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).