Doyen of local chess

Last week, I was writing about the youngest faces that had come to play, and perhaps to make a name for themselves, in the main event of this year’s Malaysian Chess Festival, the Arthur Tan Malaysian open chess championship.

It then struck me that if I want to do a similar story on the oldest player in the festival, I would have to look not at this same event but instead, I would have to cast my eye at the Lee Loy Seng seniors open chess championship for inspiration. 

But then again, everybody – and by “everybody”, I mean all of us in the chess circle – knows for a certainty that currently, the oldest active chess player in the country is none other than Datuk Tan Chin Nam himself.

He is the doyen of Malaysian chess, all 85 years of him. Although he was perhaps frailer than when I last saw him about a year ago, his mind was still as keen as ever. “Still up to playing chess,” he reminded me when we sat across the chessboard in the second round.

Tan, however, for all his enthusiasm, soon found out to his dismay that results still favoured the more, ahem, younger seniors as he finished the event with a modest 1½ points that he collected from nine games.

But despite the setback, he still took pride in his final game of the tournament. He lost but for much of that game he showed that he could still mix it up as well as his opponent. He absorbed the attack in a complicated game and then simplified the position to a point where he held a piece advantage. It was only a gross blunder in the critical last hour of play when tiredness had crept into both players’ game that spoilt everything for Tan. 

A draw would have been an equitable result in that game, seeing that both he and his opponent had fought and defended well.

Readers may remember that at last year’s Malaysian Chess Festival, Tan had announced that he intended to take a two-year sabbatical from sponsoring the festival so that he could enjoy playing the game for once without thinking about pumping money into organizing it. 

There could be other reasons and I would think that one of them was that he wanted to see how the organizers would rise to the challenge and continue with this chess festival with only his moral support.

Well, I would believe that he was encouraged by what he saw: the hard work put in by the organizers in the last two to three months to get their acts together. At the closing ceremony of the festival, he promised to end his sojourn and make next year’s edition the grandest Malaysian Chess Festival of all.

By the way, perhaps I should also mention that as the most senior chess player at the festival, Tan was at least 10 years older than the next most senior competitor, Thailand’s 74-year-old Pricha Srivatanakul.

   

 

Up next

National rapidchess

The Universiti Teknologi Petronas in Tronoh, Perak will organize the second national rapidchess championship at their university campus tomorrow and on Sunday on behalf of the Malaysian Chess Federation and the Perak International Chess Association. Eight rounds, with a time control of 25 minutes and 10-second increment per move. First prize for the open category is RM1,000. Entry fees are RM30 (players under 12 years old), RM35 (players under 16 years old) and RM40 (all others). For enquiries, contact Ariana (019.5451813), Nabilah (014.9045157), Thakshna Moorthy (016.9950070) or Khairil Anwar (013.3533720). More information also from http://nrcc2011.blogspot.com 

DATCC events

The Dato Arthur Tan Chess Centre (DATCC) at the Wilayah Complex in Kuala Lumpur is now open daily to chess players. Operating hours: Mondays to Fridays (1pm to 8pm), Saturdays and Sundays (9am to 5pm). 

DATCC Blitz Sunday

The DATCC will hold a blitz tournament at the Wilayah Complex on Oct 9. A prize fund of RM500 is on offer, More information available from Kaber Azzad (012.6178624, info@chess-malaysia.com).

 

DATCC team open

The first round of the fourth DATCC team open team chess tournament will be played at the Wilayah Complex in Kuala Lumpur starting Oct 22. Thereafter, the next seven rounds will be played on consecutive Tuesdays, and the final round on Dec 24. Entry fee is RM400 per team with a maximum of 10 players in each team. Total prize money is RM6,000. More information available from http://datcchess.blogspot.com. 

 

The future of chess

Truth be told, the Malaysian Chess Festival wasn’t a holiday for any player taking part in any of the events. After all, there wasn’t time to take things easy. As a player, I was struggling with my own personal demons during almost every round, be it the position on the chessboard or the remaining time on the chess clock as it ticked away.

There was only one round where my game ended relatively early and it gave me the only odd pleasure to walk around the tournament hall to look at the other games and take note of my fellow strugglers, especially those playing at the main event, the Arthur Tan Malaysian open championship.

Some of those in chess agony or chess ecstasy were very familiar, having seen them almost year in and year out, but by and large, fresh faces made up a significantly large proportion of the faces.

While wandering around the tables, I couldn’t help but noticed that at this main event, the average age of the players could be rather young.

It was a very intriguing thought which was later proven correct when I badgered the organizers to let me take a look at the details of the participants. Of the 98 players in the Malaysian open tournament, 44 of them were aged 21 years old or younger. That constituted almost 45 percent of the field. Add a further five players who were born in 1989 and exactly half the field were below 22 years old.

As I was scrolling through the participants’ details on the computer, I could almost hear my editor bellowing down on me that this would be a good angle for this column. So I decided to start off in search of the youngest participants in the Malaysian open.

There were three, all born in 1999 which would make them at the most, 12 years old. I gulped. Twelve years “young” and already taking part in a chess event where they would sit as equals across the chessboard with players possibly twice or thrice their age, or perhaps even older!

The most successful of the trio was Bai Jinshi from China. Born in May 1999, he finished eventually overall in 28th position. Nobody would have thought much of this player if not for him creating a sensation by beating Ju Wenjun, the Chinese woman grandmaster who weeks earlier had won a strong international tournament in Hangzhou ahead of reigning women’s world champion Hou Yifan. But there was more to come from Bai in the Malaysia open when two rounds later, he added the experienced grandmaster from Uzbekistan, Saidali Yuldashev, to his list of victims. 

Zachary Loh and Karl Zelesco, both hailing from Melbourne in Australia, were the other two players who were born in 1999. Loh, who was born in April and who had a precious experience playing overseas at the world youth championship for under-12 players last year, was the oldest of the trio while Zelesco turned out to the youngest.

“I’m not 12 yet,” Zelesco told me shyly when I asked him his age. I turned to look at his mother and she told me that he would be celebrating his 12th birthday on Aug 30. So technically, the boy was still 11 years old when he sat at the table to trade blows with his opponents. When I enquired further, she added that her son had been playing actively in Melbourne tournaments for the past year or so. 

This Malaysian open was to be his first international chess competition out of his home country and he even got a chance to play against – and lose to – a grandmaster. But what also interested me was that young Zelesco also played with two other opponents – William Lee Kah Howe and Tan Li Ting – who weren’t that much older than him. In fact, both Lee and Tan were just a year older. Nevertheless, Zelesco took 1½ points from them. 

Satisfied with his 58th position at the Malaysian open? “No,” he sighed, “I could have played better but it was a good experience for me to meet with good chess players from other parts of the world. I want to improve and I’m sure I will.”

Such confidence. It’s incredible what the youngsters, with the correct parental support, can get themselves up to today at the chessboard. Yes, anywhere in the world, they really are the future of chess.

 

Up next

National rapidchess

The Universiti Teknologi Petronas in Tronoh, Perak will be organizing the second national rapidchess championship at their university campus on Oct 1 and 2 on behalf of the Malaysian Chess Federation and the Perak International Chess Association. Eight rounds, with a time control of 25 minutes and 10-second increment per move. First prize for the open category is RM1,000. Entry fees are RM30 (players under 12 years old), RM35 (players under 16 years old) and RM40 (all others). For enquiries, contact Ariana (019.5451813), Nabilah (014.9045157), Thakshna Moorthy (016.9950070) or Khairil Anwar (013.3533720). More information also from http://nrcc2011.blogspot.com 

DATCC events

The Dato Arthur Tan Chess Centre (DATCC) at the Wilayah Complex in Kuala Lumpur is now open daily to chess players. Operating hours: Mondays to Fridays (1pm to 8pm), Saturdays and Sundays (9am to 5pm). 

The second session of DATCC chess classes for beginners of all ages will start tomorrow at 10am. Please view the class schedule and topics covered at http://datcchess.blogspot.com. More information also from Najib Wahab (016.3382542, najib.wahab@chess-malaysia.com).

First DATCC Super Kids weekend tournament for children below the age of 12 will be played tomorrow beginning 9am. Six rounds, 25-minute games. Entry fee: RM10 per player. Details available from Najib Wahab (016.3382542), Kaber Azzad (012.6178624) or Jax Tham (013.3232280) or visit http://datcchess.blogspot.com to download entry form.

 

Worthy winner

Less than a year ago, I overheard a comment that the Filipino players who were taking part in the Penang open of 2010 could not seriously be considered contenders for any future Philippine Olympiad chess team.

Sometimes, it is dangerous to say this because it is possible that something may then happen to show up the folly of this sweeping comment. Time has shown that in the case of Oliver Barbosa, he was indeed a worthy winner. 

Ten months ago, Barbosa was virtually unknown in Malaysia despite him already being an international master with a 2451 rating. But he came to Penang in December last year and snatched the first prize. 

Curious then about this fellow, I made some investigations and seen that he had actually been playing chess for quite a while; even having played in tournaments as far away as in New York during 2009. 

Then he was inactive for about a year, presumably to complete his studies at the University of the Philippines, before he resumed his international chess activities in April 2010. One tournament soon followed another, and the natural confidence soon crept back into his game. 

If he had been a player with a 2451 rating in the November 2010 rating list, his playing strength had shot up to 2538 points on the September 2011 list within 10 months. In the process, he achieved his first grandmaster norm at the 10th Asian continental individual chess championship in Mashhad, Iran in May and his second norm at the Philippine national chess championship in July. 

So ever since July, he had been searching for this third and final norm for his grandmaster chess title. He was disappointed at the Arthur Tan Malaysian open in August when his results fell short of his own expectations.

However, he still had one other bite at the title when he played at the Raja Nazrin Shah invitational masters chess championship that concluded last Saturday at the Swiss Garden Hotel & Residences in Kuala Lumpur.

This time around, Barbosa made no mistake in the 10-player round-robin tournament. He turned in a steady performance and then disposed off his nearest rival, Jahongir Vakhidov, who was running neck-to-neck with him at the initial stages.

By the end of the tournament’s seventh round, Barbosa found himself at the threshold of his goal which was duly achieved in the eighth round, coming from a short draw with our own international master, Mas Hafizulhelmi.

So within a remarkable spate of five months, Barbosa turned from an international master to a grandmaster. This title will still need to be ratified and awarded by the World Chess Federation but for all practical purposes, he is already one. 

I should also mention that the Raja Nazrin Shah invitational masters chess championship confirmed more than one new grandmaster. Apart from Barbosa, another of the Philippines’ international masters, Richard Bitoon, also achieved his final grandmaster title norm.

Bitoon had a much tougher journey towards reaching his goal in this tournament. At the start of the final round of the event, he was in an unenviable must-win situation, needing a full point from an opponent, the Uzbek grandmaster Tahir Vakhidov, who was very solid and had remained undefeated thus far.

The Filipino international master threw everything into the game and he emerged from the vast complications with an advantage. Yet the fact that Vakhidov still managed to put in a stubborn defence meant that this was the final game to finish in the tournament. 

There was a third player whose efforts netted him a grandmaster title norm at this tournament: Jahongir Vakhidov who, incidentally, was the son of the senior Vakhidov. Both the Vakhidovs have been rather regular visitors to the Malaysian Chess Festival and there is great satisfaction to see a young player grow up through the years. 

Now 16-years-old, young Jahongir not only earned himself his first grandmaster title norm but also confirmed his status as an international master. And incidentally, he is placed 30th among the world’s highest ranked under-16 players.

The accompanying Raja Nazrin Shah international open championship was won by the Vietnamese international master Nguyen Duc Hua, a full point ahead of five other international masters and one, Edgar Reggie Olay, who was also confirmed as a new international master at the end of this tournament.        

Up next

Chess world cup

Have you been mesmerized by the excitement of the Chess World Cup in the Russian city of Khanty-Mansiysk? It is still an on-going event but the field has since been reduced to the final four players from the initial list of 128 participants. The final round of four games, which are played over normal regulation time control starts today and will continue until Tuesday. 

The stakes are pretty high as three of the four finalists will qualify to join the Candidates tournament of the next world chess championship cycle. You can watch the live games from the official website at http://chess.ugrasport.com/ starting at 5pm daily.

 

Keeping the tempo

Don’t let the name Chesskidz fool you in any way. This five-player team of four Filipinos and one Ukrainian which powered their way to win this year’s ASTRO Merdeka team rapid open chess championship in Kuala Lumpur comprised very experienced players that included three grandmasters in their line-up. 

Just like the Chinese had dominated the Arthur Tan Malaysia open championship days earlier, the Filipinos showed their indepth strength at the Merdeka team rapid open championship. 

In second place was the PNOY Expats (four Filipino players with one grandmaster in the team) and third went to Chesskidz Shock Troopers (four Filipino players and a lone Malaysian). 

The best all-Malaysian effort went to the team Formidable that comprised three past and present national champions in Marcus Chan, Nicholas Chan and Lim Zhuo Ren, with Yeap Eng Chiam propping up the rear.

After the excitement of the Malaysian Chess Festival, the focus of the chess community here has turned to the Raja Nazrin Shah invitational masters and international open chess championships at the Swiss Garden Hotel & Residences in Kuala Lumpur. 

These two tournaments started on Monday but are now towards their tail-ends. There are only three more rounds to be played before conclusion. Today sees the morning seventh round starting at nine o’clock and the afternoon eighth round beginning at three o’clock, while the ninth (and final) round will be played tomorrow morning.  

The first event was the Raja Nazrin Shah invitational masters tournament in which the organizers had invited 10 players to the round-robin tournament. Originally, the Filipino grandmaster, Joseph Sanchez, was supposed to play in the invitational but at the technical meeting on Sunday, he agreed to make way for the young Indian international master, Das Arghyadip, who was in search of his final grandmaster title norm.

Sanchez thus found himself competing with 65 other players in the Raja Nazrin Shah international open tournament instead. 

But before I say anything more about the open event, I must mention that the round-robin invitational tournament boasts a rather interesting mix of players. Apart from Arghyadip, the other nine players include grandmasters Nguyen Anh Dung of Vietnam and Singapore’s Dr Wong Meng Kong. Then there are the father-and-son duo of grandmaster Tahir Vakhidov and international master Jahongir Vakhidov from Uzbekistan. The remaining players are all international masters: Richard Bitoon and Oliver Barbosa who are both from the Philippines, Nguyen Van Huy from Vietnam, Goh Wei Ming from Singapore and of course, our own Mas Hafizulhelmi.

As for the open tournament, the number of participants eventually settled at 66. I was told by the tournament director, Peter Long, that he was quite relieved with this number as earlier, he kept getting enquiries from grandmasters and the number of participants had threatened to spill out of control. 

As he was organizing only one open event, he would prefer to keep the tournament at a manageable number and not turn it top heavy. He reasoned that too many grandmasters playing in the tournament could crowd out the lower-ranked local players whom he was encouraging to take part. 

Perhaps he has a point there because this open tournament had attracted 16 local participants that included both our current national champion Lim Zhuo Ren and current national women’s champion Nur Nabila Azman Hisham. That’s almost 25 percent of the field.

Nevertheless, a 66-player field that can boast of enough depth in three grandmasters (Sanchez, Susanto Megaranto and Cerdas Barus), 12 international masters, two woman grandmasters and two woman international masters cannot be that bad, can it?

(Incidentally, Megaranto had made his way to Kuala Lumpur directly from Khanty- Mansiysk in Russia where he had been playing in the Chess World Cup. Maybe he had expected to be eliminated in the very first round because he is here with us today in the thick of the Raja Nazrin Shah international open tournament!) 

 

The two events are organized by the Kuala Lumpur Chess Association with sponsorship from the Masterskill Education Group Berhad under its Educating Malaysia Corporate Social Responsibility programme. 

Up next

Chess world cup

Again, this is just a short note to say that the Chess World Cup is continuing in the Russian city of Khanty-Mansiysk. This is a grueling knock-out event that started with 128 participants 13 days ago and the field has already been whittled down to eight survivors. The fifth round starts today. 

The stakes are pretty high as the top three winners of the event will qualify to join the Candidates tournament of the next world chess championship cycle. The final of this Chess World Cup will be played from next Friday until Tuesday at the latest if tie-break games are needed.  

You can watch live games from the official website at http://chess.ugrasport.com/ Check it out for the schedule of play.

 

Three winners

Right to left: Li Shilong (Malaysia open champion), Sarvinoz Kurbonboeva
(Chess challenge champion) and Dmitry Kayumov (International seniors
champion) with Malaysian Chess Festival organizing chairman Daniel Yong

One clear sign of the eighth Arthur Tan Malaysia open chess championship that ended at the Cititel Midvalley Hotel last week was the sheer dominance of the Chinese players. The Chinese have always been very fervent supporters of the Malaysian Chess Festival – of which the Malaysia open is just one of the three main events – and they had sent a contingent of 20 players to participate in this showcase event.

Frankly, I did not notice any big names among the Chinese unless one counted their woman grandmaster, Ju Wenjun, who had come out tops in July at the first Hangzhou women grandmaster chess tournament, ahead of the reigning women’s world champion, Hou Yifan.

I was very interested to follow her form since that event and I wasn’t disappointed. She was always among the leaders and had ended the Malaysia open placed in sixth position. Her play grew from strength to strength as the tournament approached its finish and she scored two great wins in the eighth and ninth rounds against Filipino grandmaster Oliver Dimakiling and Vietnamese grandmaster Cao Sang. 

Some readers may remember Cao Sang as the Malaysia open winner last year. He didn’t have the same luck this year and was almost unbeaten in the tournament until he met Ju in that ninth round.

Now, you may wonder why I said that the Chinese had dominated this year’s Malaysia open championship. Apart from the petite Ju who finished sixth, the top five winners were also Chinese. 

The new winner of the Malaysia open was their grandmaster, Li Shilong. He last played in this event in 2008, finished in eighth position. This year, he took the limelight by winning the Arthur Tan challenge trophy and the first prize of USD4,000 (about RM12,000).

Second was Chinese international master Lu Shanglei, third was their grandmaster Wen Yang, fourth was Wan Yunguo and fifth was their grandmaster Wang Rui.

In the sixth AmBank chess challenge, Sarvinoz Kurbonboeva of Uzbekistan lived up to her top billing by finishing as the champion in this tournament. Actually, it was a joint tie at the top of the standings with India’s Rohan Vijay Shandilya but a better tie-break ensured that Kurbonboeva was to receive the challenge trophy and the top prize of RM1,000.

Another Uzbek player, grandmaster Dmitry Kayumov, shared the winners’ limelight by successfully defending his title at the second Tan Sri Lee Loy Seng international seniors open chess championship and thus winning the top prize of RM5,000. 

Kayumov’s victory was more or less expected as he was the only grandmaster in the field and his rating was a hundred points above his nearest rival, Filipino international master Luis Chiong. Yet during the tournament, he reached a crisis point when an unexpected loss in the sixth round to Chiong meant that there were three players tied at the top of the standings.

However, Kayumov never looked back after that loss. He won his remaining three games to clinch the first prize as his rivals’ play began spluttering. 

Now that the dust has settled at the Malaysian Chess Festival, attention now turns to the Raja Nazrin Shah invitational masters and international open chess championships that will be organized at the Swiss Garden Hotel & Residences in Kuala Lumpur. The two events will run concurrently from this Sunday until Sept 10.

There are actually two events. The first is the Raja Nazrin Shah invitational masters championship where four veteran grandmasters from Singapore, Vietnam, the Philippines and Uzbekistan will be joined by six international masters in a nine-round round-robin tournament. Among the competitors will be Malaysia’s international master, Mas Hafizulhelmi.

The other players in the invitational event are grandmasters Joseph Sanchez (Philippines), Nguyen Anh Dung (Vietnam), Tahir Vakhidov (Uzbekistan) and Dr Wong Meng Kong (Singapore), and international masters Oliver Barbosa and Richard Bitoon (both from the Philippineas), Nguyen Van Huy (Vietnam), Goh Wei Ming (Singapore) and Jahongir Vakhidov (Uzbekistan).

There is also an international open championship going on at the same time, with half the entries being internationally titled players. Malaysia will again depend on youth to lead the fight with 18-year-old national champion Lim Zhou Ren heading the local challenge. 

Also expected to play are our under-14 boys’ champion Roshan Ajeet Singh, under-14 girls’ champion Tan Li Ting, under-10 boys’ champion Teh De Juan and under-10 girls’ champion Teh De Zen. I have also heard that 85-year-old Datuk Tan Chin Nam may be playing too. 

The two events are organised by the Kuala Lumpur Chess Association with sponsorship from the Masterskill Education Group Berhad under its Educating Malaysia Corporate Social Responsibility programme. 

UP NEXT

Chess world cup

Just a short note to say that the Chess World Cup has started in the Russian city of Khanty-Mansiysk. This is a grueling knock-out event that started with 128 participants and half the field being eliminated at the end of every round. The stakes are high as the top three winners of the event will qualify to join the Candidates tournament of the next world chess championship cycle. The final of this Chess World Cup is not expected to start until Sept 16.  

You can watch live games from the official website at http://chess.ugrasport.com/ Check it out for the schedule of play.