National Juniors - Yit San and Li Ting retain their Titles

Heavily favoured defending champions Fong Yit San and Tan Li Ting lived up to their seedings to easily emerge as repeat winners at the National Junior Championships held at the 35th Floor of City Square in downtown Johor Bahru.

Neither had any real trouble but Li Ting perhaps went one up on Yit San by winning a round to spare as opposed to his one point cushion!

I was very impressed by the talent from Johor (even if they are at the start of a long journey) as they have a promising future because it is clear things are beginning to pick up down south with so many of their young players enthusiastically analysing their games together after each round while their more experienced competitors from the rest of Malaysia largely prefer to waste their time playing computer games.

On paper their was a possibility that one or two others would make a breakthrough but largely that did not happen.

Whatever their current limitations, more than anyone else (and one reason why they are champions), Yit San and Li Ting clearly understood that they were playing to do a job and so, besides retaining their titles and winning the prize money, they will have the right to represent Malaysia at both the ASEAN Age Group U-20 and World Junior Championships in 2014.

(For boys results, see http://chess-results.com/tnr117795.aspx?lan=1&art=1&rd=9&wi=821 and for girls results, see http://chess-results.com/tnr117794.aspx?lan=1&art=1&rd=9&wi=821)

The event was made possible by the generosity of Johor Chess Association President Frank Goon and wonderfully organised by their Honorary Secretary Steven Cheong Kok Love who was assisted by an enormously committed team, two standouts amongst many being Eddy Kwan Nam Seng and Jonas Tan Kok Liang.

I can say this because despite being a FIDE rated event, this turned out to be essentially a holiday for me as Chief Arbiter.

Steven Cheong also proved to be an expert in finding some very good places to eat!

Was also greatly honoured after the opening ceremony with lunch with Mr Goon and his management team and then getting a personal briefing of their many projects, and more importantly for chess a commitment was also made to further support the Johor Chess Association, so fingers crossed, perhaps 2014 will also see a Johor International Open!

Mas is now in India

IM Mas Hafizulhelmi is playing two Opens in India, the just concluded Chennai Grandmaster International Open from 15 to 23 November organised in conjunction with the Anand-Carlsen World Championship Match, and is now at the 2nd Hyderabad Open International Grandmaster Tournament from 25 November to 3 December (see http://chess-results.com/tnr117263.aspx?lan=1).

While Mas has not exactly shown what he is capable of, he has still managed to get a few rating points in arguably the toughest place in the world to play chess! That is already a first for a Malaysian. Let's all hope our marathon boy can keep this up...

Tan Li Ting is in India!

In conjunction with the Anand-Carlsen World Championship Match from 7-28 November 2013 in Chennai, the All India Chess Federation, through the Tamil Nadu Chess Association, has put together a month long festival of concurrent events.

For the first time ever, India is having a Woman GM Open - see http://chess-results.com/tnr115566.aspx?lan=1 - and Malaysia is represented by our young current National Junior Champion Tan Li Ting.

This might be the toughest event ever for Li Ting so let's all wish her every success! 

A Good & Promising Performance by Aron Teh at IOCC 2013

With Lim Kian Hwa entered as a 'local' player, Aron Teh was officially Malaysia's sole representative at the super strong Indonesia Open Chess Championship 2013.

The above extract from chess results shows our young national champion acquitting himself well and in the process getting 17.5 rating points in the process of beating one and holding one other GM and also three more IMs and one WGM as wll as beating one FM.

But it does not tell the tale of the two IM norm chances missed!

Aron had his first chance in round nine when he had to win and again in round ten when he again had to win. Perhaps he would have played more solidly if the norm was not on offer (like he did in previous games) and maybe would have ended with more points and rating points? Only he can answer that question but to get himself in that position and hold his own, time and again against so many titled players certainly augers well for him.

Well done Aron! As GM Cherniaev told you after the game, just keep playing, the title will come!

Looking Forward to a Great Indonesia Open!

On the 8th of October I will be off to Jakarta for the 3rd Indonesia Open 2013 and am very excited with an event that last year had recognised it was an achievement to repeat for a second successive year and this time around it has already grown to the point where it boasts a record (for this region and even Asia) and total prize fund of USD 100,000!

No wonder there are over 30 GMs already confirmed and there is no doubt in my mind that many more will be coming.

GM Sandro Mareco, GM Avetik Grigoryan, GM Enamul Hossain, GM Vadym Malakhatko, WGM Anna Zozulia, GM Antoaneta Stefanova, GM Nigel Short, WGM Sophie Milliet, WGM Elisabeth Paehtz, GM Hoang Thanh Trang, GM Balogh Csaba, GM Abhijeet Gupta, WGM Eesha Karavede, GM Gopal G Narayan, GM Shyam Sundar M., GM Surya Sekhar Ganguly, GM Sandipan Chanda, GM Vaibhav Suri, GM Ehsan Ghaem Maghami, WGM Nakhbayeva Guliskhan, WGM Dinara Saduakassova, WGM Batchimeg Tuvshintugs, GM Gundavaa Bayarsaikhan, GM Tsegmed Batchuluun, GM Ivan Sokolov, GM Eugenio Torre, GM John Paul Gomez, GM Mark Paragua, GM Oliver Barbosa, GM Laylo Darwin, GM Alexander Cherniaev, GM Alexey Dreev, GM Ivan Ivanisevic, WGM Maria Manakova, GM Renier Vasques, GM Dimitri Komarov, GM A.R. Saleh Salem, GM Aleksandr Moiseenko, GM Jaan Ehlvest, Anton Filippov, GM Eduardo Iturrizaga, GM Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son, WGM Pham Le Thao Nguyen, GM Dao Thien Hai, and GM Cao Sang.

Malaysia will be represented by current national champion Aron Teh and hopefully he will be joined by other members of our national team.

As before I will be helping with international media and working with the many local journalists so expect many insightful interviews (besides the usual daily reports) together with the great photography of Kristianus Liem at the special tournament website built in partnership with Chessdom at http://indonesiaopen.chessdom.com/.

It's Official - Mas Hafizulhelmi is Malaysia's No. 1

While some talk about how good they are, Malaysia's best ever player has quietly gone around doing his job and with the latest FIDE rating list published, Mas Hafizulhelmi is again officially our No. 1 player!

Despite playing at half pace, Mas was the easy winner of the prestigious Board 1 prize at the Inter State Teams and at the last major event, the Malaysian Masters, he shared first place with Lim Yee Weng and Aron Teh despite coming right off the exhausting top level KL Masters GM Tournament.

By no means however am I praising Mas... we all know he could do much better. At the point in time he was fully motivated, his rating was in excess of 2460 and today, with inflation taken into account, it would be a rating in excess of 2500 and he is still only in his early 30's.

If we look at the rating list I am alarmed that we have hardly any players 2300 and only 8, including veteran Jimmy Liew is above 2200!

Our IM's are not at 2400 level.

Yee Weng on the back of winning the Malaysian Masters is a little above 2300 while Ronnie's disaster at the same event (despite a decent outing at the Malaysian Open) has brought him under 2300 while we welcome back Jonathan Chuah to the active list!

Li Tian remains one of our very best young prospects even if he has stagnated somewhat in the last year and a half while globe trotting Aron Teh goes from strength to strength and will almost certainly become our next IM and hopefully a 2400+ IM and perhaps even a genuine GM candidate even if it is much too early to talk him up (as Malaysians tend to do!).

Today Malaysia is ranked 85, a steady drop over the years. When we looked to get our first IM there were no so many in Asian and even GMs were a rarity. After Jimmy, Mas was a long time coming but he too was able to compete with the best in our region.

Since then, a long time after, today(!), where the credentials and strength of many GMs are called into question we are still talking about getting a first GM?

Let me share two perspectives: A top GM who was in Malaysia recently noted that if by 18-21 years old a player was not getting to 2650, then is was unlikely he could close in on 2700 and make a good living from chess and this reality I think has been picked up by some other Malaysians already. The other is from someone who bluntly told a group of people that we have to stop measuring progress by getting a mere when it has to be done by looking at how others have also progressed and in relative terms. Don't forget that all the things we complain about is experienced by everyone else too.

Medina Warda Aulia is Indonesia's Youngest WGM!

Medina Warda Aulia is Indonesia's youngest ever Women Grandmaster, achieving her third and final norm at the ongoing World Junior Championship.

Last time around she almost won the championship, ultimately finishing fourth on tie-break and in fact was the leader in Turkey after six rounds till back to back losses pushed her back and essentially end her challenge.

But Medina has shown great strength of character to bounce right back to make the WGM title with one round to go!

I remember first seeing her as a 10 year old winning the World School Championship in Singapore and was privileged to be present as Chief Arbiter to watch her demolish the entire French team and carry her country to victory at the MAKITA Indonesia-France Match last year!

At that time the Indonesia coach, a former Georgian super GM, told me that she was now clearly the best woman player in her country.

Yes Medina is a super talent with the only reservation being she is growing up and sometimes that makes for inconsistency but when it comes together (as is starting to become the norm more and more often) her play is a a real pleasure to watch indeed.

Congratulations Medina! I look forward to seeing you at the Indonesian Open next month!

Big deal indeed: After 15 Years, an Inter State Team Championship!

The Malaysian Inter State Team Championship returned, after 15 long years, and fittingly, to Kota Kinabalu, capital of beautiful Sabah which is celebrating its 50th birthday!

Organised as part of the Sabah Chess Festival which saw numerous supporting events - Sabah Junior Championships, National Arbiter Seminar, Sabah King Blitz and the first ever FIDE Rated Rapid in the Sabah Grande which is ongoing, having started on 15 September.

While the majority of teams arrived on 11 September, a few came a day earlier to have a bit of a holiday and although I managed to beat all of them by coming on the evening of 8 September, it was to conduct the National Arbiter Seminar from 9-10 September, an activity that turned into a three day training program helping prepare the many enthusiastic locals attending to help run the Inter State Team Championships.

On the final day of the Inter State Teams, numerous officials from the Malaysian Chess Federation joined a well represented leadership from the various participating states attending in great show of support for Sabah chess and this was clearly appreciated at the closing ceremony by the Minister of Sport and their City Mayor patron.

These were Kelantan (two teams), Terengganu, Pahang, Perak, Selangor, KL, Negeri Sembilan, Johor and Sarawak joined hosts Sabah (four teams) but conspicous by its absence was Penang who with Kedah were the only two states not participating.

We all know some leaders of state associations think that they are by themselves the reason for chess alone and even if KL (and I understand at least one other state too) was approached by many unhappy Penang players to be allowed to play under their banner, I had to decline to help as it would have been hard to defend them against their vindictive self serving state association head (after three terms still a non playing chess parent?) who even clearly stated his sad (and I must say rather pathetic) reasons electronically when asked if Penang would be participating but we already know that is the man.

Going back to chess, I must congratulate the Sabah Chess Association which has the largest number of active and actually working chess officials I have ever seen and everyone would have been impressed by the energy and passion of all, with their President Muammar Jukarain the best example!

In the end the heavily favoured Selangor team emerged winners but like everyone else also suffered defeat, surprisingly badly in the fifth round against a KL team which opted to expose some young talent rather can field a representative national team. KL unfortunately lost their last round match against Perak to finish second on tie-break to and Johor proved to be a worthy third place winner.

But in fact there were no pushovers thanks to the adoption of match scoring which ensured players fought as teams and which gave a lot of room for strategy.

See details at: http://chess-results.com/tnr110741.aspx?lan=1

As Chief Arbiter I did my best to ensure the best playing conditions possible at Masterskill Global College in Likas together with the huge team from the Sabah Chess Association in line with the requirements of a national championship as mandated by the Malaysian Chess Federation while adopting international standards and practices.

Yet there was at least one idiot who really should know better than to believe his own high opinion of himself gives him such special privileges and rights that as a spectator he could enter the playing area, sit down, talk loudly, even read newspapers, and to tell those who ask him to leave that rules did not apply to him because he was the No.1 player.

However, the fact that the event ran smoothly with players wanting for nothing is satisfaction enough and I thank my newly adopted arbiter team (all who passed as National Arbiters) for being excellent students.