led by their most successful player, Mah Hassan, who is a senior legal officer with the Securities Commission.

When I met Mah Hassan in KL recently, he was very excited about the whole project.

“We are looking forward to this special event that the St Nicholas Home is organising. It is the first time we are having a visually impaired organisation playing an active part in holding a chess competition anywhere in the country,” he said.

“The Society of the Blind Malaysia is ready to contribute by arranging for 16 to 20 of our top players to blitz your players in this very traditional game,” he added.

It is actually a big challenge to play against a non-sighted player. For one thing, it can be rather unnerving for a first-timer to play chess with the visually impaired.

They have their own separate chessboards with raised and sunken squares in place of the normal black and white squares, and each of these squares have a hole in their centres. A corresponding feature of their chess set is that all the pieces are mounted on little cylindrical pegs that fit nicely into the holes.

When a visually impaired player plays chess, more often than not, he will be concentrating on the chess board, and feeling the pieces and the board with his hands as he decides on his strategy. The “touch move” rule obviously does not apply to him until the chess clock is punched.

The sighted player need not have to use the same board as his opponent. He has the choice of concentrating on his game using a regular chess set. However, the sighted player is required to assist his opponent by announcing or pointing out to him the moves that have been made.

Speed chess is, of course, unheard of in games between sighted and non-sighted players and I knew that Mah Hassan was just jesting when he said that he wanted to play blitz. The visually impaired players will normally require nothing less than a 45-minute game for a decent match and to compensate for their handicap.

For the St Nicholas jubilee celebration tournament, the format will be a five-round event with a one-hour time control per player for each game. There will be three rounds on Oct 13 and two rounds on Oct 14.

The players from the Penang Chess Association will be selected by invitation only, but spectators are welcomed at the St Nicholas Home next weekend to watch this interesting contest.