Beyond envy

“Hey, Greg,” I asked the Malaysian Chess Federation’s secretary when I bumped into him in Kuala Lumpur recently, “what’s become of our standing with the World Chess Federation (Fide)?”

In case you are not aware, Malaysia’s name had been missing from Fide’s list of member countries since the beginning of the year. Our Fide-rated players suddenly found themselves delisted from the Fide rating list. Gregory Lau, the MCF secretary, would be the best person to bring me up to date on this matter.

“Oh, don’t you know,” he replied almost casually, “we are back on board Fide since last Friday at about 9pm. If you check the Fide website, all our players are back in the rating list.”

That was quite a relief to hear. We are again a member in benefit. At first, I wanted to say that the MCF should shoulder the full blame for letting our membership lapse but on second thoughts, was it really all the fault of the MCF? 

I don’t think so. In fact, the MCF’s position is beyond envy. The federation receives so little or no funding from the government and whatever little financial resources it has goes back to cover its administrative costs. 

From what I know, Fide was owed in excess of Euro2,000. At today’s exchange rates, that’s at least RM10,000. While a chunk of it went towards settling the membership dues, there are also other obligations towards Fide.

For example, it costs Euro270 to register a team for the Chess Olympiad. If we send both the men’s and women’s teams, the cost is doubled. Then there are also the rating fees for our players. As long as a player is registered with Fide and he is in their “active” list, the federation is required to pay one Euro for that player.

Getting a chess title confirmed is also not cheap. For instance, an application for an international master title will cost the federation Euro165 and in the past year, we had two new international masters. Fide has the right to increase the fee by 50 percent to 100 percent if title applications are made after their deadline for submission. 

And finally, if you want to organize a Fide-rated round-robin tournament, be prepared to pay the registration fee too. It’s calculated based on the strength of the tournament. For Swiss tournaments, the fee is one Euro per player. On top of that, if the organizer fails to submit the results to Fide, a penalty fee kicks in.

All in all, these fees simply add up to a lot of money. For voluntary organizations like the MCF, it digs a deep hole in the pockets. And this is just fees due to Fide alone. What about participation in regional events? They cost money too but only this time, the Asian Chess Federation is the beneficiary of the fees. 

So don’t think that chess is a cheap game. If a federation is not careful, one fine day it will find itself temporarily excluded from Fide until the arrears are settled. That’s what happened to the MCF. The big fear is this: okay, so our arrears have been settled for now but what will happen in the next one or two years? Nobody knows….

Finally still on the topic of ratings, I have some quick statistics here based on the latest January 2010 list. We, that is Malaysia, have three players rated above 2400 in Mas Hafizulhelmi (2420), Mok Tze Meng (2414) and Wong Zijing (2410). We have also four players above 2300: Nicholas Chan (2398), Ooi Chern Ee (2336), Peter Long (2331) and Jimmy Liew (2315).

Then comes 26 players with ratings of above 2200, followed by 37 players rated above 2100. The rest are below 2100. 

Up next  

City Day fun

Come celebrate City Day in Kuala Lumpur this Monday with a fun blitz event at the Datuk Arthur Tan Chess Centre, Wilayah Complex. This will be an 11-round event with only five minutes on the chess clock. Entry fee is RM25 per player. For registration and details, contact Hamid Majid (019.3158098 or aham@pc.jaring.my) or Najib Wahab (016.3382542 or najib.wahab@hotmail.com)

Seri Putra chess

The Perak International Chess Association will organize the Seri Putra chess tournament at the Sekolah Menengah Seri Putra hall on Feb 7. Note that the organizers are now holding the under-10, under-12, under-15 and open events on the same day.

Entry fees are RM5 for the under-12 and under-10 events and RM10 for the under-15 and open events. The closing date for entries is Feb 4. To register, contact Abu Bakar Abdullah (014.2510852 or 014.2510952) or visit http://perakchess.blogspot.com 

KL rapid grand prix

The Kuala Lumpur Chess Association (KLCA) and Polgar Chess Asia will jointly organize a KL rapid grand prix beginning next month. The grand prix, sponsored by the Malaysian Intellectual Development Foundation and the Royal Selangor Club (RSC), will feature four legs from February to May and followed by the grand final in June. The first leg will be on Feb 6-7.

Each leg will have six rounds with a 45-minute rate of play per player for each round. The top 10 winners of the open and under-12 sections will be given free entry to their respective sections in the final. Total prize fund for the grand prix is RM6,600.

Entry fees for the open section are RM15 for members of the KLCA and the RSC and RM20 for non-members. For the under-12 section, the entry fees are RM5 for children of KLCA and RSC members and RM10 for others. All legs will be played at the RSC’s Card Room at Dataran Merdeka, Kuala Lumpur. More details at  the KLCA website, http://www.klchess.com/ 

UTP open

The Universiti Teknologi Petronas will organize their UTP chess open tournament at their campus in Bandar Seri Iskandar, Tronoh, Perak on Feb 21. There will be an open section as well as an under-18 and under-12 sections. 

Entry fees are RM20 for the open, RM15 for under-18 and RM10 for under-12. UTP students and staff need pay only RM15 upon presentation of their matrix cards.  Closing date is Feb 7. More details, contact Hussein (017.6410194, husseinnordin@gmail.com), Faizal (017.3934291, faizalakram91@gmail.com) or Qistina (019.2602094).

Malaysian women’s masters

After the success of last year’s Malaysian Masters tournament at the DATCC, next comes the Malaysian Women’s Masters tournament starting Feb 26. There will be 16 players who will play knock-out matches. More information is available from MCF secretary Gregory Lau (012.9020123, greglau64@gmail.com or malaysianchessfederation@gmail.com) or Najib Abdul Wahab (016.3382542, najib.wahab@hotmail.com).

3rd DATCC chess league

The third DATCC Kuala Lumpur commercial and recreational chess league at the Datuk Arthur Tan Chess Centre, Wilayah Complex will kick off on Mar 24. The DATCC chess league is a Fide-rated team tournament played over nine rounds with long time controls. Each round will be played on Wednesdays at the chess centre. 

Entry fee is RM400 per team of a maximum 10 players. Junior teams (players below 20 years old) are charged at RM200. Any entry received after Mar 12 will need to pay an extra RM100. Details are available from Hamid Majid (019.3158098, aham@pc.jaring.my) or Najib Abdul Wahab (016.3382542, najib.wahab@hotmail.com).

 

No quick solution

Opinions plenty, suggestions plenty but implementation remains a problem

It was like déjà vu. Way back in 1974, I was part of a group of chess enthusiasts who had come to Kuala Lumpur to attend the first official meeting of the Malaysian Chess Federation. 

Last Sunday, I was again part of a group of chess enthusiasts who had come to Kuala Lumpur to participate in an informal discussion with other like-minded people.

In both cases, the objectives were the same. At both meetings, we tried to find ways to take Malaysian chess forward. However, there was a difference. Then, chess was only known in a few pockets of the country, notably in Kuala Lumpur, Johor Bahru and Penang. But now, I can say that the game is played in all the states and there is considerable interest everywhere.

But despite the wider recognition of chess in today’s society, the unfortunate thing is that we are unable to take the game to the next higher level. 

Today, we have five international masters but we are still way off the target for a grandmaster. Today, we may have something close to 200 players on the World Chess Federation’s rating list but this is a trickle compared to the hundreds of thousands of players listed there. 

Today, we have players rated 2400 or above, but the international rating list is full of players with ratings of at least 2600. Today, we have chess organizers holding enough events to fill up our local chess calendar but we are not uncovering enough talents.

So the meeting in Kuala Lumpur on Sunday was to brainstorm on the ways and means to move chess forward. While the meeting attracted close to 40 people who were mostly from the Klang Valley, the numbers could have been higher. Chess players and organizers from beyond this region were greatly missed. Their inputs could have been very important. 

Nevertheless, a lot of good ideas and suggestions were made and heard. What I particularly liked was Jimmy Liew’s contention that chess, like other games and sports, needed a hero. We would need to have our own chess heroes, people whom our young players can look up to and emulate. 

Unfortunately, we don’t have one. In my opinion, the closest we have ever come to having one is Mas Hafizulhelmi. Yes, for sure that he is a nice guy and he works very hard at his chess….but he is still not visible enough to produce excellent results and he doesn’t have the results to become more visible. Effectively, it is a vicious cycle and a way must be found to break this cycle.

There were also talks of branding and marketing. Everyone agreed with one point, that all this while chess has never been an easy game to promote. Maybe it is time that our chess organizers adopt a more business-like approach to the matter and think about the benefits and advantages of chess and use them to promote and market the game. 

The persons running chess centres need not be good chess players. In fact, they need not even be chess players as long as they are good in marketing and turning their ideas into concrete courses of action.

As for product branding, the suggestion was that chess centres like the Datuk Arthur Tan Chess Centre (DATCC) must present a face to their names so that people can associate closer with their activities. No point calling it the DATCC when nobody knows how Arthur Tan looked like. So who knows, perhaps we shall see a picture of him at the chess centre soon. 

There was also talk of making chess centres a safer and friendlier place to attract both children and the working adults. For adults, they could be places for them to hang out and relax with friends after work over a few chess games and for children, a place where parents would want to bring their children over for evening visits. 

So the suggestions kept coming in fast and thick as everyone around the table had their ideas. But at the end of the day, I suppose the most critical question would be implementation. How would they be implemented and who would be spearheading them? 

I seriously think that it is out of the question for the Malaysian Chess Federation (MCF) to implement them. The MCF’s role is only governing and administering. This would leave the operations side of chess and it is only logical that this involves the people on the ground. But unless they are in a position to raise their own funds and decide on how to use them for their own chess promotion and marketing, I think much of the proposals and suggestions will ultimately be left unfulfilled. Sad but true.

Up next  

Jeram Kuala Selangor open

There will be a one-day Jeram Kuala Selangor chess open tournament at the Restoran Ikan Bakar, Pantai Jeram in Kuala Selangor this Sunday. There will be prizes for the open section as well as for the best under-18 and under-12 players. For more information, contact Azhar Mohd Said (012.6796193) or Faridah Hussain (012.3878375).

Seri Putra chess

The Perak International Chess Association will organize the Seri Putra chess tournament at the Sekolah Menengah Seri Putra hall next month. The under-12 and under-10 events will be played on Feb 6, while the under-15 and open tournaments will be held on Feb 7.

Entry fees are RM5 for the under-12 and under-10 events and RM10 for the under-15 and open events. The closing date for entries is Feb 4. To register, contact Abu Bakar Abdullah (014.2510852 or 014.2510952) or visit http://perakchess.blogspot.com 

KL rapid grand prix

The Kuala Lumpur Chess Association (KLCA) and Polgar Chess Asia will jointly organize a KL rapid grand prix beginning next month. The grand prix, sponsored by the Malaysian Intellectual Development Foundation and the Royal Selangor Club (RSC), will feature four legs from February to May and followed by the grand final in June. The first leg will be on Feb 6-7.

Each leg will have six rounds with a 45-minute rate of play per player for each round. The top 10 winners of the open and under-12 sections will be given free entry to their respective sections in the final. Total prize fund for the grand prix is RM6,600.

Entry fees for the open section are RM15 for members of the KLCA and the RSC and RM20 for non-members. For the under-12 section, the entry fees are RM5 for children of KLCA and RSC members and RM10 for others. All legs will be played at the RSC’s Card Room at Dataran Merdeka, Kuala Lumpur. More details at  the KLCA website, http://www.klchess.com/ 

UTP open

The Universiti Teknologi Petronas will organize their UTP chess open tournament at their campus in Bandar Seri Iskandar, Tronoh, Perak on Feb 21. There will be an open section as well as an under-18 and under-12 sections. 

Entry fees are RM20 for the open, RM15 for under-18 and RM10 for under-12. UTP students and staff need pay only RM15 upon presentation of their matrix cards.  Closing date is Feb 7. More details, contact Hussein (017.6410194, husseinnordin@gmail.com), Faizal (017.3934291, faizalakram91@gmail.com) or Qistina (019.2602094).

Malaysian women’s masters

After seeing the success of last year’s Malaysian Masters tournament at the DATCC, the Malaysian Chess Federation (MCF) has announced the organizing of an equivalent event for the top women players in the country. Billed as the Malaysian Women’s Masters, the event will involve 16 players who will play knock-out matches starting Feb 26.

More information is available from MCF secretary Gregory Lau (012.9020123, greglau64@gmail.com or malaysianchessfederation@gmail.com) or Najib Abdul Wahab (016.3382542, najib.wahab@hotmail.com).

3rd DATCC chess league

Even as the second DATCC Kuala Lumpur commercial and recreational chess league grounded to a halt on Tuesday, the organizers – the Datuk Arthur Tan Chess Centre – are already planning for the third such event which shall kick off on Mar 24.

The DATCC chess league is a Fide-rated team tournament played over nine rounds with long time controls. Each round will be played on Wednesdays at the chess centre. 

Entry fee is RM400 per team of a maximum 10 players. Junior teams (players below 20 years old) are charged at RM200. Any entry received after Mar 12 will need to pay an extra RM100. More details from Hamid Majid (019.3158098, aham@pc.jaring.my) or Najib Abdul Wahab (016.3382542, najib.wahab@hotmail.com). 

 

Budget cut

So it happens yet again. The rumour that I have been hearing for the past months has been confirmed. Chess is out from this year’s national schools’ sports programme, a victim of the drastic cost-cutting measures by the Ministry of Education.

According to a news report last week, the ministry had slashed its annual grant to the Malaysian Schools Sports Council (MSSM) from RM6 million to a measly RM1.5 million. As a result, the MSSM is forced to reduce the number of sports in its calendar from 24 to 13.

Of course, I’m disappointed with the consequences of the budget slash. Who wouldn’t be? A student’s all-round education should encompass both academic and non-academic activities. While emphasis should rightly focus on academic results, non-academic activities should not be overlooked. This nation is not built on bookworms alone. 

So chess is one of the sports affected. There won’t be an MSSM chess tournament at the national level this year. No doubt, there may still be some school chess tournaments on a state-wide level if the states can find the funds themselves, but without a school competition at national level, it will never be the same.

As I said earlier, it is not the first time that it has happened to chess. More than 10 years ago when the country was hit by a financial recession, chess was a convenient victim. Funds were also withdrawn from chess at the MSSM and it was only many years later that the game was re-instated into the programme.

In the process, we lost more than a generation of chess players. The luckier states like Selangor and Penang were able to continue nurturing their young crop of players but in most of the other states, chess development in the schools was practically at a stand-still. These states suffered the most. Losing this generation of chess players meant that many of our young citizens never had the opportunity to uncover or develop their full potential. Goodness knows how many of them were wasted.

Then, when chess was re-introduced into the national sports programme a few years ago, it took a while before the game got back into its natural groove. No doubt, the same thing is going to happen again. There’ll be another generation lost.

The only comfort which chess players can perhaps derive from this setback is that we are not alone. Together with chess, other sports like bowling, squash, archery, table tennis, rugby, cricket, sailing, softball, handball and cross country have been axed from the programme.

But is this the time for self-pity? No! Not for chess nor any of the other games that were taken off the MSSM calendar. If anything, this is the opportunity for the state sport associations and the national sport federations to do something positive on their own to maintain the interest and momentum in the sport they profess to represent.

If a state education department cannot organize a state-wide school chess competition, come in with your expertise to hold your own state-level age group tournaments. If there is no MSSM competition for your game, the federation should step in to help out with a national age group event.

In this sense, perhaps chess is a little fortunate because the Malaysian Chess Federation (MCF) has had an annual national age group chess competition running for a few years already. It started about the same time that chess went off the MSSM radar in the last decade.

It just grew from there. The national age group competitions never stopped even when chess was re-instated into the MSSM calendar. They simply co-existed, one event complementing the other.

So this year, the national age group competition in March will be taking on a special importance again. It will be a premier junior tournament to judge the chess abilities of our youth on a national platform. I would urge them – all the chess players who are still below the age of 18 – to come and give your support to this event. It will be your chance to demonstrate that scholastic chess can continue growing despite this momentary setback.

Incidentally, I shall be in Kuala Lumpur this weekend to attend a meeting at the Datuk Arthur Tan Chess Centre – initiated by the grand old man of Malaysian chess, Datuk Tan Chin Nam – of interested chess parties in an effort to find a common ground for chess organizations and chess personalities to grow together.

I laud his effort for a brain-storming session. We have got to take the cue from the axing of MSSM chess. It is now even more imperative for everyone connected with chess to cooperate together as one and take the game up to the next level. In the face of shrinking grants, chess in this country should look to more efficiency. By working together, we’ll find that the chess pie is certainly still large enough for everyone to share.

See you at the meeting on Sunday morning!

Up next  

KL rapid grand prix

The Kuala Lumpur Chess Association (KLCA) and Polgar Chess Asia will jointly organize a KL rapid grand prix beginning next month. The grand prix, sponsored by the Malaysian Intellectual Development Foundation and the Royal Selangor Club (RSC), will have four legs from February to May and followed by the grand final in June.

Each leg will feature six rounds with a 45-minute rate of play per player for each round. The first leg will be on Feb 6-7. The top 10 winners of the open and under-12 sections will be given free entry to their respective sections in the final. Total prize fund for the grand prix is RM6,600.

Entry fees for the open section are RM15 for members of the KLCA and the RSC and RM20 for non-members. For the under-12 section, the entry fees are RM5 for children of KLCA and RSC members and RM10 for others. All legs will be played at the RSC’s Card Room at Dataran Merdeka, Kuala Lumpur. More details at  the KLCA website, http://www.klchess.com/ 

UTP open

The Universiti Teknologi Petronas will organize their UTP chess open tournament at their campus in Bandar Seri Iskandar, Tronoh, Perak on Feb 21. There will be an open section as well as an under-18 and under-12 sections. 

Entry fees are RM20 for the open, RM15 for under-18 and RM10 for under-12. UTP students and staff need pay only RM15 upon presentation of their matrix cards.  Closing date is Feb 7. More details, contact Hussein (017.6410194, husseinnordin@gmail.com), Faizal (017.3934291, faizalakram91@gmail.com) or Qistina (019.2602094).

Malaysian women’s masters

After seeing the success of last year’s Malaysian Masters tournament at the DATCC, the Malaysian Chess Federation (MCF) has announced the organizing of an equivalent event for the top women players in the country. Billed as the Malaysian Women’s Masters, the event will involve 16 players who will play knock-out matches starting Feb 26.

More information is available from MCF secretary Gregory Lau (012.9020123, greglau64@gmail.com or malaysianchessfederation@gmail.com) or Najib Abdul Wahab (016.3382542, najib.wahab@hotmail.com).

3rd DATCC chess league

Even as the second DATCC Kuala Lumpur commercial and recreational chess league grounded to a halt on Tuesday, the organizers – the Datuk Arthur Tan Chess Centre – are already planning for the third such event which shall kick off on Mar 24.

The DATCC chess league is a Fide-rated team tournament played over nine rounds with long time controls. Each round will be played on Wednesdays at the chess centre. 

Entry fee is RM400 per team of a maximum 10 players. Junior teams (players below 20 years old) are charged at RM200. Any entry received after Mar 12 will need to pay an extra RM100. More details from Hamid Majid (019.3158098, aham@pc.jaring.my) or Najib Abdul Wahab (016.3382542, najib.wahab@hotmail.com). 

 

Masters of the game

New Year’s Day brought on some mixed news for the Malaysian chess scene. I don’t like to use well-worn clichés but anyway, the good news should come first and the good news is that we have had two new International Masters confirmed by the World Chess Federation since last November.

Last September, we knew that Mok Tze Meng had been awarded a provisional IM title pending his rating points jumping above 2400. Well, his title has now been confirmed. 

The other player who now has a confirmed IM title is Lim Yee Weng. His application to Fide was made in November 2008 after he had achieved his three IM title norms at the Turin Chess Olympiad in 2006 and two of the Malaysia open tournaments in 2007 and 2008. At that time, Fide agreed to the application but made his IM title conditional upon his rating rising above 2400 points. He did achieve this subsequently and the title was finally confirmed in last November’s rating list.

Good for the two of them because they had put in a lot of hard work to get their titles.

As it stands right now, Malaysia has five international masters. 

Jimmy Liew was the first to achieve this title so there is always a special place reserved for him whenever this subject of international masters is raised locally. Mas Hafizulhelmi was our second player to gain this title and he also has a special place in Malaysian chess because after all these years, he remains our strongest player. 

Apart from Liew, Mas Hafizul, Mok and Lim, our other international master is Wong Zijing who is unfortunately inactive because he’s totally caught up with his studies overseas. Hopefully, we shall be able to see him return to active chess duties sometime in the future.

The bad news is that suddenly, I found Malaysia’s name disappearing from the Fide list of member nations. For that to happen, it can only mean one thing: that the Malaysian Chess Federation’s (MCF) membership standing with Fide has not been regularized in the past one year. 

The MCF has been such a long-standing member of the world body since 1974 (even longer if we consider the days of the old Chess Association of Malaysia, which was the MCF’s predecessor) that it is embarrassing that this should happen. 

Unfortunately, such delistings do happen once in a while even to more active chess federations. The least that the MCF should do now is to take steps to rectify this hiccup as soon as possible.

Up next  

UTP open

The Universiti Teknologi Petronas will organize their UTP chess open tournament at their campus in Bandar Seri Iskandar, Tronoh, Perak on Feb 21. There will be an open section as well as an under-18 and under-12 sections. 

Entry fees are RM20 for the open, RM15 for under-18 and RM10 for under-12. UTP students and staff need pay only RM15 upon presentation of their matrix cards.  Closing date is Feb 7. More details, contact Hussein (017.6410194, husseinnordin@gmail.com), Faizal (017.3934291, faizalakram91@gmail.com) or Qistina (019.2602094).

KL rapid grand prix

The Kuala Lumpur Chess Association (KLCA) and Polgar Chess Asia will jointly organize a KL rapid grand prix beginning next month. The grand prix, sponsored by the Malaysian Intellectual Development Foundation and the Royal Selangor Club (RSC), will have four legs from February to May and followed by the grand final in June.

Each leg will feature six rounds with a 45-minute rate of play per player for each round. The first leg will be on Feb 6-7. The top 10 winners of the open and under-12 sections will be given free entry to their respective sections in the final. Total prize fund for the grand prix is RM6,600.

Entry fees for the open section are RM15 for members of the KLCA and the RSC and RM20 for non-members. For the under-12 section, the entry fees are RM5 for children of KLCA and RSC members and RM10 for others. All legs will be played at the RSC’s Card Room at Dataran Merdeka, Kuala Lumpur.

3rd DATCC chess league

Even as the second DATCC Kuala Lumpur commercial and recreational chess league grounded to a halt on Tuesday, the organizers – the Datuk Arthur Tan Chess Centre – are already planning for the third such event which shall kick off on Mar 24.

The DATCC chess league is a Fide-rated team tournament played over nine rounds with long time controls. Each round will be played on Wednesdays at the chess centre. 

Entry fee is RM400 per team of a maximum 10 players. Junior teams (players below 20 years old) are charged at RM200. Any entry received after Mar 12 will need to pay an extra RM100. More details from Hamid Majid (019.3158098, aham@pc.jaring.my) or Najib Abdul Wahab (016.3382542, najib.wahab@hotmail.com). 

Malaysian women’s masters

I hear that the Malaysian Chess Federation (MCF) after seeing the success of last year’s Malaysian Masters tournament at the DATCC, is seriously considering to organize an equivalent event for the top women players in the country. It will be billed as the Malaysian Women’s Masters, and the matches will be played in February and March on a knock-out masis.

More information available from MCF secretary Gregory Lau (012.9020123, greglau64@gmail.com or malaysianchessfederation@gmail.com).

 

On top of the world

 

Carlsen in China

Well, a happy new year to you! By tradition at the start of every new year, the World Chess Federation (Fide) releases its January edition of the Fide rating list. It’s always the case that chess players worldwide – those who are internationally-rated, anyway – look forward to the release of the Fide list to see how their stand.

It is a numbers game and the higher one’s rating gets, the inference is that one has become a stronger player. It works conversely too. A decline in chess ratings means a decline in a player’s chess strength.

However, much interest also centres on the top echelons of chess players. Understandably, people are also very interested to know the rankings of those super-level grandmasters whose ratings are way above the ordinary folks. And any number above 2700 qualifies a player as super-level.

If you have been following the developments in world chess, it will probably not come as a surprise to know that today, there is a new, official Number One chess player in the world. 

Yes, Bulgaria’s Veselin Topalov has been toppled from the Numero Uno spot. His successor? None other than that 18-year-old former Norwegian wunderkind that I had written about last October, Magnus Carlsen.

His new, official rating is 2810, a jump upwards by nine points from his last published rating in November last year. Within a spate of two months, he now stands entrenched at the top of the chess world.

Although this does not mean that he is world champion, surely that target cannot be too far away if Carlsen continues to improve. And he will improve with Garry Kasparov as his trainer.

Last September, the chess world was abuzz with news that the two of them would be working together to take the Norwegian’s chess level to a higher plane. Prior to that announcement, the former world champion had already been working informally with Carlsen for about six months.

I had the opportunity to ask Kasparov recently at Putrajaya how long he hoped to work together with Carlsen.

“I wish I have the luxury of making long term plans,” Kasparov replied. “We live in an ever-changing world. I cannot foresee the consequences of this cooperation. However, I hope that we will have at least one more year and I hope that I will help him to become not only Number One in the unofficial rating list but a solid Number One in the official rating list and eventually the world champion. And he will deserve to win the title if he continues to work hard and if he brings more hard work to his unique talent.”

What about his chess ideas, I asked Kasparov. In his decades at the top of world chess, he would have accumulated a wealth of information. How much would he be prepared to reveal to Carlsen?

“It doesn’t make any sense to hide my secrets,” he told me. “Undoubtedly, I have the largest database of opening ideas in chess and I keep working on updating this. Carlsen will always have full access to my library.”

So there you have it. The great man himself obviously sees a lot of himself in Carlsen. Will the Norwegian cement his position at the top of the world chess rankings? The next one year will see how the cooperation between the two of them bears out. 

How Carlsen rose to be Number One:

Soon after news broke of Carlsen training under Kasparov, the Norwegian grandmaster flew to Nanjing, China to participate in the Pearl Spring chess tournament in September together with Topalov, Wang Yue, Dmitry Jakovenko, Teimour Radjabov and Peter Leko.

His results in this double round-robin event made nearly everyone sit up to take notice of this young man. Carlsen scored an astounding eight points. By comparison, second-placed Topalov obtained only 5½ points. This tremendous result against his fellow super-level grandmaster opponents boosted Carlsen’s rating by 28.8 points.

In November, Carlsen was playing in the Mikhail Tal memorial tournament in Moscow. The field included notable chess heavyweights like Vladimir Kramnik, Alexander Morozevich, Levon Aronian and world champion Viswanathan Anand. Though he did not win this event – he came second behind Kramnik – the result was still good enough to add a further 4.7 points to his rating and lift his standing to unofficial world Number One position.

Then in December at the London Chess Classic, he finished ahead of Kramnik and six other players to add a further 3.9  points to his rating.

I should also point out Carlsen has played 28 straight games at the top level without loss. His last defeat was at the hands of Kramnik at the Sparkassen tournament in Dortmund, Germany as long ago as July last year.

Here is an example of Carlsen’s recent form in a game from the Pearl Spring tournament in China:

Magnus Carlsen - Dmitry Jakovenko, Pearl Spring tournament, China

1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Be7 4.cxd5 exd5 5.Bf4 c6 6.Qc2 Bd6 7.Bxd6 Qxd6 8.e3 Ne7 9.Bd3 b6 10.Nf3 Ba6 11.0-0 Bxd3 12.Qxd3 Nd7 13.e4 0-0 14.e5 Qe6 15.Rae1 Rfe8 16.Nh4 Ng6 17.Nxg6 Qxg6 18.Qd2 Nf8 19.f4 Qf5 20.Nd1 f6 21.Ne3 Qd7 22.Qd3 fxe5 23.dxe5 Ne6 24.f5 Nc5 25.Qd4 Ne4 26.Nxd5 Qxd5 27.Qxe4 Rad8 28.e6 Qxe4 29.Rxe4 Rd6 30.g4 Kf8 31.g5 Ke7 32.Kg2 Rd5 33.Kg3 Kd6 34.h4 c5 35.f6 gxf6 36.gxf6 Rd3+ 37.Kh2 Rd2+ 38.Kh1 1-0.

UP NEXT

First Saturday tournament

The Excel Chess Academy will organize their First Saturday chess tournament at their premises in Overseas Union Garden, Kuala Lumpur for two days starting tomorrow. Entry fee is RM35. For details, contact Jax Tham (013.3232280, jaxtham@hotmail.com)