On the eve of a great chess festival

WITH THE third IGB Arthur Tan Memorial Malaysia open championship due to start on Monday, the list of titled players that have registered with the Malaysian Chess Federation (MCF) is still growing.

Earlier this week, the MCF said the grandmasters will include Susanto Megaranto (Indonesia), Rogelio Antonio (Philippines), Alexei Barsov (Uzbekistan), Praveen Thipsay (India), Ziaur Rahman (Bangladesh), Reefat Sattar (Bangladesh), Yu Shaoteng (China), Mariano Nelson (Philippines), Mark Paragua (Philippines), Niaz Murshad (Bangladesh) and Ian Rogers (Australia).

Among the international masters will be Irwanto Sadikin (Indonesia), Tirto (Indonesia), Taufik Halay (Indonesia), Wynn Zaw Htun (Myanmar), Nay Oo Kyaw Tun (Myanmar), Myo Naing (Myanmar), Ashot Nadanian (Armenia) and Jimmy Liew (Malaysia). 

Also among them will be woman grandmaster Eesha Karavade (India), woman international master Rani Hamid (Bangladesh) and several Fide Masters.

There will be a handful of local players who will be joining the chase for the cash prizes as well as title norms in the Malaysia open. Apart from Jimmy Liew who is already an international master, leading the Malaysian interest will be Mok Tze Meng who is chasing his final international master title norm. I wish him all the best.

The other local players in the Malaysia open are Sumant Subramaniam, Lim Kian Hwa and Edwin Lam. 

Most of the Malaysians will instead be playing in the AmBank Group Malaysia Chess Challenge.  

Today being the eve of the Astro Merdeka team open championship, I expect many chess players from around the country are already making their way towards Kuala Lumpur. I shall be one of them and I shall be joining four others of my team-mates in this big event. 

I hear from the MCF that the number of team can touch 100. I suppose the pull of this event is too great for many to resist or ignore, despite it not being held at the end of the month. Moreover, it is not even an international rating event.

So what is the lure of the Merdeka? From its humble beginnings at the Wisma Belia some 26 years ago, it has grown to be the biggest and most exciting team event in the regional chess calendar.

Year in and year out, teams converge in Kuala Lumpur to play. Even foreign teams have been known to use the Merdeka championship as an excuse to visit the country. 

More so with the Midvalley Megamall being made the venue of the event in the past three years. If not for chess, the other big excuse that people use to play in the Merdeka is the opportunity to shop, shop and shop.

For me, shopping is not a priority. Playing chess is a greater priority than shopping but I suppose the greatest attraction for me is the once-a-year opportunity to meet up with some old chess friends from across the country. 

It is a reunion of sorts so, I shall be seeing you this weekend in KL!

UP NEXT

Chess clinic

Fide Master Brian Jones from Australia will be at the Sek Men Tengku Ampuan Rahimah in Klang tomorrow to conduct a chess clinic for junior chess players. This four-hour clinic will be held at the school’s library starting 1pm and the fee is RM50 per participant.

Jones will take the participants through three topics aimed at improving chess-playing knowledge and skills: How Good Is Your Chess, Never Give Up, and Tactics And More Tactics.

For more information or to register, contact the school’s chess club at starschool_chessclub@yahoo.com 

The first 10 persons to register will receive an autographed copy of the magazine, Australian Chess, of which Jones is the editor. 

MBS open

The Methodist Boys School in Penang is organising its first open chess tournament this Sunday. 

Entry fees for members of the Penang Chess Association are RM8 for under-12 players, RM10 for under-18 players and RM12 for others. Non-members will be charged RM13 (under-12 players), RM15 (under-18 players) and RM17 (others). 

To register, contact Gerald Goh (tel: 012.4100998), Paul Ma (tel: 016.4693102) or Thomas Chua (tel: 016.4760902). Closing date is Aug 19.

JB Merdeka open

The Johor Bahru District Chess Association will hold the 16th JB Merdeka open chess tournament at the Giant SouthernCity in Taman Suria, Johor Bharu on Aug 27.

Entry fees are RM20 for players in the open section, RM8 for under-16 players and RM6 for under-12 players. Closing date for entries is Aug 18. For details, contact Narayanan Krishnan (tel: 07.3338215, email: naraa@tm.net.my).

Stonemaster open

There will be a second Stonemaster allegro open tournament, organised by Stonemaster Event Management Enterprise, in Kuala Lumpur on Sep 17. Also included in this event is a one-hour chess seminar.

Entry fee is RM20 per player. To register for both the tournament and the seminar, send your email to seme_event@yahoo.com or contact Fadli (017.2880123). Closing date is Sep 12.

Big influx of players expected

EARLIER THIS week, I was looking at the list of foreign players who had either registered or shown an interest in playing in the Arthur Tan Memorial Malaysia open championship in 17 days’ time.

Impressive list by our regional standard, I must say. Although the organizers, the Malaysian Chess Federation (MCF) cannot say for sure that all those foreign players will eventually turn up, the tentative player’s list is still mouth-watering. 

But the sad regret that I had to note is the possible absence of the Chinese players and this includes last year’s winner, Wang Hao. What I heard is that the Chinese are involved in their own chess league back home.

This is a pity because Wang Hao was the biggest hit of last year’s event. He was smashing his way through the event and cutting a path through all the resistance that terrified opponents were attempting to put up before him. One of his high-profile victims from last year will also be missing and this will be Ian Rogers.

Nevertheless, we shall still have a good list of grandmasters and international masters. Leading the pack shall be Indonesia’s top grandmaster, Utut Adianto, weighing in with a hefty Fide rating of 2589. 

Other familiar names among the grandmasters will be Indonesia’s Susanto Megaranto (rated 2524), Vietnam’s Dao Thien Hai (rated 2560) and Nguyen Anh Dung (rated 2542), the Philippines’ Joey Antonio (rated 2539) and Nelson Mariano (rated 2437).

Then there are also a trio of grandmasters from Uzbekistan (Alexei Barsov, Safin Shukrat and Saidali Yuldashev), possibly two from India (Abhijit Kunte and Praveen Thipsay), Ziaur Rahman and Reefat Sattar from Bangladesh and Yu Shaoteng from China.

Among the international masters, the more familiar among them will be Tirto and Irwanto Sadikin from Indonesia, Ravi Lanka from India, and Wynn Zaw Htun and Myo Niang from Myanmar.

Meanwhile, the MCF also expressed confidence that there will be a big influx of entries between now and next week’s closing date, Aug 10, for the AmBank Group Malaysia Chess Challenge and the Astro Merdeka team chess championship.

There have been numerous enquiries from both local and foreign players. The Chess Challenge, in particular, will provide local players with an opportunity to gain an international rating or improve on their rating points if they already have one, since the event will be played using international time control.

There are only a mere handful of local events that can qualify as a rated event and this is one. If you have always been eyeing to have an international rating, do not waste this opportunity. All you need is to play against three other internationally rated players and score at least a point from them and you are on your way to accumulating your points.

The Merdeka team open championship, however, is not a rating event. But there are good prize moneys which are too attractive to ignore, prompting news that some of the more active state chess associations are planning an assault on this event. This will be good for both the organizers and states as the move will bring quality from around the country to Kuala Lumpur. In addition, the organizers are confident that as the closing date approaches, local non-state teams will also be registering.

You can download all details pertaining to these events, including the entry fees and prizes, from The Chess Network website at http://tcn.sourceforge.net

 Alternatively, you can give a call to the Malaysian Chess Federation secretary, Abdul Hamid Majid, on 019.3158098 or email him at aham@pc.jaring.my 

UP NEXT

Selangor Merdeka open

The Chess Association of Selangor (CAS) will hold a one-day event at the Sunway University College this Sunday to select players to represent the state at this year’s Merdeka team open championship. There will be two categories of event – an open section and a under-16 section – with each category limited to 60 players only. 

Entry fees for the open event are RM15 for the CAS members and RM25 for non-members. For the under-16 event, the entry fees for members and non-members are RM10 and RM20 respectively. To pre-register for this event, email your name and age category to selangorchess@gmail.com

Chess clinic

The chess club of Sek Men Tengku Ampuan Rahimah in Klang has brought in Fide master Brian Jones from Australia to conduct a chess clinic for junior chess players on Aug 19. This four-hour clinic will be held at the school’s library starting 1pm and the fee is RM50 per participant.

Jones will take the participants through three interesting topics aimed at improving chess-playing knowledge and skills: How Good Is Your Chess, Never Give Up, and Tactics And More Tactics.

For more information or to register, contact the school’s chess club at starschool_chessclub@yahoo.com 

The first 10 persons to register will receive an autographed copy of the magazine, Australian Chess, of which Jones is the editor. 

MBS open

The Methodist Boys School in Penang is organising its first open chess tournament on Aug 20. 

Entry fees for members of the Penang Chess Association are RM8 for under-12 players, RM10 for under-18 players and RM12 for others. Non-members will be charged RM13 (under-12 players), RM15 (under-18 players) and RM17 (others). 

To register, contact Gerald Goh (tel: 012.4100998), Paul Ma (tel: 016.4693102) or Thomas Chua (tel: 016.4760902). Closing date is Aug 19.

JB Merdeka open

The Johor Bahru District Chess Association will hold the 16th JB Merdeka open chess tournament at the Giant SouthernCity in Taman Suria, Johor Bharu on Aug 27.

Entry fees are RM20 for players in the open section, RM8 for under-16 players and RM6 for under-12 players. Closing date for entries is Aug 18. For details, contact Narayanan Krishnan (tel: 07.3338215, email: naraa@tm.net.my).

UTP Convofair

The Universiti Teknologi Petronas in Tronoh, Perak, will organise a one-day tournament at the Foyer Chancellor Hall in conjunction with the university’s Convofair on Aug 13. 

The organisers are aiming to attract around 900 players in an attempt to get into the Malaysia Book of Records. To accommodate this expected number of players, the closing date for entries has been extended to Aug 9. 

In addition, the organisers have arranged buses to transport players from the Syuen Hotel in Ipoh at 7am on the day of the competition.

Altogether, there will be 10 categories – the open and institutions of higher learning (men and women), the under-12, under-15 and under-18 (boys and girls).

For more information on the entry fees, prizes, transportation and accommodation, contact Raja Farah (tel: 012.7749891 email: etakarina05@yahoo.com), Ku Nor Azmira (tel: 012.5951065, email: ku_miera@yahoo.com), Mazila (tel: 012.6573683, email: mazilamohamad@yahoo.com), Rosfadilah (tel: 017.6060914) or Mat Nor (tel: 017.9683376).