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).