Peter Long on Chess

http://www.themalaymailonline.com/what-you-think/article/russias-fide-peter-long

Mr Larbi HOUARI has penned an open letter to FIDE protesting Kirsan's (with Makro & Friends) latest dirty trick which absolutely shows not only how low they can go but also the role being played by the FIDE Office and its Executive Director Nigel Freeman. I am not really too surprised at Kirsan's FIDE acting like this but no matter how desperate, even excusing the many crude actions well documented, this is in my book, a criminal act. The letter was written in French and then English translation was incorporated (blue text).    OPEN LETTER TO FIDE Les élections FIDE & le « Gabon-Gate » Fide election & the GabonGate C’est une histoire incroyable. This is an incredible story. Un scenario que peu de Présidents de Fédération peuvent imaginer possible. Et pourtant. Very few Presidents of Federation can imagine such a scenario. However… Au nom d’une campagne électorale où les coups bas n’ont jamais été aussi permis, une nation a

One of the wonderful things about the ASEAN+ Age Groups is that there are so many medals up for grabs! Tie-breaks don't apply and there are team medals too by taking the cumulative scores of the top three from each country in each category. From U-8 Open & Girls to Senior 65, there was no less than 18 categories and with standard, rapid and blitz, 52 categories for individual alone and when multiplied by two for teams, 104, so a minimum of 312 medals were on offer! (ASEAN countries even get extra if a medalist comes from outside ASEAN and often there are shared Bronze). But for this quick analysis, lets just look at individual medals because at the end of the day that is the real measurement, and tellingly while Malaysia with sixth place falls in the middle of the medal standing, we are actually the worst of the well represented ASEAN countries, arguably just on par with our small neighbours Singapore which perhaps had their best ever result, their new golden generati

(Sands Cotai Central, Macau) Garry Kasparov was the guest of honour at the 15th ASEAN+ Age Group Chess Championships held at in Macao from 3-11 June 2014 (The huge crowd at the start on the first round) With the regions biggest and longest standing event being held for the first time outside the original 10 national ASEAN grouping, the presence of the 13th World Chess Champion and FIDE Presidential Candidate, his third to the country(!), was an enormous boost indeed to both the organisers. As always a visit by Kasparov not only energises the local chess community (in this case also the 650 participants from 21 countries!) but he also generates huge local interest with public, corporations and government. SOCIAL EVENING & GALA DINNER (Ceremonial VVIP seating at the Gala Dinner, far right is Jose Tavares, President of the Macau Sports Development Board) So mindful of the huge impact of his previous visit where USD 400,000 was committed for a fully

The downward pattern continued with the Blitz even if arguably we increased our tally to three medals as unfortunately all were Bronze. Lye Lik Zang, first seeded in all his earlier played events opted for U-12 and finally got a medal, Puteri Rifqah Fahada Azhar dropped to U-16 and also got one while Ismail Ahmad in Senior 50 got his third adding to the Silver and Bronze won earlier.

I was expecting a little more given Malaysians play Rapid almost exclusively year round but there were only two Bronze, in Open U-12 Wong Yinn Long adding to his Gold in Standard and our other earlier medalist Ismail Ahmad in Senior 50 also getting Bronze.

The main Standard chess championships is over and Malaysia was arguably represented by the best we have and we have to be happy with the single Gold by Wong Yinn Long in Open U-12 standard, a result that hopefully will be the breakthrough expected from him for some time now. Ismail Ahmad was our only other winner, with Silver in the 50 Seniors although if Hamid Majd had agreed to join Gregory Lau in participating we would have been assured of at least the Team Bronze. Of the others, the closest was Tan Li Ting who was fourth after losing her last round game in Girls U-20.

http://fidexfiles.blogspot.com/2014/06/kirsan-dont-you-dare-run-away-from-agon.html KIRSAN, DON'T YOU DARE RUN AWAY FROM THE AGON DEAL!

Mr. Ilyumzhinov complains to Singaporean President about Garry Kasparov and FIDE Secretary General Leong. Mr. Ilyumzhinov has written to the members of the FIDE Executive Committee and President of Singapore Tony Tan Keng Yam drawing their attention to violations by FIDE Secretary General Ignatius Leong, who is also a key member of Mr. Kasparov’s Presidential ticket, Kommersant, a highly-regarded Russian daily newspaper, reports. So starts the post titled "Kirsan Ilyumzhinov makes a move by writing a letter"on his FIDE First Campaign Website! My take on all this? 1. Instead of responding to the open letter of Ignatius Leong stating facts that demanded serious answers, Ilyumzhinov has taken his dirty campaign that has so far seen him sitting down with representatives of governments of countries he has been visiting to complain and badmouth to now putting in a letter? (see http://www.thefidetrainer.com/2014/05/ignatius-leong-hits-back.html ) 2. Probably we cannot un