Hou retains title

WELL DONE!

The picture shows our woman Fide master Nur Najiha bt Azman Hashim (left) and international master Lim Yee Weng proudly showing off their bronze medals that they won in the mixed pair chess competition at the recent SEA Games in Indonesia. 

These were the only medals won by the Malaysian contingent at the biennial games and they came at the expense of the Indonesian mixed pair, only because the regulations favoured determining results by match points instead of game points. 

The Malaysian pair had lost badly to Vietnam and the Philippines, gold and silver winners respectively, but had chalked up good victories against Indonesia, Myanmar and Thailand, thus collecting six match points.

By comparison, the Indonesian mixed team had beaten Myanmar and Thailand, drawn with Vietnam and lost to the Philippines and Malaysia, to give them only five match points.

If game points had instead been used in this competition, the situation would have been reversed and the Indonesia team would have ended up ahead of Malaysia. So for once, the regulations were in our favour. My congratulations to the two bronze medallists. 

HOU RETAINS CROWN

At the end, it was a Humpy Koneru collapse of form that effectively ended her challenge in the women’s world chess championship match in Tirana, Albania.

When I was writing last week’s column, Humpy had just fallen behind by two games, having lost the third game and then the sixth game. 

And then, before I could even steel myself for her comeback in this match, the Indian grandmaster lost the seventh game as well. At the end of the game, she admitted that she was suffering from a loss of form.

But to my mind, it was more than a loss of form that did her in. Her nerves failed her as well. Humpy got herself into severe time pressure and she couldn’t cope with it. She made some pretty weak moves at critical stages in her games and her opponent, the defending women’s world champion, 17-year-old Hou Yifan  (pictured), punished her with some powerful play.

According to Hou, her opponent could have been under some great psychological pressure to perform too, especially since the Chinese grandmaster was already leading in the match.

The moment that Hou won the seventh game, Humpy knew that the end was near. Theoretically, she could still tie the match but it would mean having to win the last three games in a row. Practically, it was an impossible task and she knew it.

So in the eighth game, as soon as it became clear that there was no advantage to gain in the position, Humpy agreed to draw it. And with it, Hou had defended her women’s crown successfully.

Up next

Penang chess league

Teams participating in this weekend’s Penang Chess League are reminded of the change in venue to the SJKC Kheng Tean in Van Praagh Road, Penang. The two-day event is open to teams from four broad categories: public sector, factories, institutions of learning and others. 

Each team shall comprise four players and an optional reserve. Average rating per team during play should not be more than 2100 points. Seven rounds, time control of one hour play-to-finish for each game. Entry fees are RM150 (open category), RM90 (under-18 teams), RM60 (under-12 teams).  

More details available from Tan Eng Seong (012.4299517, estan64@yahoo.com or estan64@gmail.com) or visit http://penangchess.com for more information.

Penang heritage open

The Penang heritage city open chess championship kicks off on Tuesday at the Tanjung Bungah Beach Hotel, Penang on Dec 6-10. There are two separate events: the open and challenger sections, and both are internationally rated. There will be nine rounds played with a time control of 90 minutes plus a 30-second increment per move.

Entry fees for the open event: free for Malaysian national masters and all players with FIDE ratings of above 2300 points, RM100 (PCA members) and RM150 (non-members) for players with FIDE ratings between 2000 and 2299 points, RM150 (members) and RM200 (non-members) for players with FIDE ratings between 1800 and 1999 points, RM200 (members) and RM300 (non-members) for players with FIDE ratings between 1600 and 1799 points, and RM250 (members) and RM350 (non-members) for players without any FIDE rating.

Entry fees for the challenger event: RM50 (PCA members) and RM100 (non-members) for players with a FIDE rating, and RM100 (members) and RM150 (non-members) for unrated players. 

Although the closing date was yesterday, the organisers, the Penang Chess Association, will still accept late entries but the participants are charged double. Direct all inquiries to Tan Eng Seong (012.4299517, estan64@yahoo.com or estan64@gmail.com). More information also at http://penangchess.com

Sarawak open

The Sarawak Chess Association will hold the Sarawak open chess tournament at the Ultimate Professional Centre, opposite the Pullman Hotel, in Jalan Bukit Mata Kuching, Kuching on Dec 12-16. Internationally-rated event played over nine rounds, 90 minutes plus a 30-second increment for each move.

Entry fees: Free for grandmasters and international masters (men and women), RM25 (ladies and all players below 16 years old) and RM50 (all other participants). The closing date for entries is Dec 5.

Details available from Morsin Ahmad (012.8949415, morsinab@sarawaknet.gov.my), Abang Mohd Reduan (019.8887786, reduan_sahari@bsn.com.my) and Lim Kian Hwa (016.8603180, limkhwa@gmail.com). 

 

Suspense all the way

The last two weeks have meant late nights for me again, no thanks to the women's world chess championship match being played in Tirana, Albania. We are seven hours ahead of Albania which means that when China's Hou Yifan and India's Humpy Koneru sit down to play, their games start at 10 o'clock at night over here.

Still, this is women's chess at the top-most level and it is well worth spending the effort to watch them play. It could be a momentous occasion. The match itself is carried live on the official website, http://www.wwcc2011tirana.com, but there are other sources providing better live coverage, such as on Susan Polgar's blog, http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com. 

The 17-year-old Hou is defending her women's world champion's title against Humpy, 24 years old, who became the challenger from the women's chess world cup series.

At the halfway stage of this 10-game match, Hou was holding a slim one-point lead over her rival, but she won again in the sixth game to increase her lead to two points. 

When I see the two ladies battle it out on the chess board, I couldn't but help think how well prepared they have been for this match. So far, each game has been a very intense struggle. 

To me, it seemed that Humpy, yearning to win the women's world championship title for the first time, was the one that kept asking for more in each game, probing for that little weakness in the position where she could press home that miniscule advantage but Hou the defending champion seemed equal to the task. Her defence has been superb.

What can you expect when one kept pressing on and the other kept putting up a solid defence? Why, the pressure would be neutralised till a draw ensued. And that has been what's happened in the first, second, fourth and fifth games.

In the third game, however, Humpy perhaps tried a bit too hard and overlooked a resource by her opponent. The result? The only decisive result in the first five games. 

As I wrote this week's story, the sixth game was being played. Before the game started, it was disclosed that Hou had spent several hours the day earlier in hospital for some severe stomach ailment, and the diagnosis was psychological pressure. 

However during the game itself, she showed no sign of the discomfort. There was a bit of early excitement as the Indian grandmaster went in for a pawn sacrifice in exchange for an enduring pressure against Hou's king. The Chinese player was forced later to give back the pawn. 

But despite holding on to the pair of bishops – theoretically better than a bishop and a knight – there was little that Humpy could do right after that. And once Hou forced the queens off the board and took command of the centre with her pair of rooks, Humpy's game began to become difficult.

By this time, both players were terribly short of time. With only two or three minutes left before reaching the time control, Humpy's game crumbled and Hou launched a final assault on the Indian player's king. Faced with the inevitable checkmate, Humpy threw in the towel and Hou claimed a 4-2 lead in the match.

I would believe that the lead of two points would be enough for the Chinese lass to retain her title. Already, Humpy is faced with the unenviable task of winning back the two lost games and she is fast running out of time and games. Between Tuesday and today, I would presume that nothing much would have changed after two more games.

If by a super-human effort Humpy does manage to catch up on her deficit and equalise the match (the ninth game is tomorrow and the 10th game is on Monday), the two women will go into a series of tie-break games on Nov 30 to determine the title.

Up next

Asian amateur open

The second Asian amateur open and women chess championship starts today at the Crowne Plaza Mutiara in Kuala Lumpur. According to the Malaysian Chess Federation which is organising this continental event on behalf of the Asian Chess Federation, about 100 players have registered for this FIDE-registered tournament which shall run until Dec 1. 

Predictably most of the participants will be Malaysians but there are many foreign players as well, making this event a very interesting mix. The organisers said most of the registered foreigners were from Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, India, Indonesia, Brunei, the Philippines and even Nepal. 

Top prizes for the open section are USD1,500 (about RM4,500) for first, USD1,000 (about RM3,000) for second and USD800 (about RM2,400) for third. There are six other minor prizes that go down to USD200 (about RM600). For the women, there are four prizes with the best of them set to win USD400 (about RM1,200). There are also identical prizes for the four best unrated players.

Penang chess league

This year’s Penang Chess League will be held at the SJKC Kheng Tean in Van Praagh Road, Penang, on Dec 3 and 4. The two-day team event is open to teams from four broad categories: public sector, factories, institutions of learning and others. 

Each team shall comprise four players and an optional reserve. Average rating per team during play should not be more than 2100 points. Seven rounds, time control of one hour play-to-finish for each game. Entry fees are RM150 (open category), RM90 (under-18 teams), RM60 (under-12 teams). Closing date is Nov 29. 

More details available from Tan Eng Seong (012.4299517, estan64@yahoo.com or estan64@gmail.com) or visit http://penangchess.com for more information.

Penang heritage open

The Penang Chess Association (PCA) will organise the Penang heritage city open chess championship at the Tanjung Bungah Beach Hotel, Penang on Dec 6-10. Two separate events: open and challenger sections, both internationally rated. Nine rounds, 90 minutes plus a 30-second increment per move.

Entry fees for the open event: free for Malaysian national masters and all players with FIDE ratings of above 2300 points, RM100 (PCA members) and RM150 (non-members) for players with FIDE ratings between 2000 and 2299 points, RM150 (members) and RM200 (non-members) for players with FIDE ratings between 1800 and 1999 points, RM200 (members) and RM300 (non-members) for players with FIDE ratings between 1600 and 1799 points, and RM250 (members) and RM350 (non-members) for players without any FIDE rating.

Entry fees for the challenger event: RM50 (PCA members) and RM100 (non-members) for players with a FIDE rating, and RM100 (members) and RM150 (non-members) for unrated players. 

Closing date for all entries is Dec 1 and thereafter, all late entries will be charged double. Direct all inquiries to Tan Eng Seong (012.4299517, estan64@yahoo.com or estan64@gmail.com). More information also at http://penangchess.com

Sarawak open

The Sarawak Chess Association will hold the Sarawak open chess tournament at the Ultimate Professional Centre, opposite the Pullman Hotel, in Jalan Bukit Mata Kuching, Kuching on Dec 12-16. Internationally-rated event played over nine rounds, 90 minutes plus a 30-second increment for each move.

Entry fees: Free for grandmasters and international masters (men and women), RM25 (ladies and all players below 16 years old) and RM50 (all other participants). The closing date for entries is Dec 5.

Details available from Morsin Ahmad (012.8949415, morsinab@sarawaknet.gov.my), Abang Mohd Reduan (019.8887786, reduan_sahari@bsn.com.my) and Lim Kian Hwa (016.8603180, limkhwa@gmail.com). 

 

Teen titans

The biggest prize in women’s chess is the women’s world chess championship crown. Right now, it sits pretty with Hou Yifan, the 17-year-old wonder lass from China. She won it last December at the women’s world chess championship in Turkey and she is not due to defend her crown – and the title – until the third quarter of this year. 

But against whom is Hou going to defend her title? Has a challenger already been determined? 

The short answer to the two questions is, yes, India’s Koneru Humpy has just won the right to challenge Hou Yifan for the women’s chess crown.

I got pretty excited the first time I heard it last week. It’s unprecedented that both defending champion and challenger in an official world title match come from this part of the world. (Never mind the fact that the men’s world chess title is also being held by another Asian chess giant, Viswanathan Anand.)

Like Hou, Humpy was also a chess prodigy. Presently, Humpy is already 24 years old but in 2002 at the age of 15 years and two months, she qualified for the full-fledged grandmaster chess title.  (Only Hou was younger, at 14 years, six months.)

Humpy became the official challenger when she won the sixth and final leg of the FIDE women’s grand prix 2009-2011 in Doha, Qatar last week. Before this final leg began, Humpy was languishing fourth in the grand prix standings and her chances of qualifying actually looked quite bleak.

During the first half of the tournament itself, her play was rather insipid and she scored only 2½ points from her first five games. If she had any remaining hopes of qualifying, she would have to depend greatly not only on the results of the other players in the tournament but also her own rearguard action.

And what a magnificent fight-back for her! In the second half of the event, she scored 5½ points from her final six games, which brought her total tally of points to eight from 11 games. Inexplicably also, the front runners suddenly lost steam at about the same time. 

Before the start of the tournament’s final round, Humpy was still only in second place half a point behind the tournament trailblazer, Elina Danielian. Humpy needed a win to have any chance of tying for first place and she got it from her final-round opponent, the 2001 women’s world champion, Zhu Chen. 

In the meantime, Danielian had already agreed to a quick draw with Antoaneta Stefanova. Apparently, she was satisfied with this result although a win would make her the undisputed winner of the tournament. The draw meant that at worst, she would finish on equal points with Humpy, although the tie-break would be in the Indian grandmaster’s favour. 

Calculating the grand points was more complicated but in the end, Humpy’s success in this tournament meant that she leapfrogged several places over other contenders to finish second in the standings. 

Interestingly, Hou remained first in the grand prix standings but as she was already the women’s world champion, the qualifying spot was now filled by Humpy. 

How would Humpy fare against Hou later this year? On rating, Humpy is the higher rated of the two. That alone would make her the favourite to wrest the title from the defending champion.

However, chess is not solely dependent on ratings. Ratings only give an indication of how one player compares with another. Eventually, it will all boil down to the player with the stronger nerves, the one who plays better and is better prepared psychologically.

And in this aspect – the psychological aspect – Humpy trails Hou. In their last two high-profile encounters, in the women’s world chess championship cycles of 2008 and 2010, Hou had eliminated Humpy. The Indian grandmaster may yet become the next women’s world champion but she will have to overcome this mental barrier first.

National closed

This year’s national closed and national women’s closed chess championships are just five days away. According to information from the organizers earlier in the week, 89 players have registered for the national closed while a further 34 players will be contesting the national women’s closed. This is already more than the limit of 120 players that the Malaysian Chess Federation had expected collectively for the two competitions. 

Since I last wrote about these two events, the two winners of last year’s championships have confirmed their participation. So we shall have Tan Khai Boon (national closed champion) and Fong Mi Yen (national women’s closed champion) defending their titles.

There is also an added attraction which will make this year’s contest extra special, especially for the participants. I hear that international master Jimmy Liew has also decided to play. He will be the yardstick for all the other players to measure themselves with. 

Most people will know that Liew was Malaysia’s first grandmaster, but not many will realize that he is also a former national closed champion, having won the title in 1984. He is paying back his dues to the national closed championship cycle, giving it the recognition it deserves. Now, if only our other former national champions will do the same next year.

Both competitions will be played at the Datuk Arthur Tan Chess Centre, Wilayah Complex, Kuala Lumpur from next Wednesday until Mar 20. There will be nine rounds with games starting at 9am and 3pm daily. For more information, contact Najib Wahab (016.3382542 or najib.wahab@chess-malaysia.com.)

Up next

National age group

This year’s three-day national age group chess championships start tomorrow at the Chancellor Hall, Universiti Teknologi Petronas in Tronoh, Perak. This event is organized jointly by the Malaysian Chess Federation, the Perak International Chess Association and Universiti Teknologi Petronas. There are six age group events for boys and girls – under-8, under-10, under-12, under-14, under-16 and under-18 – running concurrently. Eight rounds of 45-minute games with 30-second increments per move. Anyone still thinking about taking part should contact Gregory Lau (012.2577123), Zuraihah Wazir (017.2837808) or Haslindah Ruslan (019.2069605) for the latest information.

Hillcrest chess camp

The Sek Men Keb Hillcrest in Taman Sri Gombak, Batu Caves, Selangor will be the venue for a two-day holiday chess camp on Mar 14-15. The chess camp will be conducted by international master Mok Tze Meng and his team of trainers. For more details, contact Wong (017.3577788) or Yen Lee (yenlee741011_u@hotmail.com).  

Klang Parade open

The Klang Parade shopping mall, Datuk Arthur Tan Chess Centre and Cerdik Chess Enterprise are jointly organising the 10th Klang Parade open chess tournament at the shopping mall in Jalan Meru, Klang on Mar 19 and 20. The tournament on Mar 19 is for players under the age of 18, while the event on Mar 20 is an open competition. Entry fees for the age group tournament are RM10 (players under 12 years old) and RM15 (players under 18 years old). For the open event, the entry fees are RM10 (players under 12 years old) and RM15 (all other players). Contact Siti Nor Faiza (03.33437889 office hours) or Mohd Fadli Zakaria (014.2312370 or cerdikcatur@yahoo.com) for details.

Lim Chong memorial

The Datuk Arthur Tan Chess Centre will organize the Lim Chong memorial tournament at the Wilayah Complex in Kuala Lumpur on Mar 27. Seven rounds, 25-minute time control games. Entry fees are RM15 (players under 16 years old) and RM25 (all other players). More information from Hamid Majid (019.3158098 or aham@pc.jaring.my), Jan Lim (012.2678738) or Najib Wahab (016.3382542). 

Percawi Labour Day team

The Kuala Lumpur Federal Territory Chess Association (Percawi) will organize a Labour Day team tournament at the Datuk Arthur Tan Chess Centre, Wilayah Complex, Kuala Lumpur on Apr 24. Six rounds, 30-minute games, four players per team. Entry fee: RM160 (companies and government departments), RM80 (schools, colleges and universities). Details available from Collin Madhaven (016.2123578) and Bob Yap (012.2878378).