Champ at last

Two years ago, Lim Zhuo Ren met with the greatest of his heartaches. At the national closed chess championship of that year, 2009, he was leading a close pack of players going into the final round of the tournament. A draw was all he needed to clinch the title but he played over-cautiously to lose the game.

Because of that result, three other players caught up with him at the top of that year's championship. All four had finished with equal points and it forced the Malaysian Chess Federation to arrange a quick play-off tournament to determine a winner. 

Lim never recovered totally from that last-round loss. The disappointment showed. In the play-off, he was outplayed and could only finish third among the four players.

It has been two years since that great experience. Or maybe, I should call it his great inexperience. Last year, he again played in the national closed championship but it was as though he was still reliving the past. A lukewarm 14th position was about all he could achieve.

By the end of the year though, his confidence was starting to creep back into his games. At the national junior chess championship in December, Lim played well enough to force a five-way tie at the top. In the play-off tournament that followed, Lim won.

Fast forwarding three months to March this year, it was now time for the national closed championship. Again, Lim – now 19 years old – decided to throw his hat into the ring but this time, he had a new status as the national junior champion.

Maybe Lim did not have great expectations of himself but suddenly, like two years earlier, he found himself in a similar position: sole leader after seven rounds, and people already talking of him like the new national champion. 

In those first seven rounds, he had played and defeated players like Yeap Eng Chiam, Loo Swee Leong and even former champion Edward Lee. However, there were still further challenges facing him. 

In the eighth round, he met and navigated safely through a test with Yeoh Li Tian. He retained his lead but in the meantime, two other players – international master Jimmy Liew and fast improving youngster Sumant Subramaniam - had successfully climbed up the tournament to stand just one point below the leader. Lim would have to face either one of them in the final round.

As providence would have it, he was paired against Liew. Surely this would be his sternest test, a make or break attempt to land the national closed championship title. All that Lim required was half a point in his final game but would Liew hand it to him easily?

There were now questions asked of Lim. Would the demons from his past come to haunt him? Would he have learnt his lesson well from two years earlier? Cautious play had cost him the title then; would he repeat the same mistake? In short, people wanted to know whether or not he has matured as a player. The tension was indeed high.

At the same time, Liew understood that he had to win his game at all cost. With the black pieces, it would be an uphill task but not an impossible one. If he were to win, there was a chance that he could even be the champion. But there was now a new complication. Sumant had already beaten Edward Lee in their final game. 

Even if Liew were to win his game and tie on equal points with both Lim and Sumant, all he would achieve was to force another play-off in the national closed championship. Whether he could win the play-off was a different matter but right at that moment, he knew that honour was also at stake too. It was no longer possible for him not to give Lim a fight for his money. So in a way, this was also a make or break game for Liew.

To both players’ credit, their game turned out to be the highlight of the championship. Both players had chances with Liew taking the greater risk and Lim defending well. Theirs was about one of the last games to finish, a fitting end to one of the great local chess debates. At the end, from a superior position, Lim propositioned a draw which was then accepted by Liew.

That precious half-a-point meant that Lim is the new king of our local chess game. He is the latest player to become a national master but I believe significantly, he has succeeded in exorcising the last of the chess demons from his mind. I shall look forward to him playing in more tournaments.

Up next

Lim Chong memorial

The Datuk Arthur Tan Chess Centre will organize the Lim Chong memorial tournament at the Wilayah Complex in Kuala Lumpur this Sunday. 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). 

JB youth chess

The Johor Bahru Chess Association and the Rakan Muda Johor Bahru are jointly organizing the sixth Johor Bahru youth chess tournament on Sunday. Venue is the concourse area of the SouthernCity Giant Hypermarket in Taman Suria, Johor Bahru. Seven rounds, 25-minute games. Entry fees are RM15 (players under 16 years old) and RM12 (players under 12 years old). Closing date for entries is Mar 25. More details available from Narayanan Krishnan (013.7717525, jb_chess_association@jyahoo.com). 

PICA/YMCA chess

The Perak International Chess Association (PICA) and the YMCA Perak are jointly holding the PICA/YMCA chess tournament in conjunction with PICA’s annual general meeting on Sunday. Venue is the YMCA Hall in Jalan Raja Muda Aziz, Ipoh. Entry fees are RM15 (PICA or YMCA members and players under 15 years old) and RM15 (others). Closing date for entries is Mar 25. Contact  Yunus (013.3908129) to register or visit http://perakchess.blogspot.com for the details.

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).

 

Age group focus

One of the most encouraging signs in local chess is the continuing willingness of the Malaysian Chess Federation (MCF) to allow their state chess affiliates to play active roles in organizing some of the national-level chess competitions. 

Take the annual national age group chess championships as an example. 

Last year, the Penang Chess Association was given the go-ahead to plan for this competition in George Town on behalf of the federation. This year, the challenge was offered to the Perak International Chess Association (PICA).

 

PICA did so in Tronoh, Perak, in a joint effort which involved the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. By all accounts, this year’s edition of the national age group championships was a great success for the organizers. A total of 380 players took part in the three-day competition which, I was told, proceeded without any hitches. 

As was to be expected, the most closely watched contest was the boys’ under-18 event. There were a few junior heavyweight players in the field, the most notable among them being the top-seeded Evan Timothy Capel who was a former national closed champion and last year’s winner of the boys’ under-16 event. This year, though, the 17-year-old would be playing in the under-18 section, no longer eligible for the younger age group event. In fact, many of his rivals who played with him in Penang last year had also been elevated to the under-18 section.

Past successes, however, do not guarantee future gains, and Capel found this out pretty quickly. By the third round, he had already dropped a point to the second-seeded Sumant Subramaniam. By the tournament’s end, he had dropped two more points to Patrick Lim Kong Hui and the new winner of the boys’ under-18 event, Muhd Nabil Azman Hisham.

This was also a sobering experience for Sumant. After his heady win against Capel, he was brought down to earth with two consecutive losses to Muhd Nabil and Low Jun Jian. A further loss to Chong Shao Hong also ended his hopes in this tournament.

For Muhd Nabil, though, everything fell into place for him perfectly. He had lost to Capel in the boys’ under-16 event last year but this year, he exacted revenge on the top seed. By also defeating the second seed, there could only be one description for Muhd Nabil: worthy winner. His draws were with Low Jun Jian and Mark Siew Kit Tze, but he won all the other six games.

Here are the top winners of the various age group sections:

Boys’ under-18: Muhd Nabil 7 points; Mark Siew and Low Jun Jian 5½ points; Sumant, Capel, Patrick Lim, Fong Yit Ho, Keok Kai En and Chong Shao Hong 5 points; (field of 22 players). Girls’ under-18: Latifah Kaiyisah Mohd Latib 5 points; Adele Lau Chuey Theng, Fatin Nur Nadirah Mat Rahim and Winnie Hong Wee Ni 4 points; (field of seven players).

Boys’ under-16: Wong Jian Wen 8 points; Yeap Eng Chiam 6½ points; Elgin Lee Kah Meng and Jeff Tan Jun Feng 6 points; (field of 49 players). Girls’ under-16: Pavitraneyagi Jayamurthey 6½ points; Sarika Subramaniam and Hoh Tjin Li 6 points; Amira Syahmina Zulkafli 5½ points; (field of 21 players).

Boys’ under-14: Roshan Ajeet Singh and Aron Teh Eu Wen 6½ points; Tan Wei Hao, Muhd Irfan Haqqim Azhar, Subramaniam Sivanesan 6 points; William Lee Kah Howe, Muhd Nuriman Yahaya, Shreyes Subramaniam, Harleiff Haniff and Ang Zhen Yuan 5½ points; (field of 58 players). Girls’ under-14: Tan Li Ting and Nur Nabila Azman Hisham 7 points; Camilia Johari and Hoh Tjin Hui 6 points; Fatih Nor Sahariah Abdul Jalil 5 points; (field of 22 players).

Boys’ under-12: Ooi Zhi Yang 7 points; Mohd Noor Azam Mohd Noor and Tan Yong Zhao 6½ points; Tang Wei Kit and Teoh Ern Sheng 6 points; (field of 52 players). Girls’ under-12: WFM Nur Najiha Azman Hisham 7 points; Puteri Rifqah Fahada Azhar 6½ points; Nithiyalakshmi Sivanesan 6 points; (field of 35 players).

Boys’ under-10: Teh De Juan 7½ points; Wong Yinn Long and Benjamin Lee Kah Teng 6½ points; Kong Dak Nam and Max Wong Zi Quan 6 points; (field of 52 players). Girls’ under-10: Teh De Zen 8 points; Puteri Munajjah Az-Zahraa 6½ points; Teh Ming Min 6 points; (field of 25 players).

Boys’ under-8: Tan Jun Ying 7 points; Lye Lik Zang 6½ points; Muhd Faqih Aminuddin, Ng Shi Yang and Teh De Yong 5½ points; (field of 22 players). Girls’ under-8: Goh Jie Yi 8 points; Chua Jia Tien 7 points; Zainoor Ikmal Munirah 6 points; (field of 14 players).

Now with the national age group championships over, the focus this week is on the national closed and national women’s closed championships that are taking place at the Wilayah Complex in Kuala Lumpur.

Today is already the third day of play and there are only five more rounds to go before the two competitions end on Sunday. So if you are not competing but have time on your hands, why not go and speculate who will emerge as the 2011 national champions?

The organizers tell me that as of the beginning of this week, there hasn’t been any change to the number of entries: still 89 players for the national closed and 34 players for the national women’s closed. At press time it is impossible to say whether there were any dropouts from the players’ lists or additions to it.   

Anyway, I have to set the record right in a slip of the finger that appeared in last week’s story. In my excitement to see our international master Jimmy Liew enter the fray as one of the competitors, I have inadvertently described him as a grandmaster. 

I’ve received a lot of ribbing privately from friends and chess players in the past week. Really, I’m a bit embarrassed. However, I hope that my personal embarrassment is contained and has not spilled over to Liew. I really don’t want this episode to distract him in this national event where he is clearly the top seeded player.  

So I shall wish “best of luck” to Jimmy Liew, as well as wishing the same to last year’s winners Tan Khai Boon (national closed defending champion) and Fong Mi Yen (national women’s closed defending champion) and all the hopefuls this year.

Both events are being played at the Datuk Arthur Tan Chess Centre, Wilayah Complex, Kuala Lumpur until Sunday. The games start at 9am and 3pm daily. For more information, contact Najib Wahab (016.3382542 or najib.wahab@chess-malaysia.com.)

Melody Amber

This year’s Melody Amber blindfold and rapid chess tournament in Monaco promises to be a nostalgic event that goes down memory lane. After a 20-year run, there is closure coming to this fantastic event. This year’s final edition will end next Thursday. For old times’ sake, anyone who has Internet access should visit http://www.amberchess20.com/ to watch the live games. Some of the world’s best players are competing: Viswanathan Anand, Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura, Vladimir Kramnik, Vassily Ivanchuk and Veselin Topalov among them. 

Up next

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 tomorrow and on Sunday. Tomorrow’s tournament is for players under the age of 18, while Sunday’s event 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). 

JB youth chess

The Johor Bahru Chess Association and the Rakan Muda Johor Bahru are jointly organizing the sixth Johor Bahru youth chess tournament on Mar 27. Venue is the concourse area of the SouthernCity Giant Hypermarket in Taman Suria, Johor Bahru. Seven rounds, 25-minute games. Entry fees are RM15 (players under 16 years old) and RM12 (players under 12 years old). Closing date for entries is Mar 25. More details available from Narayanan Krishnan (013.7717525, jb_chess_association@jyahoo.com). 

PICA/YMCA chess

The Perak International Chess Association (PICA) and the YMCA Perak are jointly holding the PICA/YMCA chess tournament in conjunction with PICA’s annual general meeting on Mar 27. Venue is the YMCA Hall in Jalan Raja Muda Aziz, Ipoh. Entry fees are RM15 (PICA or YMCA members and players under 15 years old) and RM15 (others). Closing date for entries is Mar 25. Contact  Yunus (013.3908129) to register or visit http://perakchess.blogspot.com for the details.

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).

 

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).

 

A true champion

If a champion is someone who has won a competition, how would you define a true champion? To me, it’s very easy: a true champion is one who successfully defends a title won in the previous competition.

There aren’t many such champions around but one that comes to mind in recent chess history is Vietnam’s leading grandmaster, Le Quang Liem.

Le is 20 years old. At this age in chess, you may actually be considered a veteran at the game already. In 2005 when Le was 14 years old, he became the Under-14 world youth chess champion. In 2006 and 2008, he played in the Vietnamese national team at the Chess Olympiads.

In February last year, he was a joint winner of the Moscow open tournament and he then immediately followed up this performance with an equally impressive victory at the ninth Aeroflot open chess tournament in Moscow.

So we know that Le is capable of winning some pretty strong chess tournaments. But is he a true champion? By my reckoning, yes. Just last month, he repeated his feat at the 10th edition of the Aeroflot open. Although technically, Le and two other players finished with equal points at the top, the Vietnamese was adjudged the winner on a better tie-break.

Despite being the defending champion, Le did not enter the tournament as the top seed. Indeed, he was over-shadowed so much by the higher-ranked players that he started this tournament only as the 19th seed. 

The top seed was the Russian-born American grandmaster, Gata Kamsky, and then there were also Sergei Movsesian, Dmitry Jakovenko, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Nikita Vitiugov who dominate the world chess ranking list.

But the chess goddess can sometimes smile on the underdogs and in this case, she smiled on Le. While the seeds above him fell off one by one, he played steadily to gain ground on his rivals. He was helped by great results in his first four games which he won, and one of them, in the fourth round, was against no other than Kamsky himself.

Le Quang Liem (2664) – Gata Kamsky (2730)

1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Qb3 e6 5.Nc3 Nbd7 6.Bf4 a5 7.cxd5 exd5 8.e3 Nb6 9.Bd3 Bg4 10.Ne5 Bh5 11.0-0 a4 12.Qc2 Bg6 (There is nothing to recommend about Black’s opening strategy in which he has lost time with his rook pawn, knight and bishop. White has a good lead in piece development and he now takes aim at Black’s uncastled king. But first, White strikes to open up the centre.) 13.e4 dxe4 14.Nxe4 Nxe4 15.Bxe4 Be7 (It is a bit too late for this move. Here’s a little combination which should not be too difficult to spot.) 16.Bxc6+ bxc6 17.Qxc6+ Nd7 (17…Kf8 18.Qxb6 Qxb6 19.Nd7+ and White will be two pawns up.) 18.Nxg6 (18.Nxd7 does not regain the piece as Black plays 18…Rc8 first.) 18…hxg6 19.Rfe1 0-0 (This is not castling into safety.) 20.Bc7 Nb8 (20…Qe8 21.d5) 21.Bxd8 (Or 21.Qxa8 Qxc7 22.Qxa4 with rook and three passed pawns for two pieces in an endgame.) 21...Nxc6 22.Bxe7 Nxe7 23.Rxe7 Rfd8 24.Rd1 a3 25.b3 Rac8 26.Kf1 Rd5 27.Rd2 (Black sees the light; the game is lost for him.) 1-0 

After this win, Le took two draws before winning in the seventh round. Then disaster struck in the eighth round. He lost to Ivan Cheparinov and thereby allowed the Bulgarian grandmaster to level up with him on equal points. But this was as far as Cheparinov could go. In the final round, he succumbed to a bout of chess blindness and lost. 

In the meantime, Le assured himself of the top prize by drawing his game, knowing that any one else that finished with the same points would lose out on the tie-break. 

Up next

National age group

The Malaysian Chess Federation, the Perak International Chess Association and Universiti Teknologi Petronas will jointly organise this year’s national age group chess championships at the Chancellor Hall, Universiti Teknologi Petronas in Tronoh, Perak on Mar 12-14. There will be 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. Entry fees: RM25 (under-8, under-10 and under-12 events), RM35 (under-14, under-16 and under-18 events). Entry fees are doubled after Mar 5 deadline. For more information, contact Gregory Lau (012.2577123), Zuraihah Wazir (017.2837808) or Haslindah Ruslan (019.2069605).

National closed

The Malaysian Chess Federation will organise this year’s national closed and national women’s closed championships with the Datuk Arthur Tan Chess Centre in Kuala Lumpur on Mar 16-20. Nine rounds with time control of 90 minutes, plus increment time of 30 seconds per move. Entry fees: RM60 (players with Fide rating above 2000), RM100 (players rated between 1600 and 1999), RM150 (players rated below 1599 or without a Fide rating). Players representing their states are eligible for a 50 percent discount on entry fees, subject to conditions. For more information, contact Najib Wahab (016.3382542 or najib.wahab@chess-malaysia.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).

 

Frenzy of entries

In a development rather unprecedented for Malaysian chess, I have just learnt that all the places in this year’s national closed and national women’s closed chess championships may have been completely filled by now.

If you are still dithering whether or not to play in either of the two competitions, your best chance is to give the organizers a call and enquire directly from them.

The Malaysian Chess Federation (MCF) is the organizer of both events. They had allowed only 110 places collectively for the two competitions but a frenzy of entries received before last Sunday’s deadline for a 20 percent discount on the entry fees meant that the places were quickly filled up.

That, by itself, is quite an achievement. Chess players are known to be procrastinators with their time. Who was it that once wrote about the relationship between work and time? Ah, yes, Cyril Northcote Parkinson. You may have heard of him, no?

This Mr Parkinson – actually, he was Professor of History at the University of Malaya in Singapore from 1950 to 1959 – was fond of poking fun at government bureaucracies and in 1955 published a humourous article that quickly became labelled as Parkinson’s Law.

All that Parkinson’s Law said was that “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” 

Now, just substitute “chess” for “work” and don’t you think that this statement also applies to chess?? Beating deadlines is the name of the game or otherwise, why are chess games played with chess clocks? Of course, to ensure that the players get into a time scramble! 

(I assume that everyone knows what is a chess clock. It’s that double-faced clock equipment that counts down the time that a chess player has for his remaining moves. It used to be that players dreaded the dropping of the tiny flag at the 12 o’clock mark on the clock; nowadays, players dread the digital countdown to zero.)

Getting into time scrambles is second nature for serious chess players. That’s one of the delights of chess. Any chess player worth his salt should be the servant of the time scramble. Whether or not he is given five minutes, 30 minutes or 90 minutes to finish his game, by right he should jolly well make full use of this time to play. That’s the law of deadlines.

There is another deadline in chess, definitely not as potent as the time control, but still should be important enough for players not to ignore. And that is the deadline of registering for events and coughing up the entry fee.

Unfortunately, this deadline means little to some of them. In the past, even threats of penalty fees do not discourage people from turning up at the last minute and wanting to play. And chess organizers used to be so accommodative – an additional player means extra entry fee collected and who doesn’t want more money? – to the extent that they would delay the start of their tournaments.

Luckily, the situation has improved in the last few years. Late entries are less tolerated nowadays. I would believe that players now appreciate that tournaments need to start on time and end on time.

But still, what I’ve learnt from this national closed and national women’s closed championships is remarkable. 

Players are actually registering and paying up before the closing date. In fact, they were well prepared to pay up early, and all because of the lure of a 20 percent discount. So what I’ve learnt today is that penalty fees are no deterrent to chess players but discounts certainly are the carrots!

Now, while looking through the list of entries, I’m actually quite heartened to see the continuing strong support from our women chess champions. Fong Mi Yen is joining the fray to defend the title that she won last year. Tan Li Ting and Alia Anin Azwa Bakri, the 2009 and 2008 champions respectively, have also entered the ring. With the three of them in the national women’s closed championship, I should think it is going to be a good contest.

This is not to say that the national closed championship won’t be tight enough. Indeed, it has all the potential to be very competitive despite the absence of any former national champion or any of our titled players. On this point, of course I’m disappointed that Tan Khai Boon, Evan Timothy Capel and Edward Lee are not playing. The three of them would have lent some added colour to the competition.

Nevertheless, it will still be an interesting race to the finish as the MCF has already announced that the top eight players from the national closed championship will be included into a shortlist for selection to this year’s SEA Games in Indonesia. Likewise too, the top eight women players will be among those shortlisted for selection to the women’s competitions at the SEA Games.

For more information on the two competitions, contact Najib Wahab (016.3382542 or najib.wahab@chess-malaysia.com) for the national closed championship and Haslindah Ruslan (019.2069605 or haslindahr@yahoo.com) for the national women’s closed championship.

Up next

DATCC maverick chess

The Datuk Arthur Tan Chess Centre will organize the DATCC maverick rapid chess weekend tournament at their Wilayah Complex premises in Kuala Lumpur this Sunday. Seven rounds, 25-minute time control games. Entry fees are RM15 (players under 12 years old) and RM25 (all other players). Today is the last day for registration. For inquiries, contact Najib Wahab (016.3382542 or najib.wahab@chess-malaysia.com.)

National closed

The Malaysian Chess Federation will organise this year’s national closed and national women’s closed championships with the Datuk Arthur Tan Chess Centre in Kuala Lumpur on Mar 16-20. Nine rounds with time control of 90 minutes, plus increment time of 30 seconds per move. Entry fees: RM60 (players with Fide rating above 2000), RM100 (players rated between 1600 and 1999), RM150 (players rated below 1599 or without a Fide rating). Players representing their states are eligible for a 50 percent discount on entry fees, subject to conditions. For more information, contact Najib Wahab (016.3382542 or najib.wahab@chess-malaysia.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).

 

Major event

If you have read last week’s column carefully, you will have realized that this year’s national closed and national women’s closed championships are just around the corner. In fact, only about a month away.

According to the Malaysian Chess Federation, the two competitions will be played concurrently at the Datuk Arthur Tan Chess Centre, Wilayah Complex, Kuala Lumpur on Mar 16-20.

In previous years, the two events tend to be held in the middle of the year. Last year, for example, the championships were played in June. This year, though, they have been brought forward to the first quarter of the year, and they coincide with the school calendar’s mid-semester break.

The main reason for this is that the Malaysian Chess Federation (MCF) is co-organizing the two championships with the Datuk Arthur Tan Chess Centre (DATCC). The DATCC had undergone some recent internal reorganization and can now accommodate more events. Having more events also mean having to draw up a chess calendar and adhere more strictly to it.

While going through the rules and regulations last week, I noticed a radical change to the treatment of past national champions. They are no longer given free entries into either competition, if they ever choose to play. The only exception is given to the defending champions and even then, this only applies if they confirm their entries before the end of this month. Otherwise they, like all other participants, will be subjected to an entry fee.

This new regulation actually makes a lot of sense to me because I am sure that the organizers will not miss them. It is a great shame that in all these years, save for perhaps one or two of the former champions, I hardly see any of the others. They had moved up the ranks from anonymity to visibility, and the least they could do was to contribute back to the structure that placed them there. 

So what of the entry fees?  

For starters, the entry fee for players with FIDE international ratings of above 2000 is RM60; those with FIDE ratings of between 1600 and 1999 are required to pay RM100; while those rated below 1599 or who are unrated will be charged at RM150. A 20 percent discount will apply if a participant registers before this Sunday (Feb 20) while a 50 percent late fee will be imposed on all entries registered after Mar 13.

Each of the state chess associations affiliated to the MCF is eligible to register one player for each competition at a 50 percent discount until the end of this month. After Mar 1, the state representative will need to pay normal rates, and after Mar 13, a late fee of RM50 applies. However, any state representative with a FIDE rating of above 2200 is given free entry.

For more information on the two competitions, contact Najib Wahab (016.3382542 or najib.wahab@chess-malaysia.com) for the national closed championship and Haslindah Ruslan (019.2069605 or haslindahr@yahoo.com) for the national women’s closed championship.

Meanwhile, the DATCC has also made known that they are organizing a one-day Lim Chong memorial tournament at their premises on Mar 27. “He was an avid chess player and a noted columnist for The Malay Mail for more than a decade beginning 1983,” said Hamid Majid who is organizing this event. 

“Even when he stopped writing for the paper, he continued to attend or play in tournaments and lend his support to various chess organizations,” he added. Later, Lim was to join Bernama as a sub-editor of the national news agency’s economic news service. He died of a heart attack last November while enroute from London to Kuala Lumpur.

This idea for this tournament was mooted recently by the Malaysian Chess Federation’s honorary life president, Datuk Tan Chin Nam, who offered to match and donate “ringgit for ringgit” all entry fees collected for the event. More than 100 participants are expected to register for this one-day tournament which, incidentally, would fall on Lim’s 57th birthday.  

For more details, contact Hamid Majid (019.3158098 or aham@pc.jaring.my) or Najib Wahab (016.3382542). The entry form is available from http://datcchess.blogspot.com 

Tata Steel

Two games of interest from the recently concluded Tata Steel chess tournament in Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands.

White: Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (2715)

Black: Wang Hao (2731) 

1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 dxc4 5.a4 Bf5 6.e3 e6 7.Bxc4 Bb4 8.0-0 Nbd7 9.Qe2 0-0 10.e4 Bg6 11.Bd3 Bh5 12.e5 Nd5 13.Nxd5 cxd5 14.Qe3 Be7 15.Bd2 Nb8 16.a5 a6 17.Rfc1 Nc6 18.Ne1 Qd7 19.Bc2 Qd8 20.Qh3 Bg6 21.Bxg6 hxg6 22.Qg4 Rc8 23.Nf3 Qd7 24.Bg5 Bb4 25.Qh4 Ne7 26.g4 Rxc1+ 27.Rxc1 Rc8 28.Kg2 Nc6 29.Rd1 Bxa5 30.Rd3 Nb4 31.Rb3 Qb5 32.Be7 (White has a tremendous game going for him. With this move, he clears the g5 square for his knight, after which checkmate would seem inevitable. However, Black had seen a little further and he saves the game with an unlikely move.) 32...Nd3!! (see diagram) 

33.Rxb5 (Now, if White had played 33.Rxd3, Black has the resource 33...g5 and 34…Qxd3 which protects the h7 square. After White accepts the black queen, the game quickly ends with a draw.) 33...Nf4+ 34.Kg3 Ne2+ 35.Kh3 Nf4+ 36.Kg3 Ne2+ 37.Kg2 Nf4+ ½-½ 

The former world chess champion, Vladimir Kramnik, seems to find it difficult to overcome Magnus Carlsen in recent tournaments. He fell again to the Norwegian grandmaster at the Tata Steel tournament.

White: Vladimir Kramnik (2784) 

Black: Magnus Carlsen

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.g3 Bb4+ 4.Bd2 Bxd2+ 5.Qxd2 d5 6.Bg2 Nbd7 7.Nf3 c6 8.0-0 b6 9.Rc1 0-0 10.cxd5 cxd5 11.Na3 Bb7 12.Nb5 a6 13.Nd6 Qb8 14.Qb4 a5 15.Qa3 Ba6 16.Ne5 b5 17.Qxa5 Qxd6 18.Rc6 Qb8 19.Rxa6 Rxa6 20.Qxa6 Nxe5 21.dxe5 Qxe5 22.Qxb5 Rb8 23.Qd3 Rxb2 24.Qe3 [In the last few moves, Kramnik’s play had been suspect. He now realizes that he is going to lose a pawn. This is his best continuation, to exchange queens and go into an endgame where he can try to push forward his a-pawn.) 24...Qxe3 25.fxe3 Rxe2 26.a4 Rc2 27.a5 Rc7 28.a6 Ra7 29.Bf1 Kf8 30.Rb1 Ke7 31.Rb7+ Rxb7 32.axb7 Nd7 33.Kf2 Kd6 34.Bb5 Nb8 35.Be8 Ke7 36.Bb5 f6 37.Kf3 Kd6 38.Be8 Kc7 39.Bf7 Kxb7 40.Bxe6 Kc6 41.Bg8 h6 42.Kg4 Nd7 43.Kf5 Ne5 44.h3 Kc5 45.g4 (According to Carlsen’s own assessment of this position, 45.Ke6 would have been enough for a draw. After 45.g4, Carlsen patiently grinds out the win.) 45...Kd6 46.Bh7 Ke7 47.Bg8 g6+ 48.Kf4 Nf7 49.Bh7 g5+ 50.Kg3 Nd6 51.Bg8 Ne4+ 52.Kg2 Kd6 53.Kf3 Kc5 54.Bh7 Nc3 55.Bd3 Kb4 56.Ba6 Kb3 57.Bb7 Kc2 58.Ba6 Kd1 59.Bb7 Kd2 60.Bc6 Ke1 61.Bb7 Kf1 62.Ba8 Kg1 63.Kg3 Ne4+ 64.Kf3 Nd2+ 65.Kg3 Nf1+ 66.Kf3 Nd2+ 67.Kg3 Nc4 68.Bxd5 Nxe3 69.Bb7 Nf1+ 70.Kf3 Kh2 71.Kf2 Nd2 72.Bg2 Nc4 73.Bf1 Ne5 74.Ke3 Kg1 75.Be2 Kg2 76.Ke4 Kxh3 77.Kf5 Kh4 78.Bd1 Nc4 79.Ke4 Nd6+ 80.Kd5 f5 (White captures the knight with 81.Kxd6 but he will lose the game after 81…fxg4 82.Ke5 g3 83.Bf3 Kh3 84.Kf6 g4 85.Bc6 g2) 0-1

Up next

USM Nibong Tebal open

The Engineering Campus of the Universiti Sains Malaysia will  organize their USM 1Malaysia open tournament at the Dewan Utama USM (Kampus Kejuteraan) in Nibong Tebal, Penang, this Sunday. Seven rounds, 25-minute time control games. Entry fees for Penang Chess Association members: RM18 (adults), RM16 (under-18) and RM13 (under-12). Non-members: RM23 (adults), RM21 (under-18) and RM18 (under-12). USM (engineering campus) students: RM15. Other unverisity or college students: RM20. To register, contact Koik Boon Tatt (016.4838237), Chong Tet Wei (016.4326908), Lee Zhe Heng (016.3938324) or Amy Ho (016.5330337).

DATCC maverick chess

The Datuk Arthur Tan Chess Centre will organize the DATCC maverick rapid chess weekend tournament at their Wilayah Complex premises in Kuala Lumpur on Feb 27. Seven rounds, 25-minute time control games. Entry fees are RM15 (players under 12 years old) and RM25 (all other players). Please register before Feb 25. For inquiries, contact Najib Wahab (016.3382542 or najib.wahab@chess-malaysia.com.)

 

Nakamura nails it

Take note of the name Hikaru Nakamura. For years, he has been skirting around the peripherals of true chess fame but finally, he has arrived to claim his place in history.

He achieved this more than two weeks ago at the Tata Steel chess tournament which was played in the Dutch seaside resort town of Wijk aan Zee. This is a tournament with a long history that goes back to 1938. 

It is a prestigious event; it is already difficult enough for any chess grandmaster to get an invitation into this tournament, what more to win it. But Nakamura did just that. Against all the odds, he played the tournament of his life here. 

For this year’s edition, the organizers had invited the world’s top four chess players to be part of their 14-player field: world chess champion Viswanathan Anand, world number one Magnus Carlsen, former world champion Vladimir Kramnik and world number three Levon Aronian.

Also invited were Alexander Grischuk, Nakamura (former US chess champion), Ruslan Ponomariov, Ian Nepomniachtchi (current Russian chess champion), Wang Hao (current Chinese chess champion), Alexei Shirov and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (current world junior chess champion), all top players in their own right. 

Then there were also 16-year-old Anish Giri who had qualified into the main tournament from last year’s B-event, Jan Smeets (current Dutch chess champion) and Erwin l’Ami.

But who exactly is Hikaru Nakamura? His father is Japanese but his mother is American, which qualifies him as an American too. He was born in Japan in 1987 but at the age of two, his family moved to the United States. He started learning chess at five years old and progressed to become a grandmaster at 15 years old. 

He is recognized as a chess prodigy, winning his first US chess championship in 2005. In 2009, he became the US chess champion for the second time. At the end of that year, he played in the London Chess Classic and had indifferent results.

The year 2010 began with Nakamura playing on the first board for the United States at the world team chess championship in Turkey. He then finished tied in fourth position in the 2010 Corus chess tournament in Wijk aan Zee and fourth in the 2010 Mikhail Tal memorial tournament in Moscow which incidentally was the third strongest tournament in chess history.

It was Nakamura’s performance in this tournament that made the chess world sit up to take notice of his potential. In December 2010, he again played in the London Chess Classic. By the time 2011 began, he was already ranked number 10 in the world.

And so we arrive at the present moment. The race for the top honours in the Tata Steel chess tournament has been very close and for Nakamura, he has been playing with the absolute confidence among the world’s best. Except for a slight hiccup – he lost in the eighth round to Carlsen – he has shown an ability to compete with them at their standard. 

Not only that, Nakamura was not awed by the fact that he was racing against no less than the world champion, Anand. Nakamura was running neck-to-neck with Anand after the eighth round and in the 11th round, assumed the sole lead in the tournament. To his credit, he never lost his nerve and romped home as worthy winner.

Here is one of Nakamura’s games from the tournament.

White: Hikaru Nakamura (2751) 

Black: Jan Smeets (2662) 

1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 e6 5.Bg5 dxc4 6.e4 b5 7.e5 h6 8.Bh4 g5 9.Nxg5 hxg5 10.Bxg5 Nbd7 11.g3 Bb7 12.Bg2 Qb6 13.exf6 c5 14.d5 0-0-0 15.0-0 b4 16.Na4 Qb5 17.a3 exd5 18.axb4 cxb4 19.Bf4 Bh6 20.Qd2 Bxf4 21.Qxf4 Bc6 22.Qd4 Kb8 23.Rfe1 Rhe8 (White already has the upper hand in this game. Now, 24.Qf4+ would be the strongest move. Instead, Black is allowed back into the game and the win is not so simple anymore.) 

24.Re7 Qa5 25.Rxf7 Bxa4 26.Bxd5 Qc5 27.Qf4+ Ne5 28.Be4 Rd7 29.Rg7 Bb5 30.Rxd7 Bxd7 31.Bg6 Rf8 32.Re1 Qd6 33.Qxe5 Rxf6 34.Qxd6+ Rxd6 (And suddenly the game enters the endgame phase. But although the position is better for White, there’s still a lot of work to convert it into a win.) 35.Bf7 Rd2 36.Bxc4 Rxb2 37.h4 Bg4 38.Kg2 a5 39.Re5 Rc2 40.Rb5+ Kc7 41.Bd5 Rd2 42.Bf7 Bd7 43.Rxa5 Bc6+ 44.Kf1 Bf3 45.Ra1 Kd6 46.Bb3. 46.Re1 Rd3 47.Rb1 Kc5 48.Ke1 Kb5 49.Bd1 Bxd1 50.Rxd1 Rc3 51.h5 b3 52.Kd2 Rc8 53.Rc1 Rf8 54.f4 Kb4 55.Rh1 Ka3 56.Ke3 b2 57.g4 Rc8 58.Rb1 Ka2 59.Rxb2+ Kxb2 60.h6 Kc3 61.g5 1-0

Up next

DATCC maverick chess

The Datuk Arthur Tan Chess Centre will organize the DATCC maverick rapid chess weekend tournament at their Wilayah Complex premises in Kuala Lumpur on Feb 27. Seven rounds, 25-minute time control games. Entry fees are RM15 (players under 12 years old) and RM25 (all other players). Please register before Feb 25. For inquiries, contact Najib Wahab (016.3382542 or najib.wahab@chess-malaysia.com.)

National closed

The Malaysian Chess Federation will organise this year’s national closed and national women’s closed championships with the Datuk Arthur Tan Chess Centre in Kuala Lumpur on Mar 16-20. Nine rounds with time control of 90 minutes, plus increment time of 30 seconds per move. Free entry for the 2010 champions if their entries are confirmed before Mar 1 or otherwise, the entry fee is RM50. Other fees are based on participant’s Fide ratings: RM60 for players with Fide rating above 2000, RM100 for players rated between 1600 and 1999, and RM150 for players rated below 1599 or without a Fide rating. Players representing their states are eligible for a 50 percent discount on entry fees, subject to conditions. For more information, contact Najib Wahab (016.3382542 or najib.wahab@chess-malaysia.com.)

USM Nibong Tebal open

The Engineering Campus of the Universiti Sains Malaysia will  organize their USM 1Malaysia open tournament at the Dewan Utama USM (Kampus Kejuteraan) in Nibong Tebal, Penang, on Feb 20. Seven rounds, 25-minute time control games. Entry fees for Penang Chess Association members: RM18 (adults), RM16 (under-18) and RM13 (under-12). Non-members: RM23 (adults), RM21 (under-18) and RM18 (under-12). USM (engineering campus) students: RM15. Other unverisity or college students: RM20. To register, contact Koik Boon Tatt (016.4838237), Chong Tet Wei (016.4326908), Lee Zhe Heng (016.3938324) or Amy Ho (016.5330337).

 

Social fun

I have been either an observer or participant in a chess team tournament for almost as long as I have been playing the game, and that’s going back a very long time. 

Team tournaments can be fun, if you don’t take it too seriously. If you are in the game for the money, which isn’t much anyway since you are splitting the prize with the other members of the team, then of course you must be very serious about where you are going to place your next piece. That should be the attitude.

But if your intention to just to enjoy the camaraderie of friends and the mental wrestling with other people, then don’t you think that it is perfectly all right to allow yourself to be more casual with the way you play?

As for me, I’m way past being in full competitive mood. I don’t wear my full armour suit anymore. Maybe a protective codpiece in case I lose my sense of danger, but that’s about all. I leave all the serious posturing to the younger generations below me. 

If they live for the thrill of “crushing” their opponent’s ego or “taming” them or wherever they call it nowadays, well and good. That’s their objective, their game plan, but it’s not mine anymore. 

No Sirree Bob, since I only play whenever I feel like playing, I’m good humoured about the losing bit. If people can feel happy with winning, I can also feel happy with losing. There’s absolutely no problem with me. I don’t feel psychologically crushed, I don’t sulk or regret. Just make sure you don’t allow me half a chance in our game, though. I’ll still go after you.

I won’t say much about the Universiti Sains Malaysia’s annual team chess tournament that ended just last weekend except it was a good show by the boys and the girls that organized it.

At the USM, organizing their annual chess festival is actually part of their extracurricular course activities. It contributes towards their credit points. So, their Bridge And Chess Club undertakes an individual tournament and a team tournament every year. I hear that this year, they will have a Chinese chess tournament as well, and it will be at the end of February.

A friend who just came back to playing chess after 10 years remarked that the crowd at the individual and team events was markedly different. Definitely, there should be less people at an individual competition but he also observed that while the players at the individual event were young – many of them in primary schools – the team competition attracted a lot more adult players.

Many of them had even come up from the Klang Valley for a weekend of chess. Was it about the money, I asked one of the competitors. I had noticed him at the USM events for the past three or four years.

Oh, definitely not, he had answered. Good if his team wins something, he said, but it was more about the fun of participating and meeting friends. Curiously enough, some of his friends were from, yes, the Klang Valley too! Imagine coming here to catch up with your friends back home! 

Yes indeed, the USM chess fest has certainly become a fixture on the local chess calendar. People are actually coming to play chess in this team competition regardless of the prize moneys.

Meeting friends, he had said. That’s just goes to show exactly what I was talking about. A team competition is always about meeting people and being social about it, a reunion of sorts. 

Nobody feels particularly threatened because in a team competition, sometimes the chances of meeting a “friendly” rival over the board can be remote. Their teams may meet each other but there are always enough chances that they won’t face one another if they are playing on different levels in their respective teams.

And even if they do, well, so what? Someone has to win, and someone has to lose. No point sulking over a loss. There will always be a next time. Anyway, we’re all adults and we should know better, right? Ha ha, I’ll leave it at that.

Next week is Chinese New Year, so I’ll catch up with everyone in a fortnight’s time. But before I go, I just want to tell you that the Tata Steel chess tournament is presently going on. Inclusive of today, there are only three rounds remaining.

In case you are not familiar with this event, it has a very long history going back to 1938. It used to be called the Corus tournament (does it sound familiar?) and before that, the Hoogovens Wijk aan Zee, named after the Dutch seaside town of Wijk aan Zee.

Anyway, the Tata Steel chess tournament is a very strong event. There are three Grandmaster Groups, with 14 players each and each competitor playing against every other.

The world’s chess eyes are mainly focused on the Grandmaster Group A tournament. This year’s players include world champion Viswanathan Anand, former world champions Vladimir Kramnik and Ruslan Ponomariov, world top-ranked player Magnus Carlsen and other equally big names: Levon Aronian, Alexei Shirov, Alexander Grischuk, Anish Giri, Wang Hao and Hikaru Nakamura.

The Grandmaster Group B have players like Wesley So, Li Chao, Vlad Tkachiev, Luke Shane and Le Quang Liem. And meanwhile the Grandmaster Group C, while featuring less known names, still have interesting participants like Katherina Lahno, Daniele Vocaturo and Mark Bluvshtein.

You can follow the live games and the fortunes of the players from the official Tata Steel Chess website, http://www.tatasteelchess.com/, from 8.30pm nightly. Do enjoy the games!

Up next

DATCC renegade chess

The Datuk Arthur Tan Chess Centre will organize the DATCC renegade rapid chess weekend at their Wilayah Complex premises in Kuala Lumpur this Sunday. Seven rounds, 25-minute time control games. Entry fees are RM15 (players under 12 years old) and RM25 (all other players). Please register before Jan 28. For inquiries, contact Najib Wahab (016.3382542 or najib.wahab@chess-malaysia.com.)

Percawi chess

The Kuala Lumpur FT Chess Association (Percawi) will organise the Percawi City Day age group open (under-18 open and under-18 girls’ open) at the Pusat Kecemerlangan Sukan Cochrane in Kuala Lumpur on Feb 1. Six rounds, 30-minute time control games. Entry fee is RM15, inclusive of one-year Percawi junior membership. Closing date is Jan 31. To register, contact Collin Madhaven (016.2123578), Azwan (019.2788471) or Najib Wahab (016.3382542).

Cerdik chess

The Cerdik Catur Enterprise will organize their second Cerdik Catur tournament at the Datuk Arthur Tan Chess Centre, Wilayah Complex, Kuala Lumpur on Feb 5. Seven rounds, 25-minute time control games. Entry fees are RM25 (adults) and RM20 (school children). To register, contact Fadli Zakaria (014.2312370 or cerdikcatur@yahoo.com.)

 

Looking to the future

It is three weeks into the new year already but pardon me if I’m still delving into the past. I do need to mention two things before I move along. 

The first was the demise of a fellow Malaysian chess journalist, one whom I’ve known since the 1980s, but it wasn’t until the past four or five years that we really got down to talk more to one another.

Local chess enthusiasts will know the name of Lim Chong who worked with the Economics Desk of our national news agency, Bernama. Lim passed away in November last year while enroute from an assignment in London.

In the 1980s, The Star and The Malay Mail were the only two newspapers in the country with a regular chess page, and Lim was in charge of the chess output over there. So you wouldn’t be wrong to say that we were rivals. However, I have to confess that though we had different styles, I rather enjoyed what he wrote.

After a long helm, he was transferred to a sister publication of that newspaper and was in charge of the computer section. Much later, he left to join Bernama. Though he no longer wrote about chess, he was still very much in touch with the game and concerned about the accuracy of local chess news.

For instance, in April last year, I had a rather long conversation with him about a news item on one of the Malaysian chess players. It was quite clear that the reporter had misunderstood our player and written something that created a minor flap in our chess circles. I was right there when the player was interviewed, so therefore I could explain to Lim on what went wrong. 

However, that was an exception rather than the norm because Lim was always a quiet man. He was a person of very few words, even in conversations. What he wanted to say, he preferred to say by email messages. At least, that was my impression. 

In the last year of his life, we exchanged quite a number of emails. He was working to compile information on the history of the Selangor open chess tournaments and he wanted me to fill in some blanks. I don’t know the extent of his work but I hope that he had already completed it and handed it to the Chess Association of Selangor.

The other thing I must mention is the withdrawal of Datuk Tan Chin Nam from chess sponsorship. Immediately after the conclusion of last year’s Malaysia Chess Festival, Tan announced that he would be taking a sabbatical from sponsoring chess activities in the country.

He was saying that in order for chess in Malaysia to progress beyond the present, the chess movement should no longer be dependent on him to provide the monetary assistance. 

Chess organizers, he said, should be prepared to look at other sources of sponsorship. He considered himself as a hindrance to chess. Though he did not say it, that could possibly mean that he did not want chess organizers to take him too much for granted. 

I believe the implication of his decision has finally sunk in. I heard that when the Malaysians went down to Singapore in December for the annual chess match between the two countries, Tan declined to help meet the travel expenses. The Malaysian Chess Federation was forced to look elsewhere for the funds.

I have also been told that the running of the Datuk Arthur Tan Chess Centre at the Wilayah Complex in Kuala Lumpur may also have been impacted. For the past two years, Tan had been meeting the cost of running this place. But since the beginning of this month, it has been different. Several chess supporters have banded together to keep the centre up and running. 

There is definitely change in the air. In the months ahead, surely there will be more changes. The greatest impact will be felt nearer August and September. How will the next Malaysia Chess Festival be affected?

Although I’m not privy to the Festival’s finances, I know that the cost of staging it can be quite monumental. Hundreds of thousands of Ringgit, perhaps? If Tan is not prepared to bankroll it, we should not expect this year’s Malaysia Chess Festival to be organized the same way as before.  Only time will show how this will turn out.

Okay, now that I’ve gotten these two things out of my system, I’d just like to mention that this year’s Malaysian chess calendar has been released. Frankly, I’m very much surprised as this is only January. That’s pretty efficient on the Malaysian Chess Federation’s part. 

So what sort of events can we expect this year? Well, in two months’ time, there will be the national age group championship and the national closed championships. They follow one another: the age group event is on Mar 12-15, while the national closed and the national women’s championships are on Mar 16-20.

In May, there will be the Malaysian men’s and women’s masters tournaments. Also in May and extending into June, we shall see the national schools chess tournament, organized by the Majlis Sukan Sekolah-sekolah Malaysia (MSSM).

Also on the calendar will be a Malaysia inter-state chess championship in June, the Merdeka team chess championship and the Malaysia open championship in August, the national rapid age group and the national rapid championships in September, various chess camps for students in November, and the national junior chess championship in December.

On top of all that, the Chess Association of Selangor is certain of holding their Selangor open tournament, the Penang Chess Association will want to hold their Penang open tournament, the Kuala Lumpur Chess Association will be planning their next KL open and the Sarawak Chess Association looking into organizing their Sarawak open. 

Then, we should also expect to see all manner of organizers around the country coming out to plan their one-day tournaments as well. All too many to mention here at this stage, but they shall be announced as we go along, as always.

It sure looks like it’s going to be another busy chess year indeed. 

Up next

USM chess festival

The 17th Universiti Sains Malaysia chess festival continues this weekend with a seven-round team event starting tomorrow. For this event, time control is 40 minutes per game. Entry fees are RM70 (under-12 teams), RM90 (university, college and school teams) and RM110 (all other teams). Details are available from Lee Youn Hock (014.9445491), Sia Chye Ching (012.7258828) or Lee Chiew Seng (016.5152312). 

DATCC renegade chess

The Datuk Arthur Tan Chess Centre will organize the DATCC renegade rapid chess weekend at their Wilayah Complex premises in Kuala Lumpur on Jan 30. Seven rounds, 25-minute time control games. Entry fees are RM15 (players under 12 years old) and RM25 (all other players). Please register before Jan 28. For inquiries, contact Najib Wahab (016.3382542 or najib.wahab@chess-malaysia.com.)

Percawi chess

The Kuala Lumpur FT Chess Association (Percawi) will organise the Percawi City Day age group open (under-18 open and under-18 girls’ open) at the Pusat Kecemerlangan Sukan Cochrane in Kuala Lumpur on Feb 1. Six rounds, 30-minute time control games. Entry fee is RM15, inclusive of one-year Percawi junior membership. Closing date is Jan 31. To register, contact Collin Madhaven (016.2123578), Azwan (019.2788471) or Najib Wahab (016.3382542).

Cerdik chess

The Cerdik Catur Enterprise will organize their second Cerdik Catur tournament at the Datuk Arthur Tan Chess Centre, Wilayah Complex, Kuala Lumpur on Feb 5. Seven rounds, 25-minute time control games. Entry fees are RM25 (adults) and RM20 (school children). To register, contact Fadli Zakaria (014.2312370 or cerdikcatur@yahoo.com.)

 

Focused or aimless?

If some of us are still feeling smug two weeks after the Malaysian side had beaten their Singapore counterparts in the annual chess match between the two countries, my advice is just this: stop. It’s over; let’s not waste further time with it. We should move on, because chess-wise there is a lot to do.

My own general sense of euphoria ended right after I had written last week’s article. I don’t gloat over the results because in reality, this isn’t much of an achievement. I know the Malaysian team badly wanted to win but what do the results really mean? Don’t read too much into it.

We went into the match with a senior team that lacked our best players. We missed out on several key players until the Malaysian Chess Federation were forced to field our better junior players for the senior side. Not that I am complaining about this, though. I’ve always been an advocate of the move to bleed in new talent. Our national chess body as well as our state chess associations must always allow talented juniors to come forward and show their mettle.

It’s the only way forward. If junior players are cloistered and shielded behind their age group events, we are simply limiting them. How on earth can they develop and blossom if not given the chance? So what the Malaysian Chess Federation did was right. In the absence of the usual senior regulars, the boys were asked to play like men. 

Budding players like Edward Lee, Evan Capel (yes, there are even former national champions who are no older than 20), Lim Zhuo Ren, Sumant Subramaniam and Yeap Eng Chiam … yes, they all stepped up admirably to fill the senior shoes. 

But this positive aside, what had also been at the back of my mind was whether or not the Singapore side had fielded their best players against us. 

I do acknowledge that their players like Daniel Chan, Jarred Neubronner and Tan Weiliang are at least among the top 15 active home-grown players in Singapore today, but their senior line-up was never near the best they could assemble either.

Despite this, there was still about a 100 rating-point gap that separated the two senior sides. With the strength of their senior side far out-weighing ours, it wasn’t any surprise than we lost out on these boards. We were not good enough, period. 

But at least, we redeemed ourselves with far better results in the age-group encounters. It’s almost impossible to determine for sure which side was the stronger on paper as many of the players were young and without official ratings. Nevertheless, based on the results, we were better in the age groups.

However, one thing became clear looking deeper at the results. Regardless of whether we talk about Singapore or Malaysia, the future of the game will always have to come through from the younger ranks. We shall have to continue nurturing and training them from small. There is no other way for succession planning.

The important question that needs be asked is how well are we moving forward today? What is the big picture? Are we focused or are we simply moving aimlessly? How are our young chess players here being trained? If you ask me, I’d say the road ahead is bumpy. It is not going along smoothly. Not at all.

Since November, we have lost our one and only big-name foreign chess trainer. The Bangladeshi grandmaster, Ziaur Rahman, has finished his stay here in Kuala Lumpur and returned to his home country. He was on contract for a year but he asked to be released early.

From what I heard, it was an amicable separation for both him and his private chess employers. And since his departure, all that we have left are the same old local chess coaches. We continue to be so dependent on them to impart chess knowledge to the young. 

In the last decade or so, chess coaching clinics have sprung up in the bigger chess centres around the Klang Valley and elsewhere in the country but sad to say, coaching techniques and quality are far from being uniform or consistent. 

So how can we determine whether one coach is better than another? Just because a local coach may have been successful as a player does not necessarily mean that they are competent enough to teach. On the other hand, a local coach who is just an average-level player can turn out to be a good teacher that inspires his students. I suppose that at the end of the day, the only measure of a coach in Malaysia is his track record, that is, how successful his students are when they play competitively. 

From my point of view, it looks unlikely that anyone will be bringing in more foreign chess coaches at anytime soon. Malaysia is spread too wide as a country, compared to a compact place like Singapore, and there is not enough spending power to support the presence of foreign coaches. It’s the vicious law of supply and demand.

To my mind, Ziaur Rahman was under-utilised during his short stay here. But for better coordination with all the state chess associations, more could have been achieved with him. But then also, chess exists in this country as a result of parents and volunteers pitching in their time or money for the game. The state chess associations are not exactly rich, so that leaves the parents to fork out the dough.

When I was in Singapore a fortnight ago, I had noticed that there are quite a number of foreign trainers – players with acceptable credentials – around to provide chess tuition to the children there. Fees are not cheap, but the parents are prepared to pay good money to make their children play better than the next kid.

One parent there claimed to have spent SGD20,000 over the years on foreign chess trainers for her children. Are our parents here capable of spending RM20,000 on their children’s chess and if so, how many such parents are there?

(Unfortunately, spending so much also puts the children under immense parental pressure to perform well in competitions and not all children can deal with it. However, this is not a topic I would want to raise here.)

Nevertheless to answer my own question, I doubt that there are many parents in Malaysia who are able to spend that amount of money on foreign chess tutors. And without these parents spending on foreign coaches, all we have left are the local ones. How far they can bring their students forward will depend on their local expertise. No more and no less. 

At the end of the day, some will say that we get what we pay for. We reap what we sow. I suppose its true, after all. 

Up next

USM chess festival

The 17th Universiti Sains Malaysia chess festival kicks off this weekend with an eight-round individual event on Saturday and Sunday, and a seven-round team event on Jan 22-23. For both events, 40-minute time control games. Entry fees for the individual tournament are RM17 (under-12 players), RM19 (under-18 players), RM21 (university and college players) and RM27 (others). Members of the Penang Chess Association will be charged at RM15, RM17, RM19 and RM22 respectively. For the team event, entry fees are RM70 (under-12 teams), RM90 (university, college and school teams) and RM110 (all other teams). Details are available from Lee Youn Hock (014.9445491), Sia Chye Ching (012.7258828) or Lee Chiew Seng (016.5152312). 

DATCC renegade chess

The Datuk Arthur Tan Chess Centre will organize the DATCC renegade rapid chess weekend at their Wilayah Complex premises in Kuala Lumpur on Jan 30. Seven rounds, 25-minute time control games. Entry fees are RM15 (players under 12 years old) and RM25 (all other players). Please register before Jan 28. For inquiries, contact Najib Wahab (016.3382542 or najib.wahab@chess-malaysia.com.)

Cerdik chess

The Cerdik Catur Enterprise will organize their second Cerdik Catur tournament at the Datuk Arthur Tan Chess Centre, Wilayah Complex, Kuala Lumpur on Feb 5. Seven rounds, 25-minute time control games. Entry fees are RM25 (adults) and RM20 (school children). To register, contact Fadli Zakaria (014.2312370 or cerdikcatur@yahoo.com.)