Hail the new champ

 

Tireless servant

FLORENCIO CAMPOMANES is a remarkable man. If you have not met him before, I think you are missing out on the one person who has contributed significantly to shape the direction of modern chess not only in Asia but the world.

Campomanes has been deeply involved in chess for more than half a century. In the 1950s he was already captaining the Philippines national chess team at events such as the Chess Olympiads, in the 1970s he was a deputy president of the World Chess Federation, in the 1980s he assumed the executive presidency of the world body itself, and since 1995 he has been the federation's honorary life president.

I first got to know Campo -- everybody calls him that -- in 1974 when Malaysia was trying to climb out of its chess shell and in the past 28 years of so, I have had a few opportunities to renew our acquaintance.

For a busy man like him who travels often around the world in the cause of chess -- he claimed to have criss-crossed the globe five times in 2001 -- meeting high-level decision-makers like company bureaucrats and people in government, he still remembers the names of many people who are mere chess-players or, in my case, a chess writer.

I bumped into Campo again last Christmas. He will be 75 years old this month, but his heart is not even 57. He is still as energetic as ever, with a penchant to regale people with stories of his past achievements.

Like, for example, he said that he had not planned to stand for the presidency of the World Chess Federation in 1982. At that time, the Icelandic grandmaster, Fridrik Olafsson, was the Fide president and Campo was still the deputy president. 

The seed for his climb to the presidency was sown in 1972 when a young American upstart player became the world chess champion. There is no prize for guessing correctly who this American player was, but after Bobby Fischer refused to defend his world chess crown in 1975, effectively withdrawing from competitive chess altogether, Campo spent the next six years trying to coax Fischer back to the chess board.

Campo recollected that in October of 1981, while in transit in San Francisco, he had telephoned Fischer and arranged to meet him. Campo told Fischer that he had a big contract with him, worth US$500,000 which was a rather significant sum for chess in those days, and just waiting for Fischer to put pen to paper. Anatoly Karpov was supposed to be his opponent to decide once and for all who would be the chess king.

Unfortunately, Fischer held out after scrutinising the contract. It was not enough. He hesitated because he wanted the money up front, before the match, and not after the TV rights. Campo spent the whole session trying to get Fischer to sign.

When Fischer left without signing, a frustrated Campo realised that he had already wasted enough of his time with Fischer. Six years was long enough. Perhaps, Campo thought, what he could achieve as Fide's deputy president, he could get better results as the Fide president himself.

Thus began an election campaign that was to last the next one year. Campo spent this time laying the ground work on his bid for the Fide presidency.  At one stage, he was traversing the globe, visiting 23 countries in 35 days, and meeting presidents and ministers for these countries.

Curiously enough, Olafsson did not know what hit him. Maybe, he had underestimated Campo, for when the D-Day came on that historic day in Lucerne, Switzerland, in 1982, Campomanes swept everything before him and won the Fide presidency by a big margin.

Asia and Africa were solidly behind Campo, as were most of the Americas. Europe had unestimated Campo and supported Olafsson but the votes there were never a threat. This single humiliation has never been forgotten by the European members of Fide and until today, Europe remains largely critical of Fide's achievements under Campo and his successor, Kirsan Iljumzhinov.

What, I asked Campo, would he consider to be his greatest personal achievements?

"Organising the world championship match (between Karpov and Viktor Korchnoi in Baguio) in 1976," he answered after a moment's reflection. 

"Then, of course, we had the women's world championship match in Manila in 1989. This was between Xie Jun and Chiburdanidze and I was very proud that an Asian player had finally won the world crown," he said.

"Xie Jun's triumph was only the beginning of the realisation of our efforts to put Asia on the chess map. We were proving to the world that Asians are just as capable, that chess is no longer their monopoly. We were starting to gain the respect of the Europeans, so that is an achievement not only for me but more for Asian chess," Campo added.

Apart from organising the Manila interzonal championship in 1991, one of his other big achievements came one year later when Manila was the venue of the Chess Olympiad. It was the first time that an Asian country was organising the biennial event and Manila put up a brilliant job as hosts.

Today, with control of Fide in the hands of Iljumzhinov, does Campo miss the days when he had executive control over the world body? 

"I am Fide's honorary life president," he reminded me. "Kirsan calls the shots in Fide now. As for me, I travel the world to promote chess and I am happy just to do my part to support all of (Kirsan's) efforts."

Yes, indeed. Whether Campo is retired or not, he still has a significant role in world chess. And, I think, he still relishes the challenges before him.

UP NEXT

The next three legs of the fourth Bank Pertanian Malaysia national allegro grand prix will be played in Kuala Terengganu on Mar 2, Petaling Jaya on Mar 10 and Kota Baru on Mar 30. 

Each event will be played over six or seven rounds, depending on the number of entries, and there is a total cash prize of RM1,500. The bulk of this prize fund will go to the main winners while RM500 is set aside for the minor winners such as the best women, under-16 or under-12 players. 

Games galore

IT IS the start of the new year and as usual, the Malaysian Chess Federation has attempted to come out with their preliminary calendar of local chess events. Unfortunately, the calendar is a bit empty because most of the state chess associations have yet to inform the MCF of their chess activities for this year.

Nevertheless, chess players around the country will be glad to learn that Bank Pertanian Malaysia will again be sponsoring this year's national allegro chess circuit. 

Like in previous years, this circuit will be played in all the states in the country. Spanning the whole year, there will be one tournament in every state, including the two federal territories of Kuala Lumpur and Labuan.

The first leg kicks off with the Kuala Lumpur leg on Feb 2. This event will be run by the Wilayah Persekutuan Chess Association at the Wilayah Complex. For more details on this event, contact Hamid Majid (03-4021-9576) or email aham@pc.jaring.my

The other legs of the chess circuit will be held in Kuala Terengganu on Mar 2, Petaling Jaya on Mar 10, Kota Baru on Mar 30, Johor Bharu on Apr 7, Malacca on Apr 14, Ipoh on Apr 21, Kuantan on May 5, Alor Setar on Jun 29, Kangar on Jun 30, George Town on Jul 14, Seremban and Kota Kinabalu on Aug 11, Kuching on Aug 18, and Labuan on Sep 29. 

Capping off the chess circuit will be the Final tournament which is scheduled for Dec 28 and 29 in Kuala Lumpur. At the present moment, all these dates are still tentative and may be subjected to changes at the last minute.

Other local events for enthusiasts to look forward to include the PCMM open tournament which the Persatuan Catur Melayu Malaysia will hold at the Bank Pertanian Malaysia headquarters building in Kuala Lumpur from Feb 11 to 13. The PCMM annual general meeting is also scheduled during this time.

The MCF will organise the annual national age-group chess championships at the Putra World Trade Centre from Apr 26 to 28. This event is sponsored jointly by Bank Rakyat Malaysia and the PWTC. Also on Apr 28, the long-awaited annual general meeting of the MCF will be held.

The MCF will celebrate Labour Day with the annual allegro tournament at the Wilayah Complex in Kuala Lumpur on May 1. Later in the month, the MCF will organise the national closed chess championship from May 25 to 29, and the national women's closed championship from May 25 to 27. Both events will be held in Kuala Lumpur.

Also on the calendar will be the Royal Selangor open tournament. This long-running event will be organised in Kuala Lumpur by the Chess Association of Selangor from May 30 to Jun 3. From Jun 21 to 23, the MCF will be playing hosts to the Singapore Chess Federation at the annual Malaysia-Singapore match. 

The Dell Penang Chess League is scheduled from June to mid-August, and this will be followed by the Merdeka team championship which will be played at the PWTC from Aug 30 to Sep 2.

In the final quarter of this year, the Universiti Malaya's Grand Asean chess challenge is scheduled from Oct 18 to 25, and the Persatuan Catur Melayu Malaysia's Malay Masters tournament will be played from Nov 1 to 4.

One other event that the MCF has listed in their calendar, which is bound to stir a lot of interest especially among the parents, is the Children's Olympiad, which is an under-16 event. This is a World Chess Federation event which will be held in Kuala Lumpur in July, August or September. However, the details are still very sketchy and the exact date for this event has not been fixed.

On the international front, the MCF has identified several events where there may be a likelihood of participation by a team or individuals from Malaysia: the Asian Cities chess championship in Aden (Yemen) from Feb 6 to 14, the Asian under-16 championship and the fifth Asian youth championship for under-10, under-12 and under-14 players in Iran from Mar 28 to Apr 4, the third Asean age-group championship in Singapore from Jun 8 to 14, the Asian junior chess championship in Sri Lanka in June, the men's and women's zonal championship and the first Asean chess championship in Vung Tau (Vietnam) in September, the second Asean international open in Bangkok also in September, the Chess Olympiad in Bled (Slovenia) from Oct 27 to Nov 13, the world youth championship in Greece, and the fourth Asian men's chess championship and the 10th Asian women’s chess championship in the United Arab Emirates.

Unfortunately, except for possibly the Chess Olympiad, anyone wishing to play in the other international events will have to bear all the costs of their trips themselves. Although the MCF will assist in the registration of the players, the federation is in no position to provide any subsidy for them.

UP NEXT

Beginners' classes

The Royal Selangor Club will hold classes for beginners on Sundays (10am to noon) and Saturdays (4pm to 6 pm) at its club premises in Bukit Kiara. These classes are suitable for children between 6 and 10 years old. 

Fees are RM50 per month, payable three months in advance and certificates of completion will be given to attendees at the end of the programme. Anyone interested can email royselchess@hotmail.com for more information or call the Sports Office (03-253-2277).

Perak events

The Pergerakan Pemuda Malaysia (PPM) Perak will hold their first allegro tournament this Sunday at their premises in Jalan CM Yusuff, Ipoh. There will be four prizes for the Open Category & consolation prizes for the best boys and girls (under-12, under-14 and under-16), women, veterans and PPM members. Entry fees are RM5 for PPM members, all under-16 players, women and veterans, and RM8 for others. To register, contact KP Chan (012-2150729) or email chess2k2@hotmail.com

This Monday, the Xin Yi Dai allegro tournament will be held at the association's premises in Jalan Theatre, Ipoh. There are also four prizes in the open category with consolation prizes for best boys and girls (under-12, under-14 and under-16), women, veterans and XYD members. Entry fees are RM5 for XYD members, all under-16 players, women and veterans, and RM8 for others. To register, contact Low Lee See (05-255-7208 or 013-513-0874).

CAS Quarter Allegro

The Chess Association of Selangor will hold their first CAS quarter allegro tournament for the year at the Menara Tan&Tan in Kuala Lumpur on Feb 3. There will be seven prizes for the Open category and consolation prizes for the best under-12, under-16, ladies and veteran players.

Entry fees are RM10 for CAS members and under-12 players, and RM20 for other players. To register, contact Lim Tse Pin (012-298-4922), Mrs Jackie Wong (012-261-3688) or email chessmate@cas.com.kg before Feb 1. The tournament is limited to the first 70 participants.

Making them winners

AT THE beginning of last year, when I wrote about the not-too-glowing performances of our junior players in the first Asean age-group chess championship in Vietnam, I met with an unexpected flak from some parents who had disagreed with my comments on the state of junior chess in Malaysia.

One year down the road, the second Asean age-group chess championship has come and gone. This time, with the championship played here in Kuala Lumpur, on home ground so to speak, how did our young charges fare? 

My opinion is, unfortunately, they are generally behind many of their peers from the Asean region. Yes, even though overall, our players had put up a better performance than last year, the results still showed that we lagged considerably behind the big winner, Vietnam.

The Vietnamese, especially those that played in the lower age-group events, were really a talented lot. I understand that the youngsters trained very hard for this event with their coaches in their provinces. It was the one major event of the year that they were looking forward to. 

It mattered little that their coaches were all home-grown players. The important thing was that the coaches did have a right system to impart the necessary knowledge to the children effectively. In the right environment, their young minds soaked up everything their coaches revealed.

It showed in the results: a second place in the boys' under-8 tournament, a one-two finish in both the boys' under-10 and under-14 events, a one-two-three sweep in the boys' under-12 event, and a first place in the boys' under-16.

But if you think the Vietnamese boys did rather well, the successes of their girls were even more astounding! Can you imagine a second place in the under-8, first and second in the under-10, first to sixth in the under-12(!!), first to fourth in the under-14, and first to third in both the under-16 and under-18? If this is not sheer dominance, I really do not know how else to describe it.

So for the second year in succession, the Vietnamese set the standard for the remaining of the Asean countries to follow. Against this backdrop, how do we gauge our players' own performances?

To sum it up in a nutshell, I would say there is a lot of hard work to be done not only by the players, but also by the state chess associations, the Malaysian Chess Federation and, most important of all, the parents.

Without the parents' support, our youngsters would have been nothing as chessplayers. At the championship, I could see the encouragement from the parents, especially those whose children were playing in the lower age-groups, but there were also parents who were around to support their sons and daughters who were playing in the under-16 and under-18 events.

Understandably, they can provide only the moral and financial support. Few parents can provide the theoretical or practical support. Ultimately, the children themselves are the ones who determine whether they will excel in this sport or not.

So it is left to the MCF and the state chess associations to play their roles in chess development in this country. The chess bodies are the ones who must supply the theoretical and practical support. Within limitations, I can see that the MCF has tried hard to organise as many junior events as possible in the country. But I am not alone in saying that much more can be achieved.

For instance, a question mark still hovers over this year's MSSM chess programme which the MCF has fought hard to be reinstated in the schools' sports calendar. Unless this tournament becomes a reality, I fear chess in the schools will remain stunted for a few more years.

I also have another fear. Unless the MSSM chess tournament becomes a reality, many of the chess state associations will remain in the doldrums, much to the detriment of the aspiring junior chess players in their state. Even now, some of the state chess associations exist only in name and there's hardly any activity. How can our young progress? How can we produce another international master like Mas Hafizul or Jimmy Liew, let alone a grandmaster? When will someone claim Dato Tan Chin Nam's offer of a RM30,000 reward for the nation's first grandmaster?

Even though there is a hill to climb for our Malaysian players and we are making a slow and plodding progress, I was nevertheless happy to see that several of our youngsters had played reasonably well enough in the championship to achieve some measure of success. 

For instance, Fong Yip Siang was sixth in the boys' under-8 event, Anas Nazreen Bakri was fifth in the boys' under-10, Abel Yap, Chan Litt Binn and Joshua Tan were placed eighth to 10th in the under-12, Pok Wern Jian was third in the boys' under-14, Jonathan Chuah was third and Gerald Soh fifth in the boys' under-16, and Lim Chuin Hoong was third in the boys' under-18. In the boys' under-16 contest too, Muhammad Musa Azmi, Nicholas Chan, Hafiz Shafruddin and Zach Han were placed sixth to ninth.

For the girls' events, Adeline Gan was fourth in the under-8, Wan Khye Theng was third in the under-10, Nur Shazwani was seventh in the under-12, Lim Han Ying finished fifth in the under-14, Siti Zulaika Foudzi was sixth in the under-16, and both Lee Su Ann and Lim Jean Nie were fifth and sixth in the under-18.

This year, all these youngsters will be one year older. Some will no longer be eligible to play in the next Asean age-group championship in Singapore, but there will be others to replace them. They will be more mature in thought and hopefully, in their understanding of the game too. I certainly hope that they will continue to improve further on their results but then, only time will tell and 11 months is actually not that long a time to wait.

World Championship continues...

The World Chess Federation will organise the final of the 2001/2002 world chess championship series in Moscow's Hall of Columns building from Jan 16 to 26. This match will see Vassily Ivanchuk meet Ruslan Ponomariov in a showdown to see who succeeds Viswanathan Anand as the next world champion.

Whoever wins the eight-game match will become the first player from Ukraine to be crowned as the world's best player. If the match ends tied after the eight games, it will go into the tie-break to decide the winner.

Ivanchuk had eliminated Anand sensationally in one of the semi-final matches last month. In the other semi-final match, Ponomariov had beaten Peter Svidler. 

The one-month lapse between the end of the semi-finals and the start of the final match was meant for the players to recover from the gruelling series of knock-matches and allow them to prepare. In the previous three championships, the finalists had continued playing the final match immediately after the semi-finals, and this had led to suggestions that the players were too tired to put up a good fight.

Readers with Internet access can follow the match from the official world championship site at http://wcc2001.fide.com

BPM Allegro Finals

After a long wait, last year's Bank Pertanian Malaysia-sponsored national allegro chess circuit concluded with the Final held in Kuala Lumpur on Dec 30. Drazen Serinek, a grandmaster from Slovenia who was passing through the country, won the seven-round event without dropping any game.

Tied second and third a point behind were Gerald Soh and Fikrul Saifuddin, while Singaporean international master Giam Choo Kwee, Nicholas Chan and Tham Tick Hong were joint fourth to six with 5.5 points each.

The players that finished with five points each were Siti Zulaika Foudzy, Kamaluddin Yusof, Marcus Chan, Gregory Lau, Ismail Ahmad, Pok Wern Jian, Zach Han, Zarul Shazwan, Mohd Johan Iskandar and Julian Navaratnam. Altogether, 95 players took part in the tournament.

UP NEXT

CAS Quarter Allegro

The Chess Association of Selangor will hold their first CAS quarter allegro tournament for the year at the Menara Tan&Tan in Kuala Lumpur on Feb 3. There will be seven prizes for the Open category and consolation prizes for the best under-12, under-16, ladies and veteran players.

Entry fees are RM10 for CAS members and under-12 players, and RM20 for other players. To register, contact Lim Tse Pin (012-298-4922), Mrs Jackie Wong (012-261-3688) or email chessmate@cas.com.kg before Feb 1. The tournament is limited to the first 70 participants.

Asia's new chess queen

 

Evil triumphs over Good

 

Blitz continues

 

Tribute to Tolkien

 

Symbol of support

 

A humbling experience

I FELT humbled last weekend. Never in my three decades as a player and commentator have I seen 14 visually impaired chess players sit down opposite their sighted opponents to play in a chess tournament.

I was at the Wisma Penyayang in Penang for a special occasion, the St Nicholas Home for the Visually Impaired’s first-ever chess tournament in celebration of the home’s 75th anniversary.

The visually impaired players had all come from Kuala Lumpur to Penang to compete on an equal footing with 18 players from the Penang Chess Association.

A visually impaired player (right) feeling his way around
the board as he gets a helpful hand from his sightful
opponent.

A visually impaired player (right) feeling his way around the board as he gets a helpful hand from his sightful opponent.

As I watched the proceedings during the two-day tournament, I could not help but wonder what sort of steely character lay within these 14 brave men and women. To me, it had looked like an uneven contest.

Our PCA players held the visual advantage of being able to look all over the chessboard; their glances taking in all 32 pieces and 64 squares. But while they certainly could look, I began wondering whether they could perhaps see everything at all. Was it really an advantage?

Initially, I had perceived the visually impaired players’ sightlessness as a major handicap, but while these people could not see with their eyes, their fingers did all the seeing for them.

Granted, when playing chess, the visually impaired will need to use their special chessboards. They need to feel and touch all the pieces; but they know where the pieces are, and where the pieces are moving. It was fascinating to watch them.

But this distinction aside, there is basically nothing else that separates the sighted from the non-sighted at a chess game. Calculations are still made in the head and the decisions transmitted to the little pieces at the tips of their fingers.

Really, there is very little difference in the thinking process of a sighted or non-sighted chess player. The chess game is indeed the only significant game in the world where the sighted and non-sighted can play on equal terms. Perhaps the only area that the visually impaired lose out is in experience as they may have little opportunity to improve.

Visually impaired player Mah Hassan (left)
with organiser Daud Amin from the St
Nicholas Home.

 That is why I consider this tournament to be so significant. Despite their visual handicap and the disparity in playing strengths, the 14 visually impaired players were willing to compete with us. All they requested was that they be given more time to think.

Let me say something too about the behaviour of the PCA players. Most were in their teens and very few of them had played against visually impaired players before. Yet they knew that their opponents were not to be taken lightly. One of the PCA boys remarked after a game: “Despite their handicap, I felt they were more focused.’’

And our players were extraordinarily patient. When any of the visitors wanted to go to the restroom, without hesitation the boys would place their visually impaired friend’s hand on their shoulders and lead them there.

When this scene was repeated countless times during the tournament, I knew that they had learnt a valuable lesson in life which they would not forget easily.

UP NEXT

Kepong Open

FOR the eighth year running, the Parent-Teacher Association of Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan (Cina) Kepong Dua in Kuala Lumpur will be organising the Kepong junior chess open tournament. This annual event, which is divided into five age categories, will be played on Oct 28 in the school hall.

Children born in 1993 or later will be eligible to take part in the under-eight section, and the winner will receive the SJK (C) Kepong 2 PIBG trophy.

The winner of the under-10 section will get the Cheah Lim Choy trophy, the under-12 winner will win the Pan Chew Kong trophy, the under-14 winner will receive the Kong Foo Leong trophy and the under-16 winner, the Datuk Tan Kim Hor trophy.

There are 12 prizes for each age group. The top winners in each age group will receive cash prizes, while the other winners will get consolation prizes. The best girl and the best school will also get prizes.

Entry fees are RM7 for pupils of the school and RM12 for other players.

Lunch and snacks will be provided for all players, and the first 100 entries will be given souvenirs.

For more information, contact F.L. Wong at % 019-226 8109 / 03-6276 4197 between 3pm and 10pm.

Penang Grand Prix

The Penang Chess Association will be holding the fourth leg of its chess circuit at the Residents’ Association of Bayan Baru clubhouse on Nov 11. This tournament is open only to PCA members.

There will be six rounds, and eight cash prizes will be offered. The top prize is RM200. The players will also earn GP points that may qualify them for the finals of the Grand Prix circuit which will be held later this year or next year.

Entry fee is RM10 per player. For more information, contact Ooi Kiem Boo at % 04-226 2209 or Ung Tay Aik at % 017-477 5418.

Big challenges ahead

IF YOU think that running a regional chess competition is a piece of cake, you should think again. Better still, ask the students of Universiti Malaya’s second residential college what it is like to hold an ambitious project like their annual Grand Asian Chess Challenge (GACC).

They will tell you that it is not easy. The biggest headache is the daunting task of tracking invitations after they have been sent to the universities and other tertiary-level learning institutions in the region. There is the nail-biting suspense of waiting for these institutions to say whether they are participating or not.

Even if they had said that they are coming, anything can still happen between their confirmation and arrival. Nothing is ever certain until you actually meet them at the airport’s arrival hall.

Take this year, for example. According to Teh Ooi Kock of the GACC organising committee, there were quite a number of foreign universities that had told them that they would be coming but because of the Sept 11 tragedy in New York, many universities have decided to change their plans.

At this point, only the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, Lahore University of Management, Mulund University of Commerce (India), Pure University (India), University of Colombo, University of Peracheniya (Sri Lanka), Catholic University of Parahyangon (Indonesia), Gunadarma University (Indonesia) and Sharif University (Iran) are among the confirmed entries.

It will be another two weeks before the tournament finally starts on Oct 19 and until then, it will be a nervous wait for the GACC committee.

Nevertheless, Teh is confident that the reduced number of foreign teams and players can be offset by the support from the local universities and colleges.

At present, however, only the Selangor and Malacca campuses of the Multimedia University, Universiti Utara Malaysia, Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris, Universiti Malaya and Universiti Sains Malaysia have confirmed.

It is still rather uncertain whether others like the Tunku Abdul Rahman College, International Islamic University and the University Malaya Sarawak will register for the GACC this year but the organisers are rather hopeful.

Said Teh: “We wish to appeal to our friends in the local institutions, especially those who have yet to commit themselves, to support this annual event and confirm their entries early so that Malaysia can continue with this fine tradition.”

The GACC started six years ago as an experimental project by the Universiti Malaya’s second residential college’s students. Back in 1996, it was confined only to the Asean region and there were only 11 teams taking part.

The inaugural title was won by the Nanyang Technological University of Singapore, which had entered four teams for the competition. The university even took the second prize, and it was left to the home-grown team from the Universiti Malaya to take the third prize.

The second year’s tournament was won by the Gunadarma University from Indonesia with Vietnam’s Hue University taking the second prize and the Institut Teknologi Bandung of Indonesia coming third.

By the time the third GACC was organised in 1998, the organisers had decided to expand their coverage to the whole of the Asian continent. There were teams from West Asia taking part for the first time.

Iran’s University of Khorassan emerged champion in the third GACC but the local teams from Universiti Telekom and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia had their best show by taking the second and third places.

The 1999 edition of the GACC produced one of the most interesting results. The title went to the Mongolian State Pedagogical University, which was playing for the first time. Second was Indonesia’s Gunadarma University and third, the Rizal Technological University from the Philippines.

Last year’s GACC was one of the most successful. Taking part were teams from as far away as Beirut (the American University of Beirut) and the United Arab Emirates. The Gunadarma University won the GACC for the second time, and finishing second was the Higher College Of Technology from the UAE. University Of Peradeniya from Sri Lanka was third.

This year, Royal Selangor steps into the picture by sponsoring a beautifully handcrafted challenge trophy that is crowned with gold-plated king and queen chess pieces. Standing 38cm high and designed by the company’s in-house designers, the handcrafted trophy took two craftsmen a month to complete.

The GACC tournament will be played as a nine-round Swiss event at the university’s second residential college from Oct 19. There will be both a team and an individual event.

Time control is two hours per game for each player. For every round, each team is required to field at least one woman as one of their four players.

According to Teh, the firm favourite in this year’s team event is the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics. Among their players are two of China’s top players, grandmaster Peng Xiao Min who has an international rating of 2,629 points and woman grandmaster Wang Pin who is rated at 2,504 points.

The GACC website is at http://www. geocities.com/gacc_malaysia/index.html while enquiries can be directed to Tong Wai Yee (% 012-676 8582), or Yap Chee Keong (% 012-662 4843) or e-mail: gacc_6@hotmail.com.

St Nicholas turns 50

The St Nicholas Home for the Visually Impaired in Penang is 50 years old this year and as part of its jubilee celebrations, the Home is organising a special chess tournament on Oct 13 and 14.

This event, run with the technical expertise of the Penang Chess Association, will pit a maximum of 20 visually impaired players against an equivalent number of sighted players from Penang.

The visually impaired players will be from the Society of the Blind Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, led by their most successful player, Mah Hassan, who is a senior legal officer with the Securities Commission.

When I met Mah Hassan in KL recently, he was very excited about the whole project.

“We are looking forward to this special event that the St Nicholas Home is organising. It is the first time we are having a visually impaired organisation playing an active part in holding a chess competition anywhere in the country,” he said.

“The Society of the Blind Malaysia is ready to contribute by arranging for 16 to 20 of our top players to blitz your players in this very traditional game,” he added.

It is actually a big challenge to play against a non-sighted player. For one thing, it can be rather unnerving for a first-timer to play chess with the visually impaired.

They have their own separate chessboards with raised and sunken squares in place of the normal black and white squares, and each of these squares have a hole in their centres. A corresponding feature of their chess set is that all the pieces are mounted on little cylindrical pegs that fit nicely into the holes.

When a visually impaired player plays chess, more often than not, he will be concentrating on the chess board, and feeling the pieces and the board with his hands as he decides on his strategy. The “touch move” rule obviously does not apply to him until the chess clock is punched.

The sighted player need not have to use the same board as his opponent. He has the choice of concentrating on his game using a regular chess set. However, the sighted player is required to assist his opponent by announcing or pointing out to him the moves that have been made.

Speed chess is, of course, unheard of in games between sighted and non-sighted players and I knew that Mah Hassan was just jesting when he said that he wanted to play blitz. The visually impaired players will normally require nothing less than a 45-minute game for a decent match and to compensate for their handicap.

For the St Nicholas jubilee celebration tournament, the format will be a five-round event with a one-hour time control per player for each game. There will be three rounds on Oct 13 and two rounds on Oct 14.

The players from the Penang Chess Association will be selected by invitation only, but spectators are welcomed at the St Nicholas Home next weekend to watch this interesting contest.

New York remembered

DID the sight of the two aeroplanes slamming into New York’s World Trade Center on Sept 11 shock you? It most certainly sent a chill down my spine. Undoubtedly, other chess players in the country would have been equally stunned even though the terrorist attack happened half-way round the globe.

However, I believe the two chess players who would have been most affected by the event were Gary Kasparov and Viswanathan Anand. Exactly six years ago to the very date, the two of them were playing a high profile match in New York. The event began on Sept 11, 1995, and it was to last four weeks. The venue of their match was the observation deck on the 107th floor of the World Trade Center. So, when the north and south towers came crashing down, a part of chess history was also wiped out.

Physical aggression, fortunately, is not the normal way of life for chess players. The only aggression that we display is on the chessboard. Even then, we prefer to let our 32 pieces do the talking and when the game is done, we chess players return to reality.

Vietnam sweeps all

Despite the relatively low-key efforts of the Malaysian Chess Federation in organising the first SEA Games chess championship, the event was a resounding success.

Even though chess was only a demonstration game this year, eight of the SEA Games nations came together to support this historical event at the Mid-Valley Megamall shopping complex in Kuala Lumpur.

There weren’t any cash prizes offered in either the team or individual events, but the group of grandmasters (GM), international masters (IM) and other players taking part in this competition was more interested in competing for the honour of being the SEA Games champions rather than winners in financial terms.

When was Vietnam ever considered a chess powerhouse in this region? Decades ago, when one spoke about chess in South-east Asia, it was always Indonesia and the Philippines that were recognised as the strongest chess-playing nations.

With the next SEA Games scheduled for Hanoi in 2003, the Vietnamese contingent would have something positive to show their country’s Olympic Council when they get home. It will be good for chess.

The team competition went Vietnam’s way as they carved a narrow 2.5–1.5 victory over the Philippines in the finals. Vietnam’s GM Nguyen Anh Dung drew with GM Roger Antonio but after Le Dinh Tuan lost to Rolando Nolte, it was up to GM Tu Hoang Thong and Nguyen Thanh Son to pick up the winning points from Richard Bitoon and Nelson Mariano respectively.

Interestingly, the Vietnamese were lucky qualifiers for the semi-finals. In the preliminary stage of the team event, they had lost to the Filipinos by a large 1–3 margin. After they picked up a 4-0 score from Thailand, they managed to squeak into the semi-finals with a narrow 2.5–1.5 score against Malaysia.

The Malaysians were very game fighters. In the first round of the preliminaries, they had thrashed Thailand 3.5–0.5 and in the second round, had put up a very good fight against the Filipinos. IM Mas Hafizulhelmi drew with Antonio while Lim Chuin Hoong beat Richard Bitoon. However, Wong Zi Jing and Ismail Ahmad could make no headway against Idelfonso Datu and Nolte.

The match against Vietnam was crucial for Malaysia. At that point, both teams were tied with five points each, and the team that would win this match in the preliminaries would join the Philippines in the top half of the semi-final play-offs.

As it turned out, it was a very hard-fought encounter. Lim drew with IM Phan Minh Hoang while Lim Yee Weng won against Le. However, both Mas Hafizulhelmi and Wong could make no progress against GMs Nguyen Anh Dung and Tu who dug deep into their resources, and could not prevent Vietnam from taking the match.

I wish to stress that the Malaysians’ failure to progress to the top half of the semi-finals is not a true reflection of their chess strengths. I believe we had been drawn into a tougher preliminaries group. With a bit more luck, the tide could have turned our way. After all, when everything was considered, both finalists – Vietnam and the Philippines – had qualified from the same group as the Malaysians.

In the bottom half of the semi-finals, Malaysia easily accounted for Brunei 4–0, and in the play-off for the fifth and sixth places, Malaysia met Singapore and both teams played to a 2–2 score. Wong lost to Chan Peng Kong while Lim beat Jeremy Lim. Mas Hafizulhelmi drew with GM Wu Shaobin while Lim Yee Weng drew with Navin Sawalani.

The individual’s events were equally entertaining. Following the new World Chess Federation format for the world chess championship, it was held as a knockout contest. The men’s individual gold medal was won by GM Tu who beat Singapore’s GM Wu in the semi-finals and Indonesia’s Irwanto Sadikin 1.5–0.5 in the finals. Vo Hong Phuong won the women’s gold medal by beating her compatriot Nguyen Ngan Binh 2–0 in the finals.

In the men’s individual, Malaysia’s interests were represented by Lim Yee Weng, Lim Chuin Hoong, Ismail Ahmad and Mok Tze Meng. Unfortunately, only Lim Chuin Hoong managed to make any progress here.

Lim Yee Weng was eliminated by GM Tu, Ismail by Myanmar’s IM Myo Naing, while Mok lost to GM Antonio, all by identical 1.5–0.5 scores. Meanwhile, Lim Chuin Hoong took his game with Myanmar GM Zaw Win Lay to a play-off when they tied at 1–1. In the play-off, Lim qualified for the second round when he proved to be a notch better than his opponent. In the second round, Lim again beat IM Myo Naing by a 2–1 margin but in the third round, he was eliminated 1–2 by Indonesia’s Irwanto.

Siti Zulaikha was the one of two Malaysian players who went through to the second round of the women’s event. She created an upset by upstaging Indonesia’s IM Upi Tamin Darmayana in the first round, but could not find the resources to beat the eventual women’s silver medallist.

Norshazwani Zulkafli was the surprise winner over fellow Malaysian Lim Jean Nie but she was, however, beaten by Filipino IM Cristine Mariano in the second round.

Our other women representatives who played and were eliminated in the first round were Lim Han Ying, Haslindah Ruslan, Lim Jean Nie and Effalini Farid.

A marred championship

THE Merdeka team chess championship which begins next Friday at the Putra World Trade Centre in Kuala Lumpur is supposed to be the jewel in the Malaysian Chess Federation’s (MCF) crown.

However, this year’s championship – despite it being the 20th anniversary edition – is being held under a cloud as the MCF grapples with the issue of filling its president’s post.

Several months ago, Tan Sri Sabbaruddin Chik, the former Culture, Arts and Tourism Minister who had been at the helm of the federation since 1988, reportedly resigned in a huff.

It is believed that he had interpreted a vaguely worded paragraph in an MCF internal memo as an oblique attempt by some quarters to hint at his continued usefulness to the federation, and he had decided then and there to sever his 13-year link with MCF.

I doubt my friends in the MCF council would want their long-serving president to go in such a manner. True, Sabbaruddin’s political fortunes today may be different from his heyday when he was a Federal Minister and also Umno secretary-general, but this is not good enough a reason to replace him so unceremoniously.

After all, it is not as if he had done nothing for Malaysian chess. Several high quality regional competitions were held here in the 1990s, in particular the Asian team and the Asian cities team championships, but the biggest feather in Sabbaruddin’s cap was undoubtedly the much-acclaimed match between Anatoly Karpov and Jan Timman in Kuala Lumpur 10 years ago.

With Sabbaruddin’s support, the Merdeka team chess championship has grown from strength to strength. That it is being held today at the PWTC is evidence of the role he had played to raise the profile and quality of this event.

Since his resignation, MCF has been twiddling its thumbs, not knowing where to proceed from here.

For the time being, MCF deputy president Datuk Mohd Rosli Abdul Aziz is reportedly overseeing the affairs of the federation as its acting president.

The MCF annual general meeting – and there should be one planned for this Merdeka team chess championship – should be a good time for MCF and its delegates to reflect on Sabbaruddin’s achievements.

If his resignation is non-retractable and MCF is forced to accept it, let the decision not leave a bitter taste in anyone’s mouth.

It is not unprecedented for MCF to honour certain people as an honorary life president. It is well within the federation’s constitution. MCF’s first president Datuk Tan Chin Nam was accorded this recognition when he stepped down in the 1980s and he is now considered an elder statesman in Malaysian chess.

I believe Sabbaruddin Chik can be similarly elevated in a week’s time, and I hope he will be gracious enough to accept the honour that comes from every Malaysian chess player’s heart.

Merdeka meet

 

Anand trumps Kramnik

 

Game for a challenge

MORE than 350 players from around the country converged at the Putra World Trade Centre for the very popular national age-group chess championship last month. This annual event is organised by the Malaysian Chess Federation. As in previous years, the championship was divided into six age-groups, with separate events for boys and girls.

The under-eight boys' section attracted 27 players. The top five winners were: Fong Yip Siang (6.5 points), Fong Yit Ho and Sumanth Subramaniam (5.5 points each), and Chia Yoon Wei and Mohd Shafeeqdeen (five points each).

The under-eight girls' section had nine entries. The two joint winners were Alia Anin Azwa Bakri and Adeline Gan Li Ling, both with 6.5 points. Third was Kwan Tszee Yeung with 4.5 points.

There were 42 players in the under-10 boys' section. The winners in this event were Anas Nazreen Bakri and Abdul Kadir Jailani who each scored 6.5 points. In the third to seventh places were: Tan Wei Yang, Ahmad Noordin Mohd Azmi, Nur Ahmad Faiz Mohd Azmi, Chong Geng Cheng and Khoo Sing Wan with five points each.

The under-10 girls' section attracted 17 entries, with Wan Khye Theng emerging as the winner with five points. Behind her was the trio made up of Michele Tai Chee Yann, Chia Yoon Yoong and Shireen Farhana Sirajudeen who obtained 4.5 points each.

The under-12 boys' section drew 75 players. The event was won by Abel Yap Jin Wei with 6.5 points. The other winners were Victor Hong Wee Lian, Muhyiddin Muhammad Isa and Zarul Shazwan Zulkafli who earned six points each.

In the girls' section, Nur Shazwani Zulkafli easily defended the title that she won last year with a clean sweep of seven points. Effaliana Mohd Farid came second with six points, and Chan Wei Qi was third with 4.5 points.

There were 46 players in the boys' under-14 section. The winner was Effazuwan Mohd Farid who scored six points, while there was a three-way tie on 5.5 points among Fariz Shafrussin, Pok Wern Jian and Ernest Chia Chuan Ping. Six players--Wong Zi Chuang, Ahmad Fadzil Nayan, Ragu Ram, Zarul Shafiq Zulkafli, Thaw Chee Hou and Mohd Johan Iskandar--shared the fifth to tenth positions with five points each.

The girls' under-14 title was won by Lim Han Ying with six points. Tied for joint second and third placing were Lee Su Lynn and Hazuin Husain with 5.5 points each.

The boys' under-16 section was hotly contested, and Nicholas Chan emerged as the winner with 6.5 points, half a point ahead of Jonathan Chuah. In third place was Hafiz Shafruddin with 5.5 points. The players with five points each were Au Yoong Yow Loo, Gerald Soh, Effawira Mohd Farid, Aaron Yee Keng Yew, Foo Chee Kin, Hisyam Ismail, Wan Jen Lye, Mohd Nazmi Ahmad and Mohd Musa Alashaari Mohd.

The girls' under-16 section was won jointly by Hazerina Jaffar and Nishaah Rengahathan who both scored 6.5 points. In third place with five points was Norhidayah Azman.

The most keenly-contested event was for the boys' under-20 title. Two players, Lim Chuin Hoong and Wong Zi Jing, were equal firsts with six points each. There was also a five-way tie on five points among Lim Yee Weng, Khor Shihong, Thaw Chee Yin, Lim Beng Tatt and Faiezul Zainal for the third to seventh places. Abdul Haq, Marcus Chan and Ooi Chong Hean scored 4.5 points to take the eighth to 10th places.

Seven players took part in the under-20 girls' section which was won by Lim Jean Nie (six points). Second was Marina Soh (five points) while in third place was Sim Chui Fong (four points).

Dell League

The fourth and fifth rounds of the 11th Dell Penang Chess League will be played this Sunday at the Kolej Damansara Utama premises in Jalan Anson.

Thirty teams divided into three divisions are taking part.

After three rounds, the Penang Free School A is leading in the Premier Division with 10 points. Close on their heels, however, are the Chung Ling Old Boys Association, Old Frees Association and Chung Ling High School A with 9.5 points each.

The Penang Chess Association Novices has six points while Pessca has 5.5 points. Placed further back are Penang Free School B with 4.5 points; Penang Development Corporation, 2.5 points; and both Dell Asia Pacific A and Kolej Damansara Utama with 1.5 points each.

In Division One, St Xavier's Institution A is in the lead with 9.5 points. Next in the standings are the Penang Chess Association Ladies with nine points; Universiti Sains Malaysia, 7.5 points; Chung Ling High School B, 6.5 points; Chung Ling High School C, six points; and Hitachi, 5.5 points. Both Penang Chinese Girls High School and MSSPP Juniors have 4.5 points each, while Penang Free School C has four points and SM Hamid Khan A, three points.

In Division Two, Tunku Abdul Rahman College has collected the maximum 12 points so far, but close at their heels is St Xavier's Institution B with 11 points. Malayan Sugar has eight points, followed by Chung Ling High School D and Penang Free School D with seven points each. SM Hamid Khan B has 6.5 points; Dell Asia Pacific B, six points; St George's Girls School, 1.5 points; and Union High School, one point. Penang Free School Girls has yet to score.

There will be two matches this Sunday. The fourth round begins at 10am while the fifth round starts at 2pm. Dell Asia Pacific is the main sponsor for this annual event while Kolej Damansara Utama is the sponsor for the venue.

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BPM national allegro

THE next two legs of this year's Bank Pertanian Malaysia-sponsored national allegro chess circuit will be played in Penang on July 15 and Perak on July 22.

These events will be held over six rounds with a 30-minute time control for each game. However, if the number of participants exceeds 100, the tournaments will be played over seven rounds, using a 25-minute time control.

Entry fees are RM10 for ladies, Bank Pertanian employees and members of the two chess associations running these legs, RM5 for players below 12 years old, and RM15 for all other participants.

To register, contact Ooi Kiem Boo in Penang (04-226 2209) and Dr Yee Meng Kheong in Ipoh (05-5464 5308). Selangor under-16 grand prix

THE Chess Association of Selangor is now in the midst of organising the under-16 grand prix chess tournament to be held at Sunway College, Petaling Jaya. The second leg will be played this Sunday, followed by the third leg on July 8, and the final leg on July 14 and 15.

Each of these legs will be played over six rounds with a 30-minute time control. Entry fees are RM10 for CAS members and RM15 for non-members.

For more information, contact Lim Tse Pin (012-298 4922), Norhana (03-4108 2590) or Jackie Wong (012-261 3688), or you can e-mail CAS at chessmate@cas.com.kg.

Kepong Baru Open

THE SMK Kepong Baru chess club will organise an open chess tournament at the school this Sunday. Prizes comprise trophies, cash, hampers and certificates. The best girl player and the top five under-12 players will also receive prizes.

Entry fees are RM12 per person inclusive of lunch during the tournament.

For more details, contact Tan Eng Kian (03-6274 0635) or Chin Kai Sin (03-6276 4403).

Insofar Chess

THE Insofar Chess Club in Perak will hold a one-day chess tournament at the Sekolah Tuanku Abdul Rahman in Ipoh this Sunday.

There are 10 cash prizes offered for the open section, ranging from RM300 to RM30, and 27 trophies for the best veteran, ladies, under-10, under-12 and under-16 players.

Members of the chess club will get to play in the tournament for free while non-members are required to pay RM10. Primary schoolchildren are charged RM8 per player. Only the first 60 entries will be accepted.

For more information, contact Mat Zaki Yeop ( 05-312 6696 / 019-540 5677).

Young talent to the fore

LIKE many of today's young players, Lim Chuin Hoong first burst onto the local chess scene as a small boy in shorts, obsessed with playing blitz chess and never giving up despite losing games against his bigger and older opponents and, to his credit, beating them occasionally.

Many players would feel demoralised after losing some particularly hard games but some like him have the tenacity to persevere. And you could see their elation when they managed to turn the tables on their opponents.

Lim Chuin Hoong ... a young
man with an obvious talent.

Chuin Hoong's talent for the game was obvious. Not only was he playing chess in Penang and at the national level, at events such as the annual national age-group and the national closed chess championships, he had the added advantage of being exposed to adult tournaments in Singapore and Australia in the mid-1990s. The World Youth Chess Festivals in Europe were also frequent playing grounds for him.

I remember a time not so long ago when the Penang Chess Association (PCA) was faced with the dilemma of deciding what to do with the army of little chess players whose abilities were maturing fast. The natural progression was to allow them to invade the territory of the senior chess players in the state at national-level competitions.

It was a good policy which brought the PCA much success, especially at the annual Merdeka team chess championships. Players like Ooi Chern Ee, Chuin Hoong, Lim Tze Han and Jonathan Chuah made the transition from scholastic chess to adult chess well.

Chuah and Tze Han went even one step further by winning the national closed championships in 1999 and 2000 respectively. For Chuin Hoong, however, the national closed championship title would remain out of his reach for many years.

In 1996, for instance, he finished second behind the eventual winner, Lim Yee Weng. One year later, he was placed outside the top two. In 1998, Chuin Hoong again finished second behind the champion, Ng Ee Vern.

The national championship in 1999 was one of the tightest and it saw a three-way tie at the top between Chuah, Chuin Hoong and Teng Wei Khoon. Yet, the coveted title of national champion eluded him once again when Chuah finished ahead of him in the play-off for the title. Again in 2000, a second place behind Tze Han was all that Chuin Hoong could achieve.

However, luck finally smiled on him. This year's national closed championship, held last month in Kuala Lumpur, was finally won by Chuin Hoong who played by far the most consistent chess to pick up eight wins while conceding only a single draw. He had a winning margin of 1.5 points more than his closest rival, Ismail Ahmad, who had collected seven points.

Among some of the better known players who lost to Chuin Hoong were Ismail Ahmad, Wong Zi Jing, Ahmad Maliki and Mohd Saprin Sabri. His only draw was with Chauh in the final game.

Joint third to fifth in the national closed tournament were Lim Yee Weng, Wong Zi Jing and Marcus Chan who each had 6.5 points, while on six points were Jonathan Chuah, Rizal Ahmad Kamal and Ahmad Maliki.

The national women's closed championship was won by Siti Zulaikha for the third year running. She scored 6.5 points from seven games, which was a full 1.5 points more than second-placed Lim Jean Nie. Joint third and fourth in the women's tournament were Lim Han Ying and Nur Shazwani.

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Kepong Baru Open

The SMK Kepong Baru chess club will organise an open chess tournament at the school on July 1. There will be prizes consisting of trophies, cash, hampers and certificates. The best girl player and the top five under-12 players will also receive prizes.

Entry fees are RM12 per person, which will also cover the cost of lunch during the tournament.

For more details, contact Tan Eng Kian ( 03-6274 0635) or Chin Kai Sin ( 03-6276 4403).

Chess League in full swing

The second round of the 11th Dell Penang Chess League will be played this Sunday at the Kolej Damansara Utama premises in Jalan Anson, Penang. Thirty teams divided into three divisions will be taking part.

The Premier Division is made up of teams representing the Penang Development Corporation, Penang Free School A and B, Old Frees Association, Dell Asia Pacific A, Kolej Damansara Utama, Chung Ling Old Boys Association, Penang Chess Association Novices, Chung Ling High School A and Pessca.

The teams in Division One comprise Penang Chinese Girls High School, Penang Chess Association Ladies, Penang Free School C, Chung Ling High School B and C, St Xavier's Institution A, SM Hamid Khan A, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Hitachi and MSSPP Juniors.

In Division Two, the teams taking part are SM Hamid Khan B, St George's Girls School, Malayan Sugar, Penang Free School Girls, Tunku Abdul Rahman College, Union High School, Chung Ling High School D, Dell Asia Pacific B, Penang Free School D and St Xavier's Institution B.

The games are played on most Sundays until Aug 5. Dell Asia Pacific is the main sponsor for this annual event while Kolej Damansara Utama is the sponsor for the venue.

BPM national allegro

The next two legs of this year's Bank Pertanian Malaysia (BPM)-sponsored national allegro chess circuit will be played in Penang on July 15 and Perak on July 22. These two events will be held over six rounds with a 30-minute time control for each game. However, if the number of participants exceeds 100, the tournaments will be played over seven rounds using a 25-minute time control.

Entry fees are RM10 for ladies, Bank Pertanian employees and members of the respective chess associations running these legs, RM5 for players below 12 years old, and RM15 for all other participants.

The prizes for the open section will be RM300 for the winner, RM200 for the second-placed, RM150 for the third, RM100 each for the fourth and fifth, and RM60 each for the sixth to 10th. The best Bank Pertanian player will also win RM60 while the best players in the other categories will get RM50.

To register for the three events, contact Ooi Kiem Boo in Penang ( 04-226 2209 / e-mail: ooilsv@pd.jaring.my) and Dr Yee Meng Keong in Ipoh ( 05-546 4530).

The remaining legs in the series are in Negri Sembilan (call Charles Chan; 06-631 7971) and Sabah on Aug 12 (Sylvester Asai; 088-764 305), Sarawak on Aug 19 (Lim Kian Hwa; 082-427 772) and Labuan on Oct 28 (Sebli Hassan; 087-463 471).

Asean international chess open

The Brunei Chess Federation will host the first Asean international open chess championship at Bandar Seri Begawan from July 29 to Aug 5.

This is an individual event which will be played over nine rounds. Entry fees are US$50 (RM190) per player and, except for grandmasters, international masters and invited players from the Asean countries, participants are required to pay for their own board and lodging.

The organisers are offering 15 main prizes worth a total of US$10,000 (RM38,000) with the top three prizes being US$3,000 (RM11,400), US$2,000 (RM7,600) and US$1,000 (RM3800). In addition, there are smaller supplementary prizes for the top five Bruneian players, top three Asean players and the best under-18 player.

For more information, contact Leong Voon Choon ( 6733-333 157 / fax: 6733-372 182 / e-mail: Voon-Choon.V.C.Leong@shell.com.bn), Awang Zaidi Dollah ( 6733-373 970 / fax: 6733-330 195 / e-mail: bruneichessfederation@hotmail.com) or Yap Choow Tun ( 6733-372 485 / fax: 6733-373 130 / e-mail: Choow-Tun.C.T.Yap@shell.com.bn).

The details of this event can also be obtained from the Brunei Chess Federation website at http://www.geocities.com/bruneichessfed.

11th edition

ONE of the most enduring events on the Malaysian chess calendar that is organised regularly by the state chess associations is the Penang Chess League. This Penang Chess Association (PCA) event is in its 11th edition this year and has come a long way since its inception in 1991.

At that time, the PCA was slowly emerging from a long period of the doldrums in the second half of the 1980s and the new committee that was elected into the picture had decided that the best way to raise the association's profile again was to have a sustained chess programme over a number of weeks.

Thus was born the concept of the Penang Chess League. It would be open to teams from the commercial, business and government sectors as well as from factories, institutions of learning and bona fide associations and clubs. In an effort to increase participation, all teams were allowed to include guest players who could effectively boost the teams' playing strengths.

By playing games on Sundays, it was envisioned that the participants could enjoy playing serious games with proper time controls over a period of about three months.

When the chess league first started, there were only 12 teams taking part. However, over the years, its popularity meant that the chess league had to be split into different divisions to cater for the wide spectrum of playing abilities. In its latest format, there are three divisions, with the third division comprising teams of mainly novice players.

In 1991, the PCA was lucky in that its proposals for this league was met with a sympathetic ear from the owners of the Bayview Hotel chain who allowed the association to hold the chess league at its two hotels in George Town and Batu Ferringhi in the first two years.

From the third year onwards, sponsorship for the chess league was undertaken wholly by The City Bayview Hotel which even contributed a challenge trophy for the competition.

However, a new challenge confronted the PCA in the late 1990s when a new management took over the running of the hotel. Coupled with the regional economic crisis at that time, the PCA suddenly found that the hotel was only willing to provide the venue for the chess league and the association had to dig deep into its small financial reserves to keep the event running.

There was a search for new sponsors and the PCA found a willing party in Dell Asia Pacific, now the number one manufacturer of personal computers worldwide. Dell Asia Pacific was convinced of the viability of the chess league and the commitment of the PCA to popularise a thinking game in the state, and agreed to sponsor the association for three years.

The Year 2000 edition of the competition, now aptly named Dell Penang Chess League, was held at Dell's impressive factory premises in the Bayan Baru Industrial Zone. This year, however, the venue changes to the Kolej Damansara Utama in Anson Road, Penang.

More information about this year's chess league below.

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11th Dell Penang chess league

Entries are now open for the above which kicks off on June 10. Dell Asia Pacific is the main sponsor while KDU is co-sponsoring the venue.

The championship will be played on consecutive Sundays (except July 8 and 15) and is scheduled to end on Aug 5.

Only teams representing the public and private sectors, institutions of learning and registered associations, societies and clubs are allowed to play in the league. A guest player may be included in each team, but the other players in the team must strictly be employees, students or members of the organisation which they represent.

Players who are unable to join as guest players in any team are requested to contact the PCA immediately. The PCA will consider grouping them together to play under the association's banner.

The entry fee is RM150 per team and cash prizes are guaranteed for the top teams in each division.

For more details, contact Chan Kim Beng at (012-451 8811 / e-mail: KimBengChan@Dell.com), Goh Yoon Wah ( 04-645 5362 / e-mail: yoon@caissa.pc.my) or Ung Tay Aik ( 017-477 5418 / e-mail: taung@alumni.uwaterloo.ca).

BPM national allegro

The next three legs of this year's Bank Pertanian Malaysia-sponsored national allegro chess circuit will be played in Perlis on June 9 and both Kedah and Pahang on June 10.

These events will be held over six rounds with a 30-minute time control for each game. However, if the number of participants exceeds 100, the tournaments will be played over seven rounds using a 25-minute time control.

Entry fees are RM10 for ladies, Bank Pertanian employees and members of the respective chess associations running these legs, RM5 for players below 12 years old, and RM15 for all other participants.

The prizes for the open section will be RM300 for the winner, RM200 for the runner-up, RM150 for the third-placed and RM100 each for the fourth- and fifth-placed. Players coming in the sixth to 10th place will receive RM60 each. The best Bank Pertanian player will also win RM60 while the best players in the other categories will get RM50 each.

To register for the three events, contact Bahari Baharom in Kangar ( 019-568 6256), Sohaimi in Alor Star ( 04-730 7288) and Wan Abdullah in Kuantan ( 019-916 3824).

The remaining legs in the series are in Penang on July 15 (Ooi Kiem Boo; 04-226 2209), Perak on July 22 (Dr Yee Meng Keong; 05-546 4530), Negri Sembilan on Aug 12 (Charles Chan; 06-631 7971), Sabah on Aug 12 (Sylvester Asai; 088-764 305), Sarawak on Aug 19 (Lim Kian Hwa; 082-427 772) and Labuan on Oct 28 (Sebli Hassan; 087-463 471).

Sri Aman junior tournament

The Sekolah Kebangsaan Sri Aman in Penang will organise a chess tournament for under-12 boys and girls at the school on Sunday. This is a six-round event and there will be seven prizes for the under-12 players and three prizes for those under 10 years old.

Entry fee is RM5 per player. To register, be at the school by 8.30am on the day of the competition or alternatively, contact Eoh Hook Kim ( 04-826 0196 / e-mail: hkeoh@tm.net.my).

Selangor AGM

The Chess Association of Selangor (CAS) will hold their annual general meeting at 1.30pm this Sunday at the Sungai Wang Plaza exhibition hall in Kuala Lumpur. Among the highlights of the meeting will be the official launch of the CAS homepage, known as CASWeb, <http://www.cas.com.kg/>, and changes to their constitution on the types of membership and their fees.

Meanwhile, if you are in KL, do pay a visit to the exhibition hall on the third floor of the Sungai Wang Plaza (next to the IT Centre) this weekend to watch the 28th Royal Selangor open chess tournament which started yesterday. This event is traditionally one of the strongest tournaments held annually in the country.

Sarawak Open

The Sarawak Chess Association (SCA) will hold the Sarawak open tournament at the Dewan Suarah in Jalan Taman Budaya, Kuching, from June 3 to 5.

This event is divided into the open and under-18 sections. The open section will have 10 prizes, which includes RM600 and a trophy for the winner. There are prizes for the top eight winners of the under-18 section and the winner will receive RM180 and a trophy. There are also three special prizes for the best women players from the two sections.

Entry fees are RM10 for the open section and RM5 for women and under-18 players.

The SCA will provide free accommodation at the Telekom Training College in Semariang from June 2 to 6 for the first 30 outstation players who register for this tournament. The best players from Sarawak will be selected to represent the state in the Merdeka state and youth team chess championships in KL from Aug 31 to Sept 2.

Anyone interested in taking part can contact James Brodie in Kuching (082-616 177, 082-451 973 / fax: 082-610 757); Lim Kian Hwa in Kuching (082-203 112, 082-427 772, 011-218 192 / fax: 082-424 544); Bujang Poli in Miri (085-456 176, 085-654 487); Marzuki Hussain in Bintulu ( 086-252 300 ext 226, 086-252 902, 019-814 4369 / fax: 086-253 661); Ong Bee Hua in Sibu (084-336 909, 010-819 1129) or Tiong Chiong Ling in Sibu (084-322 327, 084-323 931).

Master of the circuit

IT IS that time of the year again for the most important annual event in the Malaysian chess calendar: the national closed championships for men and women.

The Malaysian Chess Federation (MCF) has announced that this year's championships will be held from May 26 to 30 at the Putra World Trade Centre in Kuala Lumpur. This year, there will be a nine-round for the men's section and the winner will be awarded the Tun Hussein Onn challenge trophy. The women's event will be played over seven rounds and the winner will receive the Tan Sri Sabaruddin Chik trophy.

In addition, the PWTC will award trophies to the most promising under-18 male and female players.

According to rules introduced last year, the winner of the men's event will be awarded the title of national master but he will not be called the national champion.

Instead, this winner, together with the next three players from the national closed championship results, will be invited to play in a Malaysian Masters tournament at the end of the year.

This Malaysian Masters event will also include the top six internationally-rated players in the country. The 10-men event will be Fide-rated, and the ultimate winner will be declared the national champion for the year.

For the national closed championship, each of the MCF-affiliated chess associations can select a maximum of four official representatives for the men's section and two players for the women's section.

This ruling, however, does not mean that the MCF is restricting people from taking part in the championship. Anyone not selected by their respective chess associations can still participate by paying a RM100 fee directly to the MCF before the closing date for entries which is only six days away.

Those who have been selected can contact their state chess association immediately for confirmation.

Some of the contacts are Lim Tse Pin of the Chess Association of Selangor ( 012-298 4922); Ooi Kiem Boo of the Penang Chess Association ( 04-226 2209, office hours); Dr Yee Meng Keong of the Perak International Chess Association ( 05-546 4530, evenings); Stephen Cheong of the Johor Chess Association ( 07-333 9636, evenings), Muhammad Arshad of the Terengganu Chess Association ( 09-631 1312, office hours), Sylvester Asai of the Sabah Chess Association ( 088-764 305) and Lim Kian Hwa of the Sarawak Chess Association ( 082-203 112, 082-427 772, 011-218 192).

The national champions of the past 16 years and local players who are on the Fide rating list are given direct entry into the competition. However, their participation must still be confirmed through their respective chess associations.

Among them are last year's winner Ng Tze Han, Jonathan Chuah (1999), Ng Ee Vern (1998), Lim Yee Weng (1997 and 1996), Mas Hafizulhelmi Rahman (1995 and 1994), Yeoh Chin Seng (1993), Mok Tze Meng (1992), Kamal Ariffin Wahiduddin (1991), Ng Ek Leong (1990), Mohd Kamal Abdullah (1989/88), Christi Hon and Lee Soi Hock (1987), Peter Long and Francis Chin (1986 and 1985), and Jimmy Liew (1984).

The eligible former women champions include Siti Zulaika Foudri (2000 and 1999), Eliza Hanum Ibrahim (1998, 1996 and 1993), Eliza Hanim Ibrahim (1997), Khairunnisa Wahiduddin (1995), Roslina Marmono (1994), Nurul Huda Wahiduddin (1991 and 1992) and Audrey Wong (1990).

Also in the MCF list are players like Ooi Chern Ee, Mohd Saprin Sabri, Fadli Zakaria, Mohd Irman Ibrahim, Ng Ee Vern, Lim Chuin Hoong, Mohd Hussein Jamil, Mohd Fairin Zakaria, Goh Yoon Wah, Tan Hong Ghee, Julian Navaratnam, Azahari Mohd Nor, Wong Zi Jing, Lim Chin Lee, Lim Kian Hwa, Tan Wei Sin, Lim Tze Pin, Pang Siew Chong, Ismail Ahmad, Soh Zee Wee, Mohan Raj, Eric Cheah, Ng Ek Teong and Sabar Mohd Hashim, who are all Fide-rated players.

For more information, contact Hamid Majid at ( 03-402 19576 / fax: 03-402 44337 / e-mail: aham@pc.jaring.my).

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KL Selection tournament

The Persatuan Catur Kuala Lumpur (PCKL) will hold a two-day tournament this weekend to select players who can represent the PCKL at this year's national closed chess championship. Three rounds will be played tomorrow, and four rounds on Sunday.

Entry fees are RM10 for PCKL members and RM15 for non-members. However, all participants must show proof that they were either born or are living, studying or working in KL. Only the first 100 entries will be accepted in the tournament.

For more information, call Hamid Majid at ( 03-4021 9576).

BPM national allegro

The next leg of this year's Bank Pertanian Malaysia-sponsored national allegro chess circuit will be played in Kuantan this Sunday.

This event will be held over six rounds with a 30-minute time control for each game. However, if the number of participants exceeds 100, the tournament will be played over seven rounds using a 25-minute time control.

Entry fees are RM10 for ladies, Bank Pertanian employees and members of the Pahang Chess Association, RM5 for players below 12 years old, and RM15 for all other participants.

The prizes for the open section will be RM300 for the winner, RM200 for the second-placed, RM150 for the third, RM100 each for the fourth and fifth, and RM60 each for the sixth to 10th. The best Bank Pertanian player will also win RM60 while the best players in the other categories will get RM50.

To register for the two events, call Wan Abdullah at ( 019-9163824).

The remaining legs in the series are in Perlis on June 9 (Bahari Baharom; 019-568 6256), Kedah on June 10 (Sohaimi; 04-730 7288), Penang on July 15 (Ooi Kiem Boo; 04-226 2209), Perak on July 22 (Dr Yee Meng Keong; 05-546 4530), Negri Sembilan on Aug 12 (Charles Chan; 06-631 7971), Sabah on Aug 12 (Sylvester Asai; 088-764 305), Sarawak on Aug 19 (Lim Kian Hwa; 082-427 772) and Labuan on Oct 28 (Sebli Hassan; 087-463 471).

Sarawak Open

The Sarawak Chess Association (SCA) will hold the Sarawak open tournament at the Dewan Suarah in Jalan Taman Budaya, Kuching, from June 3 to 5.

This event is divided into the open and under-18 sections. The open section will have 10 prizes, which includes RM600 and a trophy for the winner. There are prizes for the top eight winners of the under-18 section and the winner will receive RM180 and a trophy. There are also three special prizes for the best women players from the two sections.

Entry fees are RM10 for the open section and RM5 for women and under-18 players.

The SCA will provide free accommodation at the Telekom Training College in Semariang from June 2 to 6 for the first 30 outstation players that register for this tournament. The best players from Sarawak will be selected to represent the state in the Merdeka state and youth team chess championships in KL from Aug 31 to Sept 2.

Anyone interested in taking part can contact any of these people before May 24: James Brodie in Kuching at ( 082-616 177, 082-451 973; fax: 082-610 757); Lim Kian Hwa in Kuching ( 082-203 112, 082-427 772, 011-218 192; fax: 082-424 544); Bujang Poli in Miri ( 085-456 176, 085-654 487); Marzuki Hussain in Bintulu ( 086-252 300 ext 226, 086-252 902, 019-814 4369; fax: 086-253 661); Ong Bee Hua in Sibu ( 084-336 909, 010-819 1129) or Tiong Chiong Ling in Sibu ( 084-322 327, 084-323 931).

11th Dell Penang chess league

Entries are now open for the 11th Dell Penang Chess League which kicks off on June 10 at the premises of Kolej Damansara Utama (KDU) in Penang. The tournament, now in its 11th year, is organised by the Penang Chess Association. Dell Asia Pacific is the main sponsor while the KDU is co-sponsoring the venue.

The championship will be played on consecutive Sundays (except July 8 and 15) and is scheduled to end on Aug 5.

Only teams representing the public and private sectors, institutions of learning and registered associations, societies and clubs are allowed to play in the league. A guest player may be included in each team, but the other players in the team must strictly be employees, students or members of the organisation which they represent.

Players who are unable to join as guest players in any team are requested to contact the PCA immediately. The PCA will consider grouping them together to play under the association's banner.

There is provision for a maximum participation of 30 teams, and each team is allowed up to eight players. However, only four players from each team will play in any one round.

This year's event will again be split into three divisions. The third division will comprise teams of mainly novice players, while the first and second divisions will be made up of the more regular teams that have been taking part in previous chess leagues.

The entry fee is RM150 per team and cash prizes are guaranteed for the top teams in each division.

For more details, contact Chan Kim Beng at (012-451 8811 / e-mail: KimBengChan@Dell.com), Goh Yoon Wah ( 04-645 5362 / e-mail: yoon@caissa.pc.my) or Ung Tay Aik ( 017-477 5418 / e-mail: taung@alumni.uwaterloo.ca).

Three against the Federation

THE two maverick K's of the chess world have been joined by a third K to speak out against the World Chess Federation (FIDE) on the latter's policy changes to the time controls used in official chess events and their treatment of the history and tradition of the world chess championships.

In an open letter to the global chess community last month, Anatoly Karpov and Gary Kasparov, the 12th and 13th world champions, and Vladimir Kramnik, the self-proclaimed 14th world champion, claimed that the world's top chess players have been denied a voice in FIDE's decision-making processes.

The trio said that any changes to the time-honoured traditions and rules of classical chess should only be made after such plans are studied and debated in an open forum between FIDE, the national federations and the professional players.

The three players also voiced concern over FIDE's claim to the world chess championship. They said that the championship had existed long before FIDE was founded and a century of tradition could not be wiped away. It was unacceptable to them that FIDE were claiming rights to the world championship while at the same time working to destroy the structures upon which the tradition was built.

The letter brought a swift response from FIDE which insisted that they had always welcomed dialogue with members of the world chess fraternity. According to FIDE, policy decisions were often made after consultations with a cross-section of administrators, players and sponsors.

It was in this same spirit that the FIDE presidential board accepted a compromise solution in March on the new time control after it noted the concerns of some European chess federations on the issue.

Last December in Teheran, Iran, the FIDE presidential board had approved a new time control of 40 moves in 75 minutes, 15 minutes for the remainder of the game, with an increment of 30 seconds per move from the first move, which would be mandatory for all chess events effective from January this year. In the compromise solution, this time control would be mandatory for the world championship events which would include the zonal and continental championships, and optional or recommendatory for other FIDE and international rating and title tournaments. For tournaments using analogue chess clocks, the time control of four hours for the duration of the whole game would be recommendatory for title tournaments.

On the issue of the world chess championship, FIDE maintained that they had well-documented historical facts on how FIDE had begun the steady implementation of the qualification systems to the world chess championship titles since 1947.

As such, the Teheran declaration last December had only served to reiterate FIDE's clearly established role as the only custodian of the world chess championship titles.

As custodian, FIDE would have the right to bestow the world championship title on any individual who has participated and won an event solely organised by FIDE for this purpose. This would include a fair and democratic qualification process approved by the FIDE members and not subjected to abuse by any individual or group.

Since 1947, this process had produced world champions in Mikhail Botvinnik, Vassily Smyslov, Mikhail Tal, Tigran Petrosian, Bobby Fischer, Karpov, Kasparov, Alexander Khalifman and Viswanathan Anand.

Interestingly, the independent World Players' Council (WPC) were also quick to voice their opinion. Saying that chess was not the only sport where the official international federation has the rights to organise the official world championship, the WPC stated that it was obvious that FIDE has more rights than any other body.

The WPC singled out Braingames which had invited Kramnik, a loser in a qualification tournament, to play Kasparov in a match last year.

The WPC also reminded the three K's that all the top active chess players, except for themselves, had participated in the last official world championship in New Delhi and Teheran in December.

"We are ready to participate in the search for ways to modify the world championship cycle but to turn the championship into a selection process to play against Kasparov, which will in its turn be the qualification to the match with Kramnik, we think is unacceptable," the WPC declared. "The world championship should finally become an honest sport competition of all the strongest sportsmen without any privileges for whoever."

On the issue of time control, the WPC said each organiser would have a chance to choose whatever appropriate time control suitable for his own tournament. Nobody, according to the WPC, was saying that the classic time control could not be used.

Taking a parting shot at the three K's open letter, the WPC said Karpov's action was really surprising. In early 1998, after having beaten Anand in Lausanne, Switzerland, Karpov had declared himself as the champion and Kasparov as the imposter. Then, in January this year, Karpov, when facing the Commission of Sports Arbitrage in Lausanne, had admitted that the titles of the 14th and 15th world champions belonged legitimately to Khalifman and Anand.

Quah Seng Sun can be contacted at ssquah@schach.pc.my while his previous columns are archived at http://chesscolumn.20m.com. Join Malaysia's only chess mailing list by sending an empty e-mail to pg-chess-subscribe@egroups.com or alternatively, visit http://http//www.egroups.com/list/pg-chess.

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11th Dell KDU Penang chess league starting soon

THE northern region's biggest chess event, the annual Dell KDU Penang Chess League, kicks off on June 10 at the premises of Kolej Damansara Utama (KDU) in Penang. The tournament, now in its 11th year, is organised by the Penang Chess Association and co-sponsored by both Dell Asia Pacific and KDU.

The championship will be played on consecutive Sundays (except July 8 and 15) and is scheduled to end on Aug 5.

Only teams representing the public and private sectors, institutions of learning and registered associations, societies and clubs are allowed to play in the league. A guest player may be included in each team, but the other players in the team must strictly be employees, students or members of the organisation which they represent.

Players who are unable to join as guest players in any team are requested to contact the PCA immediately. If the response is encouraging enough, the PCA will consider grouping them together to play under the association's banner.

Provision has been made for a maximum participation of 30 teams, and each team is allowed up to eight players. However, only four players from each team will play in any one round.

This year's event will again be split into three divisions. The third division will comprise teams of mainly novice players, while the first and second divisions will be made up of the more regular teams that have been taking part in previous chess leagues.

The entry fee is RM150 per team and cash prizes are guaranteed for the top teams in each division.

For more details, contact Chan Kim Beng ( 012-451 8811 / e-mail: Kim_Beng_Chan@Dell.com), Goh Yoon Wah ( 04-645 5362 / e-mail: yoon@caissa.pc.my) or Ung Tay Aik ( 017-477 5418 / e-mail: taung@alumni.uwaterloo.ca).

BPM national allegro

The next two legs of this year's Bank Pertanian Malaysia-sponsored national allegro chess circuit will be played in Malacca on May 13 and in Kuantan on May 20.

Each of these legs will be held over six rounds with a 30-minute time control for each game. However, if the number of participants is more than 100, the tournaments will be played over seven rounds using a 25-minute time control.

Entry fees are RM10 for ladies, Bank Pertanian employees and members of the state chess association organising their respective legs, RM5 for players below 12 years old, and RM15 for all other participants.

The prizes for the open section will be RM300 for the winner, RM200 for the second-placed, RM150 for the third, RM100 each for the fourth and fifth, and RM60 each for the sixth to 10th. The best Bank Pertanian player will also win RM60 while the best players in the other categories will get RM50.

To register for the two events, contact Ishak Ahmad ( 06-283 5878) for the Malacca leg and Wan Abdullah ( 019-916 3824) for the Kuantan leg.

The remaining legs in the series are in Perlis on June 9 (Bahari Baharom; 019-568 6256), Kedah on June 10 (Sohaimi; 04-730 7288), Penang on July 15 (Ooi Kiem Boo; 04-226 2209), Perak on July 22 (Dr Yee Meng Keong; 05-546 4530), Negri Sembilan on Aug 12 (Charles Chan; 06-631 7971), Sabah on Aug 12 (Sylvester Asai; 088-764 305), Sarawak on Aug 19 (Lim Kian Hwa; 082-427 772) and Labuan on Oct 28 (Sebli Hassan; 087-463 471).

Perak grand prix

The Perak International Chess Association will hold their grand prix event on May 12 and 13 at the Sekolah Tuanku Abdul Rahman in Ipoh.

The two-day Category A event for players with PICA ratings of above 1,700 will be held over two days while the Category B event for players with no PICA ratings or with rating points below 1,700 will be held on May 13. Both events will be conducted over six rounds but with different time controls. For more information, contact W.K Wong ( 05-366 1692).