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.
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