Planet Catur

Tan Chin Nam the doyen of local chess

2011-09-30T15:25:00.000+08:00

CHESS
By QUAH SENG SUN

Datuk Tan Chin Nam, 85, is still up to playing chess.

LAST week, I wrote about the youngest faces that had come to play in the main event of this year’s Malaysian Chess Festival, the Arthur Tan Malaysian open chess championship.

It then struck me that if I want to do a similar story on the oldest player in the festival, I would have to look at the Lee Loy Seng seniors open chess championship.

Everybody in the chess circle knows that the oldest active chess player in the country is none other than Datuk Tan Chin Nam himself.

Tan, 85, is the doyen of Malaysian chess. He may have been frailer than when I last saw him a year ago, but his mind was as keen as ever. “Still up to playing chess,” he said when we sat across the chessboard in the second round.

Mega festival ahead: Datuk Tan Chin Nam promises that next year’s edition will be the grandest Malaysian Chess Festival of all.

Tan soon found out to his dismay that results still favoured the younger seniors as he finished the event with a modest 1½ points that he collected from nine games.

Despite the setback, he took pride in his final game of the tournament. He lost – but for much of that game, he showed he could still mix it up as well as his opponent. He absorbed the attack in a complicated game and then simplified the position to a point where he held a piece advantage. It was only a gross blunder in the critical last hour of play when tiredness had crept into both players’ game that spoilt everything for Tan.

A draw would have been an equitable result in that game, seeing that both he and his opponent had fought and defended well.

At last year’s Malaysian Chess Festival, Tan announced that he intended to take a two-year sabbatical from sponsoring the festival. He wanted to enjoy playing the game without thinking about pumping money into organising it. There could be other reasons and I would think that one of them was that he wanted to see how the organisers would rise to the challenge, and continue with this chess festival with only his moral support.

I believe he was encouraged by what he saw: the hard work put in by the organisers in the last two to three months to get their act together. At the closing ceremony of the festival, he promised to end his sojourn and make next year’s edition the grandest Malaysian Chess Festival of all.

By the way, Tan was at least 10 years older than the next most senior competitor at the festival – Thailand’s 74-year-old Pricha Srivatanakul.

source: The Star

Armenia triumphs in chess world

2011-08-06T13:07:00.000+08:00

Chess
BY QUAH SENG SUN

Crowded calendar keeps enthusiasts on their toes.

THERE are just too many world-class chess events which have taken place or are taking place all over the world at the same time. From Ningbo in China to Dortmund in Germany and Biel in Switzerland, my attention is being divided by this surfeit of chess activities.

Would I consider this a problem? Yes, but this is a happy problem. I don’t mind the distraction. It only proves that chess can have a crowded calendar.

So where shall I start? Perhaps, from where I left off last week, with the world team chess championship that ended in Ningbo on Tuesday with Armenia deposing Russia to become the new champion.

Poised to win: Vladimir Kramnik is creating waves at the Dortmund Sparkassen invitational chess tournament.

I thought at first that Russia was going to win this event but the Russians stumbled badly and lost to China and Azerbaijan, and in the final round, suffered the ignominy of losing to India.

Russia’s setback was the opportunity for Armenia to spring into the lead. The Armenian team had played so steadily that they hadn’t lost to any other team yet. At their worst, they drew with Russia, the United States and Azerbaijan.

On Tuesday, Armenia was due to play Ukraine in the final round. A drawn match was all that they needed to clinch the title but the Ukrainians themselves were in the chase. If they could score a crushing result like a 3½-½ win against Armenia, they may even come out tops. Maybe the Ukrainians saw the unlikelihood of this ever happening because soon after the start of the round, their match was quickly drawn.

I believe China was disappointed with this outcome because they were mathematically in contention for the title and they would only need to win by 2½-1½ against Hungary, which they did, to be the champion if Ukraine had won by any score line. The only consolation for the Chinese team was that they actually finished with the same game points as the Armenians, except that on the more important match points, they trailed the new champion.

India, Israel and Egypt found themselves out of their depth. Israel was possibly the biggest disappointment seeing how just a year ago, they had finished third in the Chess Olympiad.

India came into this event as the Asian champion but they soon realized that even finishing in the middle of the table would be a tall order. I thought they could play the role of a spoiler and take surprising points off the main title contenders but the only problem was, they could not until the very last round against Russia when the results did not count any more.

As for Egypt, there is little to be said about this African representative except that they failed totally.

And so we move on to Germany where the former world champion, Vladimir Kramnik, is creating waves at the Dortmund Sparkassen invitational chess tournament. Well, at least he has been in impressive form right until the mid-way point of this event last Monday. By the way, the tournament ends on Sunday so there is still time to see whether Kramnik will carry his advantage right through till the end.

The Dortmund Sparkassen is an elite chess tournament that goes a long way back. However, it was not until 1973 that it was converted into a regular annual event. This year’s edition is a six-player, double round-robin tournament that features Vladimir Kramnik, Hikaru Nakamura, Ruslan Ponomariov, Le Quang Liem, Anish Giri and local German player Georg Meier.

As mentioned, Kramnik has been showing great form. He couldn’t have been happier. In the first half of the tournament, his victims included Ponomariov, Giri, Meier and Nakamura, and he has dropped only a draw to Le. Even if he eases up on the pedal and draws the rest of his games in the second half, I believe he should coast through easily to win the top prize.

The last tournament on my list today is the annual Biel Chess Festival.

This chess festival has been around for decades. It started as a masters open tournament in 1968; the grandmaster tournament was introduced in 1976, and evolved into one of Europe’s showcase events. Like in Dortmund, this is a double round-robin tournament featuring six very strong players. Their names speak for themselves: Magnus Carlsen, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Alexei Shirov, Fabiano Caruana, Alexander Morozevich and Yannick Pelletier.

I would be very surprised if Carlsen does not win the event which will end today. On Tuesday as I was writing this story, Carlsen was leading the field with only Morozevich following hard on his tail. The rest had been left behind.

Caruana, who had won last year’s Biel grandmaster tournament, found himself trailing everyone this time around. A complete reversal of form.

source: the Star

Three times a winner

2011-05-10T22:39:00.000+08:00

CHESS
By QUAH SENG SUN

Dr Nicholas Chan scores a hat-trick at the 38th Selangor open chess tournament.

NOW, don’t start me off. I’m not going to launch myself with superlatives to describe Dr Nicholas Chan’s feat in winning the annual Selangor open chess tournament for the third year in succession. All I’m going to say to him is, congratulations. Short and simple.

Really, there are no big words to describe Dr Chan’s hat-trick of Selangor open achievements. He was the champion in 2009, made a great defence of this title last year and then, earlier this week, he overcame some mid-tournament jitters to become the Selangor open champion again.

Hat-trick: After a close and intense fight, Dr Nicholas Chan emerged winner of the Selangor open chess ournament.

Add his tournament victory in 2004, and Dr Chan has won this event four times in the past eight years.

It wasn’t all plain sailing, though. He led until the sixth round and even reeled off five wins in a row which included a win over international master Jimmy Liew. Then Dr Chan hiccupped in the seventh round, losing to Indian international master Srinath Narayanan. Suddenly, he found Liew, Srinath and familiar Filipino player Ian Udani leap-frogging half a point over him.

With two rounds remaining, the tournament became alive. There were four contenders who could easily be winner of the tournament. However, some of them had still to play one another and so, there would be no easy gallop towards the finish line. The event was wide open.

In the eighth round, two of the leaders met. Udani and Srinath were paired together, but their game was drawn. Then Dr Chan beat Mohd Irman Ibrahim to draw level with the Indian and the Filipino. In the meantime, Liew took advantage of their lapse by disposing of his opponent, Abdul Rahim Ramli, to take the sole lead for the first time in the tournament.

So by the end of the eighth round, the standings were: Liew in front with seven points followed by Udani, Srinath and Dr Chan just half a point behind. The ninth and final round would be crucial.

To be champion, Liew would need to win his final game. A draw might have been enough, too, but he could possibly be subjecting himself to a tie-break with two other players. It wasn’t a completely appealing situation but maybe, it would be better than nothing. In any case, his final-round opponent, Udani, refused to follow the same script and in a tensely fought game, the Filipino prevailed over Liew.

Srinath was also in a good position to join Udani at the top of the standings if he could beat his opponent, the newly minted national closed champion Lim Zhuo Ren. But Lim proved to be a tougher nut than expected and he put paid to any idea that the Indian player could have.

These unexpected results presented Dr Chan with a precious lifeline which he gladly seized. Among the top contenders, he had possibly the most comfortable pairing of all. Sitting across from Mark Siew, Dr Chan outplayed his opponent to win the game and thus finish on equal points with Udani.

But this is not the end of the story. Two players stood at the top of the standings with equal points. Who would be the champion? For Dr Chan, his spurt of five wins in his first five games would now ensure him a much superior tie-break than Udani. And with this better tie-break came the coveted winner’s purse at the conclusion of this 38th Selangor open chess tournament.

source: The Star

Attention on junior players at chess championships

2011-03-26T10:59:00.000+08:00

Chess
By Quah Seng Sun

Young players provide excitement at championships.

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 organising 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 Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. By all accounts, this year’s edition of the national age group championships was a great success for the organisers. 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 Evan 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 Evan, he was brought down to earth by 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 Evan 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 Jun Jian and Mark Siew Kit Tze, but he won all the other six games.

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 organisers 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 straight 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. I hope that my personal embarrassment 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 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– 338 2542 or najib.wahab@chass-malaysia.com.

source: The Star online

Frenzy of entries in chess championships

2011-02-25T17:54:00.000+08:00

Chess
BY QUAH SENG SUN

New development augurs well for local chess scene.

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 from March 16-20 may have been completely filled by now.

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

Defending champ: Fong Mi Yen is joining the fray to defend the title that she won last year.

The Malaysian Chess Federation (MCF) is the organiser 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% 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. Parkinson, a history professor at the University of Malaya in Singapore from 1950 to 1959, was fond of poking fun at government bureaucracies and in 1955 published a humorous 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, otherwise why are chess games played with chess clocks?

Of course, to ensure that the players get into a time scramble! (A chess clock is a double-faced clock 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 a servant of the time scramble. Whether he is given five minutes, 30 minutes or 90 minutes to finish his game, he should make full use of this time to play. That’s the law of deadlines.

There is another deadline in chess, though not as potent as the time control, but still 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. Chess organisers used to be so accommodating – an additional player means extra entry fee – to the extent that they would delay the start of their tournaments.

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

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 all because of a 20% discount. Penalty fees are no deterrent to chess players but discounts certainly are the carrots!

While looking through the list of entries, I’m 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 trio 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, I’m disappointed that Tan Khai Boon, Evan Timothy Capel and Edward Lee are not playing. The three of them would have added colour to the competition.

Nevertheless, it will still be an interesting race to the finish as the MCF has announced that the top eight players from the national closed championship will be included in 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 details on the two competitions, contact Najib Wahab (016-338 2542 or najib.wahab@chess-malaysia.com) for the national closed championship and Haslindah Ruslan (019-206 9605 or haslindahr@yahoo.com) for the national women’s closed championship.

source: The Star

National chess contests coming up

2011-02-21T11:32:00.000+08:00

CHESS By QUAH SENG SUN

Get ready for the national closed championships next month.

THIS year’s national closed and national women’s closed championships are just 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, from March 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-organising the two championships with the Datuk Arthur Tan Chess Centre (DATCC). The DATCC had undergone some recent internal reorganisation 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 in 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.

The match between Maxime Vachier- Lagrave (white) and Wang Hao (black).

This new regulation makes a lot of sense to me because I am sure that the organisers 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 2,000 is RM60; those with FIDE ratings of between 1,600 and 1,999 are required to pay RM100; those rated below 1599 or who are unrated will be charged RM150. A 20% discount will apply if a participant registers before this Sunday (Feb 20), while a 50% late fee will be imposed on all entries registered after March 13.

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

For more details, contact Najib Wahab (016-338 2542 ornajib.wahab@chess-malaysia.com) for the national closed championship and Haslindah Ruslan (019-206 9605 or haslindahr@yahoo.com) for the national women’s closed championship.

Meanwhile, DATCC has also made known that it is organising a one-day Lim Chong memorial tournament at its premises on March 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 organising this event.

Later, Lim joined Bernama as a sub-editor of the national news agency’s economic news service. He died of a heart attack last November while en route from London to Kuala Lumpur.

The 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 details, contact Hamid Majid (019-315 8098 or aham@pc.jaring.my) or Najib Wahab (016-338 2542). The entry form is available fromdatcchess.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 realises 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

source: The star

Nakamura finally finds fame in chess world

2011-02-14T09:49:00.001+08:00

Chess
BY QUAH SENG SUN

Hikaru Nakamura makes a name for himself by winning the Tata Steel chess tournament.

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 history that goes back to 1938.

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

Claim to fame: Japanese chess prodigy Hikaru Nakamura played with confidence among the world’s best.

For this year’s edition, the organisers had invited the world’s top four chess players to be part of their 14-player field: world chess champion Viswanathan Anand, world No.1 Magnus Carlsen, former world champion Vladimir Kramnik and world No.3 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.

He is recognised 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 No.10 in the world.

And so we arrive at the present moment. The race for the top honours in the Tata Steel chess tournament was very close and Nakamura played with 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

source: The Star

Looking to the future in chess

2011-01-21T16:00:00.000+08:00

CHESS By QUAH SENG SUN

Chess enthusiasts can expect a busy year ahead.

IT IS three weeks into the new year already. Pardon me if I’m still delving into the past but I need to mention two things before I move on.

The first was the demise of a fellow Malaysian chess journalist, one whom I’ve known since the 1980s.

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 en route from an assignment in London.

In the 1980s, The Star and The Malay Mail were the only newspapers in the country with a regular chess page, and Lim was in charge of the chess output over there. Though we had different styles, I rather enjoyed what he wrote.

After a long helm, he was transferred to a sister publication and was in charge of the computer section. Much later, he left for 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 I could explain to Lim what went wrong.

However, that was an exception rather than the norm because Lim was a person of very few words, even in conversations. What he wanted to say, he preferred to say via e-mail. At least, that was my impression.

In the last year of his life, we exchanged quite a number of e-mails. 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 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 said that in order for chess in Malaysia to progress beyond the present, the chess movement should no longer be dependent on him to provide monetary assistance.

Chess organisers, he said, should be prepared to look at other sources of sponsorship. He considered himself a hindrance to chess. Though he did not say it, that could possibly mean that he did not want chess organisers 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 Malay-sian Chess Federation was forced to look elsewhere for funds.

I have also been told that the running of the Datuk Arthur Tan Chess Centre at 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 organised 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 from March 12 to 15, while the national closed and the national women’s championships are from March 16 to 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, organised 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 its Selangor open tournament, the Penang Chess Association will want to hold its Penang open tournament, and the Kuala Lumpur Chess Association will be planning its next KL open, while the Sarawak Chess Association will be looking into organising its Sarawak open.

Then, we should also expect to see all manner of organisers 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.

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

source: The Star Online

Focused or aimless?

2011-01-17T14:46:00.000+08:00

Chess
BY QUAH SENG SUN

Nurturing and training young talent is the way to go.

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 this: stop. It’s over; let’s not waste more time on 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 them.

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 was 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.

Short-lived stint: Bangladeshi grandmaster Ziaur Rahman was under-utilised during his short stay here.

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 ... they all stepped up admirably to fill the seniors’ shoes.

What was at the back of my mind was whether or not the Singapore side had fielded their best players against us.

While players like Daniel Chan, Jarred Neubronner and Tan Weiliang are among the top 15 active home-grown players in Singapore today, their senior line-up was nowhere near the best they could assemble either.

Despite this, there was 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 that 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 to 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. The journey is not going smoothly. Not at all.

In November, we lost our one and only big-name foreign chess trainer. Bangladeshi grandmaster, Ziaur Rahman, has ended 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 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 who inspires his students. I suppose, 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 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 and 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 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 S$20,000 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; not all children can deal with it. However, this is not a topic I want to raise here.)

Nevertheless, to answer my own question, I doubt 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 it’s true, after all.

source: The star Online

Malaysia wins Singapore-Malaysia Chess Challenge

2011-01-09T19:07:00.001+08:00

CHESS
QUAH SENG SUN

It was a neck-and-neck race at the recent Singapore-Malaysia Chess Challenge 2010.

SO what did you do at the turn of the decade? Me, I went to Singapore. I went there not so much as to watch the fireworks display at Marina Bay but to participate in the latest annual match between Malaysia and our neighbours down south, the 21st in a series that goes back to 1985.

With the Singapore Chess Federation being the hosts this time around, a contingent of about 50 people, comprising players and accompanying officials, travelled there bent on reversing the fortunes of the past few years.

It’s to be noted that in February 2010, when the last encounter was played in Kuala Lumpur, we had lost out to the Singapore team by the narrowest of margins: 76½ points to them and 75½ points to us.

What made it heartbreaking last year was that we as the hosts had taken the lead from the first two rounds of games played at normal time controls, only to see the visitors winning the other two rounds, which adopted rapidchess time controls, and thus overhauling us in the process.

Let’s shake on this: Friends and rivals across the table battle for the Datuk Tan Kim Yeow trophy.

This time around in Singapore, the situation was the reverse.

After the first day of normal time control games, we found ourselves down by an unenviable seven points. The first round in the morning had landed us in negative territory. We had tripped ourselves up. From the 38 games played in this round, we scored only 15½ points compared to the Singaporeans’ 22½ points.

Luckily, the situation stabilised in the afternoon. Here, both sides were unable to find the advantage and the results were split right down the table with the Malaysians and Singaporeans scoring 19 points each. So, collectively at the end of the first day’s games, Singapore were leading us 41½ points to 34½ points.

If you were to suggest that the Malaysians were depressed, that would be an understatement. Not only were they depressed, they were openly asking what it would take to beat the Singaporeans at chess. Seven points was a big margin and an extraordinary effort, coupled with a large dose of luck, would be needed to overturn it.

Nevertheless, it could still be done. Someone mentioned that if ever we needed the luck of the Malaysian football team, this would be the time. If the courage of the plucky footballers can be emulated on the chessboard, of course there was a chance for the chess players to overcome the seven points of deficit. It wasn’t insurmountable.

And so it proved not to be insurmountable. The second day’s matches would be played with rapidchess time controls and here, the Malaysians found back their own self-belief.

Slowly, the seven-point gap was being narrowed. At one stage, the two teams were running neck-and-neck. But eventually, the Malaysians collected 24 points from this third round and the Singaporeans 14 points. At the end of the morning’s third round, the Malaysians suddenly found themselves leading by a narrow three points.

The sudden reversal of fortune caused nerves to set in: nerves that obviously affected not only the Malaysians but the Singaporeans as well. Everything would now boil down to the fourth round. The last 38 games would be crucial.

The Singaporeans, smarting from being dismantled in the third round, were looking not only to win the fourth round but by a big margin as well. As for the Malaysians, they were hoping that the same winning momentum would carry them through till the end of the last game. Whatever, I knew that the match would be very, very close.

And it was! Singapore threw everything at the Malaysians but perhaps because of nerves, maybe they couldn’t find the killer touches. Anyhow, the Malaysians built up a wall and stood firm behind it, despite their own nervousness, too. Eventually, this round finished tied with both sides scoring 19 points.

Overall, the Malaysian team had collected 77½ points to the Singaporeans’ 74½ points. A modest three-point spread, you may say, but it was a fortunate result for us and an unfortunate loss for them. But that’s how chess is like.

So that’s how the year started with a chess win. For this year at least, the Datuk Tan Kim Yeow trophy is finally back in Malaysia’s hands.

Here’s a little trivia to end this week’s story. As I travelled back to Kuala Lumpur by train from Singapore’s Tanjung Pagar station, having purposely chosen this mode of transportation for nostalgia reasons as KTM would soon cease running their trains right through the middle of Singapore, I noticed a lady was still reading last week’s story about Hou Yifan winning the women’s world championship match in Turkey. Suddenly, she pointed to the picture of 16-year-old Hou and blurted out quite loudly to her husband: “Wah, so young, ah!”

I guess in a way, this reaction also pays tribute to the youth in the Malaysian team. Of the 38 games in each round, at least 30 of our players were below the age of 18. Once again, they are proving to be the backbone and the future of Malaysian chess. If not for their determined effort in Singapore, I really doubt that we could have won back the Datuk Tan Kim Yeow trophy.

Meanwhile, here are some of the games from the women’s world championship match between Hou Yifan and Ruan Lufei. Do enjoy them.

Hou Yifan - Ruan Lufei, Game One

1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. f3 dxe4 4. fxe4 e5 5. Nf3 Bg4 6. Bc4 Nd7 7. c3 b5 8. Bd3 Ngf6 9. O-O Bd6 10. Bg5 O-O 11. Nbd2 h6 12. Bh4 Qc7 13. Qc2 Nh5 14. h3 Be6 15. Rae1 Nf4 16. Bg3 Nxd3 17. Qxd3 Rad8 18. Bf2 a6 19. Nh4 Nb6 20. b3 Rfe8 21. Qf3 b4 22. Rc1 bxc3 23. Qxc3 exd4 24. Bxd4 c5 25. Bxg7 Bf4 26. Nhf3 Rxd2 27. Nxd2 Bxd2 28. Qxd2 Kxg7 29. Qc3+ Kh7 30. Qxc5 Qxc5+ 31. Rxc5 Ra8 32. Ra5 Nc8 33. Rc1 Nd6 34. e5 Nf5 35. Kf2 h5 36. Rc2 Nd4 37. Rd2 Nc6 38. Rc5 Ne7 39. b4 Kg6 40. a3 Kf5 41. Ke3 Rg8 42. Ra5 Rg3+ 43. Kf2 Rb3 44. Rxa6 Nd5 45. Ra5 Ne3 46. Rc5 Nc4 47. Rc2 Nxa3 48. R2c3 Rb2+ 49. Kg3 Nb1 50. Rf3+ Kg5 51. h4+ Kg6 52. Rc7 Kg7 53. Rf6 Kg8 54. Rf4 Rb3+ 55. Kh2 Rb2 56. Rc5 Na3 57. Rc3 Nb5 58. Rg3+ Kf8 59. Rg5 Nc7 60. Rxh5 Nd5 61. Re4 Kg7 62. Rg5+ Kh7 63. Rc4 Rb3 64. Rg3 Rb2 65. Rg5 Rb3 66. Rd4 Nxb4 67. Rg3 Rb2 68. Rc3 Nd5 69. Rcd3 Ne7 70. Rd2 Rb5 71. Re2 Ng6 72. Rde4 Bf5 73. e6 Bxe6 ½-½

Ruan Lufei - Hou Yifan, Game Two

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 d6 6. Be2 Be7 7. O-O Nc6 8. Be3 O-O 9. f4 e5 10. Nxc6 bxc6 11. Kh1 exf4 12. Bxf4 Be6 13. Bf3 Qb8 14. b3 Qb4 15. Qe1 a5 16. Rd1 Rfe8 17. e5 dxe5 18. Bxe5 Rac8 19. Qg3 g6 20. Na4 Nd5 21. Bxd5 cxd5 22. Bc3 Qg4 23. Qxg4 Bxg4 24. Rxd5 Bb4 25. Bxb4 axb4 26. Rd2 Bf5 27. Kg1 Rxc2 28. Rxc2 Bxc2 29. Kf2 Bd3 30. Re1 Rc8 31. Ke3 Bb5 32. Rd1 Re8+ 33. Kf4 Re2 34. g4 Bxa4 35. bxa4 Rxa2 36. Rd4 Rxa4 37. h4 Kf8 38. Re4 f6 39. Rc4 Ke7 40. Rd4 Ke6 41. Ke4 Ke7 42. Kf4 h6 43. h5 gxh5 44. gxh5 Kf7 45. Re4 Kf8 46. Kg4 f5+ 47. Kxf5 Ra5+ 48. Kg6 Ra6+ 49. Kh7 Rb6 50. Rf4+ Ke7 51. Rf1 b3 52. Kg7 b2 53. Rb1 Ke6 54. Kxh6 Kf5+ 55. Kg7 Kg5 56. Kf7 Kxh5 57. Ke7 Kg4 58. Kd7 Kf3 59. Kc7 Rb3 0-1

Hou Yifan - Ruan Lufei, Game Three

1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Nd7 5. Ng5 Ngf6 6. Bd3 g6 7. N1f3 Bg7 8. O-O O-O 9. Qe2 h6 10. Ne4 Nxe4 11. Qxe4 c5 12. Bc4 e6 13. Be3 Nf6 14. Qd3 Ng4 15. dxc5 Qc7 16. Rad1 Nxe3 17. Qxe3 b6 18. Nd2 Qxc5 19. Qxc5 bxc5 20. c3 Bb7 21. Nb3 Rfc8 22. Na5 Rc7 23. Nxb7 Rxb7 24. Rd2 Rab8 25. Bb3 a5 26. Rc1 a4 27. Bxa4 Rxb2 28. Rxb2 Rxb2 29. Bd1 Rxa2 30. g3 Ra3 31. c4 Bd4 32. Kg2 Ra2 33. Rc2 Ra1 34. Bf3 Kf8 35. h4 Ke7 36. Bc6 g5 37. hxg5 hxg5 38. g4 Ra3 39. Be4 Kd6 40. Re2 Kc7 41. Bh7 e5 42. Be4 Kb6 43. Rd2 Ka5 44. Bd5 f6 45. Kf1 Kb4 46. Ke2 e4 47. Rc2 e3 48. fxe3 Rxe3+ 49. Kd1 Rg3 50. Rg2 Rh3 51. Re2 Kc3 52. Rd2 Rh4 53. Rg2 Kd3 54. Rd2+ Ke3 55. Re2+ Kf4 56. Re4+ Kg3 57. Be6 Rh8 58. Kd2 Re8 59. Kd3 Rxe6 60. Rxe6 Kxg4 61. Re4+ Kf5 62. Re1 g4 63. Rf1+ Ke5 64. Re1+ Kd6 65. Ke4 Bf2 66. Rd1+ Ke6 67. Rd5 g3 68. Kf3 f5 69. Kg2 Kf6 70. Kf3 Kg5 71. Re5 Kg6 72. Rd5 Kf6 73. Kg2 Ke6 74. Kf3 f4 75. Kg2 Be3 ½-½

Ruan Lufei - Hou Yifan, Game Four

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 d6 6. g4 h6 7. h4 Nc6 8. Rg1 d5 9. exd5 Nxd5 10. Nxd5 Qxd5 11. Bg2 Qe5+ 12. Be3 Qh2 13. f4 Bd7 14. Qd2 Nxd4 15. O-O-O Bc5 16. Bxd4 Bxd4 17. Qxd4 O-O-O 18. Qc4+ Kb8 19. Qe4 Bc8 20. h5 Ka8 21. a4 Rd5 22. Rdf1 Qh4 23. Qc4 Rd7 24. a5 Qd8 25. a6 Qa5 26. Kb1 Kb8 27. axb7 Bxb7 28. Bxb7 Rxb7 29. Qd4 Ka8 30. Rf3 Rhb8 31. b3 f6 32. Rd1 Qb4 33. Qe3 Rb6 34. Rd4 Qe7 35. Qd3 R6b7 36. Re3 Re8 37. Rd6 e5 38. fxe5 fxe5 39. Re4 Qc7 40. Rd5 Qb8 41. Rc4 Rf8 42. Kb2 Qe8 43. Rdc5 Qe6 44. Qe4 Kb8 45. Rxe5 Qf6 46. Rc6 Qf7 47. Rf5 1-0

source: The Star

Hail to the new queen of chess

2010-12-31T15:02:00.000+08:00

CHESS
By QUAH SENG SUN

A 16-year-old chess prodigy from China has emerged as the new women’s world champ.

NOBODY who had met Hou Yifan in April this year, when she took part in the Kuala Lumpur open chess tournament, would have expected that the petite 16-year-old chess prodigy from China could close 2010 crowned as the new women’s world champion.

“When do you think you can become the world champion?” I had asked her then. She let out a stifled giggle, a reaction which I had mistaken for a nervous laugh. “I don’t know,” she replied.

Crowning glory: Hou Yifan with World Chess Federation president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov.

“But that’s your ambition, isn’t it?” I persisted. “Your last attempt at the world chess title had been so very close,” I men-tioned, referring to the previous world chess championship in Nalchik, Russia, in 2008.

At that time, Yifan was only 14 years old and she had progressed through the knock-out tournament till the final stage where she met the other finalist, Alexandra Kosteniuk. However, her opponent proved to be the better player and she was left to reflect on her lost opportunity.

“Oh, I hope to be better prepared and play better this time,” she had replied modestly.

Well, Yifan has really played better this time and gone one better than before. Two additional years of travelling the world and playing chess against top-notch men’s and women’s players had added to her experience.

Just last Friday in Hatay, Turkey, she finally claimed the women’s chess crown as her own. In the final of the championship, she played the match of her life and just about eked through with a hard-fought win against her compatriot, Ruan Lufei.

Yifan had started the knock-out women’s world championship as the third seed just behind India’s Humpy Koneru, the second seeded player. Despite being rated so much lower in the 64-player field, Kosteniuk as the defending champion had been given top seed in deference to her World Champion’s title but it was clear as the championship progressed that Kosteniuk would not be able to repeat her success of 2008.

In the third round, Kosteniuk was eliminated by Ruan. Both players had drawn their first two games and so it was left to the tie-break games to decide. A gritty Ruan won the first game of the tie-break before she then closed down Kosteniuk in the second tie-break game and thus, the Chinese player advanced to the quarter-finals.

It will be interesting to note that throughout this championship, Ruan gained a reputation as the tie-break queen. Right from the word Go, all of Ruan’s mini-matches (each round except for the final would be an encounter of two games at normal regulation time control and if there was no decision, then tie-break games at a faster time control would decide) went into nerve-wracking tie-breaks. None of her rounds were ever decided under normal time control.

So it wasn’t much of a surprise to observers when Ruan pulled level with Yifan after four normal regulation games in the final of this world championship.

The first game of the final began with Yifan playing with the white pieces and pressing to strike the first blow. At one point the position was better for Yifan but try as she could, she could not overcome Ruan and the game ended drawn.

Yifan was not to be denied, however, and she did pick up her first win against Ruan in the second game. The point was split again in the third game, but I can assure you that it was no tame stuff. Ruan could have won it and equalised. She had that pressing advantage which she could have converted into a win but did not.

So going into the fourth game, Yifan was still leading and needed just a draw. On the other hand, the fourth game was going to be a do-or-die mission for Ruan. Anything less than a win for Ruan would mean that the women’s world chess championship would have ended then and there for her.

It was fascinating to watch this game as it unfolded. Maybe it was due to nerves but Yifan, after defending well against Ruan’s onslaught, succumbed after Ruan found the very best moves over the board. At the end of the four normal regulation time control games, the final was back where it started: on equal footing for both players.

The first game of the tie-break was drawn, then Yifan won the second tie-break game. In the third tie-break game, the players drew again. But this was where the resemblance to the normal regulation games ended. In the fourth tie-break game, Yifan seized the initiative from Ruan and did not let go. As much as Ruan tried, she could not turn the game around and finally, with defeat staring at her on the chessboard, Ruan conceded the game.

So there we have it: Yifan is the newest and youngest of the long line of women’s world chess champions. Hail to the new queen of chess.

> (Just an interesting footnote here: China’s Ruan Lufei is 23 years old. She is a doctoral student at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the United States. “I think there are three reasons why she beat me,” Ruan reflected after the championship. “Firstly, she is really a good player, and unlike me, she plays chess every day. Secondly, I played tie-break in every round, so I have played for 20 days with only one day of rest. Finally, she has two coaches here, but I’m fighting alone. My coach is in China.”)

source: The star

Malaysia has huge potential in chess

2010-12-17T15:46:00.001+08:00

Chess
Quah Seng Sun

Much can be done to attract foreign players to our shores.

I BELIEVE it is time for our Youth and Sports Ministry and Tourism Ministry to take a serious look at promoting sports tourism in this country.

If the experience of this year’s Penang Heritage City international chess tournament is anything to go by, there is a huge potential for the country to attract quality sportsmen and sportswomen to come play in our regional tournaments and enjoy the best we can offer at the same time.

Never mind if it is only a regional tournament outside of the Klang Valley. If the event is serious enough and big enough, support from the authorities can mean a big difference in attracting players and tourists to come here.

Full concentration: Oliver Dimakiling playing Niaz Murshed on his way to winning the Penang Heritage City International Chess Open.

The biggest surprise awaiting me at this tournament last week was the unusually large number of foreigners in the open section. Of course, I had anticipated that there would be foreign players in the field but I had not expected that there would be so many of them.

I counted 29 of them in the 71-player field, almost all from the countries around us but there was even one from distant Uzbekistan. Pleasant surprise, indeed!

Now, having known all that, what didn’t surprise me was that the Filipinos would dominate the event. Not at all. The Filipino players are known to be fiercely competitive, giving no quarter and expecting none in return, and they really made their presence felt.

Can you imagine that when all the dust had settled, nine of them took away the 15 prizes on offer? Four Filipino players among the top five prize winners, led by international masters Oliver Dimakiling and Oliver Barbosa who both finished with equal 7½ points with Dimakiling adjudged the overall winner by virtue of a tie-break.

Bangladesh’s Niaz Murshed, the sole grandmaster in the field, snatched the third prize, while the fourth and fifth prizes were again claimed by two Filipino international masters, Yves Ranola and Luis Chiong.

Then there were also their other compatriots – Haridas Pascua, Edgar Olay, Julius De Ramos, Ian Udani and Christopher Castellano – among the other prize winners.

It was left to our own Mas Hafizulhelmi to leave the first mark by a Malaysian in the winners’ list. A very honourable sixth place for him, considering the strength of the field. But in truth, I was also very glad to see Tan Khai Boon, Edward Lee and Ng Tze Han finishing among the prize winners; all of them our national champions at one time or another.

There was also a sizeable Singaporean presence in the open section. All juniors, they came with their parents and coaches to play chess first and tour the heritage areas of George Town second.

Among them, I can pick out Andre Jerome Eng and Benjamin Foo as the only two bright sparks among the Singapore players who were capable of mixing it up with the top players but in the end it was only Eng who managed to take home a prize.

Finally, let me say something about Luis Chiong. Now, that was a name that I had to dig out from the deep recesses of my memory. How many years was it since I first met him? Must be 1977 or 1978 when one of the legs of the first Asian grandmaster chess circuit was held here in the same building, the Dewan Sri Pinang.

Physically, he has changed, of course. Everybody has changed. In 30 years, everyone changes. However, he said this building – referring to the Dewan – looked the same to him. Ah, at least he remembered that.

source: The Star Online

Anand draws with Adams, remains in joint lead

2010-12-15T14:43:00.002+08:00

LONDON: World Champion Viswanathan Anand was held to a draw by Michael Adams of England in the sixth and penultimate round but the Indian ace continued to hold joint lead at the London Chess Classic.

Anand remained in the lead after Russian Vladimir Kramnik failed to bring home full points from a winning position against Magnus Carlsen of Norway in the 1,45,000 Euros prize money tournament being played on a round-robin basis.

On a day of drawn games for the first time in the tournament, the status quo remained and Anand continued to share the lead with Carlsen and Luke McShane of England on 10 points in the Soccer like scoring system in use that gives three points for a win and one for a draw.

Kramnik and Hikaru Nakamura share the fourth spot now on nine points each while Adams is sole sixth on seven points, well ahead of compatriots David Howell, who has three points, and Nigel Short, who has just two points with his two draws so far.

With just one round remaining, Anand faces arch-rival Kramnik, Carlsen is up against Short while McShane will take on Howell. The fact that Anand is playing white in the crucial last game gives the Indian ample chances to stay clear of the rest of the field in case he is able to register a victory.

Playing black against Adams, Anand did not face any difficulties. It was a Sicilian Najdorf by the Indian ace who showed right intentions for a full-bloodied battle but Adams shied away from complicated lines and stuck to his basics out of a positional system.

Anand equalised comfortably out of the opening and it looked as if he was pressing for an advantage in the endgame that ensued.

However, an alert Adams kept black's forces at bay and once he had established an outpost for his knight in the middle of the board the outcome of a the game was a foregone conclusion. The peace was signed on move 54.

Kramnik may not get a sound sleep in reflection of what he missed. The Russian could have been the sole leader and that many believed was just a notion once he got the winning position out a Nimzowitch defense that Carlsen employed with his black pieces.

With an army-like pawn structure in the centre, Kramnik almost forcibly won a piece and had a huge material advantage when he missed out on a brilliant exploit that was seen only by Carlsen.

Up a Bishop against just one pawn, Kramnik had to split the point in 86 moves.

In other games of the day, Luke McShane went for the English opening and sorted out his middle game problems through perpetual checks to earn a draw against Nakamura while Nigel Short's hunt for an elusive victory continued after he could not demonstrate an advantage with his King's gambit against Howell.

In the open section being held simultaneously, International Master Sahaj Grover misplayed a winning position and lost against Grandmaster Neil McDonald of England.

Sahaj, needed 1.5 points from the last two games for his second GM norm and this is already the second time in under three weeks that the talented youngster missed on the opportunity to make the norm after a fine start.

Earlier in the Cultural village tournament in Wijk Aan Zee, Sahaj needed a draw in the final round to make the grade.

Former world junior champion Abhijeet Gupta gave a fine demonstration of his endgame skills to beat Gary Quillan of England to share the fourth spot on six points while Sahaj remained on 5.5 following the loss.

The event is being jointly led by English duo of Simon Williams and Gwain Jones both of who have seven points in their kitty.

Results Classic round 6: Michael Adams (Eng, 7) drew with V Anand (Ind, 10); Vladimir Kramnik (Rus, 9) drew with Magnus Carlsen (Nor, 10); Luke McShane (Eng, 10) drew with Hikaru Nakamura (Usa, 9); Nigel Short (Eng, 2) drew with David Howell (Eng, 3).

source: The Times of India

Chong Eu's unreserved support for chess

2010-12-03T15:09:00.000+08:00

CHESS
QUAH SENG SUN

Remembering Tun Dr Lim Chong Eu, an honorary patron of the MCF and the Penang Chess Association.

I STARTED playing chess quite late in my school life – when I was in Form Three. Before that, chess meant almost nothing to me. Hard to imagine it now, but it’s true.

It took me about five years from the time I saw my first chess pieces before I started learning to play. I still remember the occasion when I laid eyes on the pieces. It was at the end of the year. I was in Standard Four and there was this guy, one of my classmates, who was showing around his set of mysterious wooden pieces.

For a young boy whose only exposure to the chequered board at that time was the game of draughts (or checkers, if you like), I took the revelation that there could be other forms of board games, rather coolly.

Anyhow, that was my first exposure to chess. That classmate of mine turned out to be the younger son of Tun Dr Lim Chong Eu, Penang’s second chief minister who passed away more than a week ago.

I don’t know at all whether Tun Dr Lim played chess but I do know that my classmate friend must have got the inspiration for the game from one of his father’s closest buddies.

In case anyone doesn’t know, that would be Prof Dr Lim Kok Ann from Singapore, an expert on bacteriology who later became the general secretary of the World Chess Federation (Fide).

The two Lims – Tun Dr Lim and Prof Dr Lim – had forged a close friendship since their university days in Edinburgh, Scotland, in the 1940s. It was a friendship that later contributed a significant part to the growth of chess in this country and beyond.

In 1974, Fide was celebrating its golden jubilee and had wanted their affiliates to organise chess events in their part of the world. Prof Dr Lim was then already the Fide Zone 10 president and he wanted to organise the first Asian team chess championship.

Enter the Malaysian Chess Federation (MCF). The federation was formed that year; its founding president, Datuk Tan Chin Nam, had quickly persuaded Malaysia’s second Prime Minister, Tun Abdul Razak, to donate a handsome silver challenge trophy in his name.

But still, where could the tournament be held? At this point, Datuk Tan and Prof Dr Lim turned to the one friend that they had in common: Tun Dr Lim who, five years earlier, had become the Chief Minister of Penang. Datuk Tan had known Tun Dr Lim since the 1960s.

When the idea was mooted to Tun Dr Lim, he readily agreed to let the MCF use the Dewan Sri Pinang for the Asian team chess championship.

Through the state government, Tun Dr Lim also lent much support to the numerous activities in Penang during the Fide golden jubilee celebrations, in particular, the Fide bureau meetings that were held at the Merlin Hotel (now the City Bayview Hotel).

For his unreserved support for chess, Tun Dr Lim was made an honorary patron of the MCF and the Penang Chess Association. The other honorary patrons of the MCF were the nation’s first three prime ministers: Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Abdul Razak and Tun Hussein Onn.

Low-key affair at chess tournament

2010-11-26T15:27:00.000+08:00

Chess
By Quah Seng Sun

All is quiet on the Asian front.

THE first time is always very eventful – the first time you take part in a local tournament, the first time you return home with a prize, the first time you represent the country in a sports event. For organisations, it may be the first time your game is featured in a multi-sport event like the SEA Games, or the Asian Games.

I remember when chess was first included in the SEA Games in Vietnam in 2003, the Malaysian Chess Federation (MCF) made a lot of fuss over the fact.

Rightly so, because it also marked the first time the MCF ever went anywhere under the banner of the Olympic Council of Malaysia (OCM).

Chess was also in the 2005 SEA Games in the Philippines and the Malaysian chess players were also right there mixing with the athletes of the other sports. But thereafter, for the 2007 Games in Thailand and the 2009 Games in Laos, chess was dropped.

Nevertheless, there is also the Asian Games which is a much bigger and more significant multi-sport event than the SEA Games. When chess was introduced to the 2006 Asian Games in Doha, Qatar, there was much hope that the MCF would participate, but it did not.

But being absent once does not mean being absent a second time. This year at the 16th Asian Games in Guangzhou, China, the Malaysian chess players are finally there.

It was a rather small contingent of three chess players that were picked for duty in Guangzhou: Mok Tze Meng, Alia Anin Bakri and Nur Nabila Azman. They would play in only the men’s and women’s individual rapid chess tournaments and come home immediately. There would be no Malaysian team in the men’s and women’s classical chess tournaments.

When I asked the MCF secretary about this, he said that everything boiled down to mainly two issues: funding and player availability.

As far as the OCM was concerned, chess was in their B category of games, which means that if the MCF wanted to play in the Asian Games in Guangzhou, the federation or the players would have to raise their own funds.

As for player availability, many of them were indisposed due to work. Some had already taken time off for other tournaments so it was near impossible for them to play again this year. So a decision was taken not to play in the team events.

All that was left was for Mok, Alia and Nur Nabila to play in the individual rapid chess events. Perhaps because of this, the MCF decided against informing the Malaysian chess public about our participation in this Asian Games. Personally, I feel that instead of keeping it very low key, the MCF should still have announced it just for the record.

Mok played in the men’s rapid chess individual tournament and finished 38th, while both Alia and Nur Nabila participated in the women’s rapid chess individual tournament and finished in the 22nd and 28th spots, respectively. Both events consisted of nine rounds of rapid chess games and these were completed in four days.

As a measure of the strength of the men’s rapid chess tournament, 12 of the participating countries sent their top grandmasters. Indeed, Mok found out the hard way that negotiating his way through this minefield of grandmasters was no easy task. His quest for a first grandmaster title norm will have to wait.

The rapid chess gold medal went to Uzebekistan’s Ruslan Kasimdzhanov who scored 7½ points. Kasimdzhanov was the FIDE world chess champion in 2004 and he had been working with Viswanathan Anand in preparation for the latter’s world chess championship matches in 2008 and 2010.

Vietnam’s Le Quang Liem also scored 7½ points but he had to settle for the silver. The bronze medal went to China’s Bu Xiangzhi.

The women’s rapid chess tournament also featured several top-class players that included three with full-fledged grandmaster titles.

The Chinese grandmasters made a clean sweep of the top medals with Hou Yifan, as the outright winner of the event, taking the gold and Zhao Xue the silver. India’s Dronavalli Harika took the bronze.

Meanwhile, there are 17 teams taking part in the men’s team tournament and 12 teams in the women’s team tournament. In both events, China are the top seeds for the gold medal. The ninth and final round of both events is scheduled for today.

source: The Star Online

Magnus Carlsen pulls out from world chess match

2010-11-22T15:22:00.000+08:00

CHESS By QUAH SENG SUN

Norwegian grandmaster Magnus Carlsen shocks chess world by withdrawing from Candidates matches.

IF you are waiting for the next world chess championship match to be played between Viswanathan Anand and Magnus Carlsen (pic), you can forget about it.

It’s not going to happen any time soon, not after the gifted 19-year-old Norwegian (he’ll be celebrating his 20th birthday on Nov 30) pulled out from the Candidates matches that are due to be played next March.

It was a decision that shocked the chess world. The Norwegian grandmaster is currently the highest rated player in the world. Certainly, a match between him and defending champion Anand would have captured the world’s imagination.

But in order to reach Anand for the title, Carlsen would have to go through the series of elimination Candidates mini-matches. First off would be the Candidates quarter-final match and if he was successful, then the Candidates semi-final match and then the Candidates final match itself. The winner earns a ticket at a tilt with Anand in 2012.

Last week, Carlsen informed the World Chess Federation (Fide) that he was withdrawing from the Candidates. He claimed that the current world championship cycle was unfair to him. Also, the rules were not sufficiently modern enough. As such, he would not be able to motivate himself to compete.

What Carlsen wanted was an end to the Candidates matches. He preferred an eight to 10 player world championship tournament to decide who would be the world champion, like what was played in 2005 and 2007. He didn’t like the idea of a series of knock-out matches.

Well, maybe to a teenager, the matches are not exciting or appealing enough. But to the rest of the world – and when I say the “rest of the world”, I mean the top-ranked professional chess players – the return to the Candidates matches were what they demanded and received from Fide.

Few of the professional chess players wanted the world championship title to be decided on tournament play. There are tournaments a-plenty to satisfy the professional players throughout the year but a true test of a worthy champion, they said, is the ability to go through a series of games in a match with his challenger. For example, if two players were to play for the very highest stakes, would they want to stake everything on only one game or on a series of games?

Therein lies the other argument in Carlsen’s withdrawal: the world championship is not a fight on equal terms. While players have to slug it out in the Candidates quarter-finals, semi-finals and final matches, the champion only needs to sit pretty and wait for a challenger to emerge.

Why should one player have one out of two tickets to the final, which is to the detriment of all remaining players in the world, he asked. Curiously enough, he then made a puzzling comparison. Imagine, he said, if the winner of the 2010 Football World Cup directly qualifies for the 2014 World Cup final, while all the rest of the teams fight for the other spot.

To me, this comparison with the World Cup is simply not spot-on. World championship chess and the football World Cup are two different creatures. World championship chess is a contest between individuals whereas the World Cup is a team game.

In any tournament for individuals, the players do not change once the event had started. In team events, the players in a team do change from game to game. Even if two football teams play each other in quick succession, in all practical likelihood, the make-up of the teams on the two occasions would be different. Thus it makes little sense to make this sort of comparison.

Another of Carlsen’s argument was that five years was too long to complete a world chess championship cycle. To me, this is certainly true. However, one must understand the turmoil that the world chess had undergone in the last two decades.

Since the days of Wilhelm Steinitz (the year was 1886), there had been a long chain of undisputed world chess champions. This chain snapped in 1993 when Garry Kasparov and Nigel Short chose to play their world championship match outside Fide. For 14 years, there were two parallel championship cycles.

Although unification of the two titles eventually happened in 2006 after a lot of intense negotiation, the stakeholders still had much to demand from Fide. You can say that Fide had to tread a fine line to satisfy everyone involved and that needed time. But eventually, everything settled down and there is now again one accepted format and one undisputed world chess champion in Anand. It was a tough lesson learnt. Would anyone want to repeat the same mistake?

But of course, it is all up to Carlsen. If he chooses to withdraw from the Candidates matches, that is up to him. Nobody can force him to accept a system which he dislikes. So without him playing, there is no potential Anand versus Carlsen world chess championship match to look forward to.

Nevertheless, the situation is still okay by Fide. All this had been anticipated and one or two days later, the world body announced that Alexander Grischuk has replaced Carlsen in the Candidates.

The Candidates matches will be world class with or without the Norwegian grandmaster. Only difference is that it will have less glamour.

In fact, come next year, I’ll be looking forward to Veselin Topalov vs Gata Kamsky, Vladimir Kramnik vs Teimour Radjabov, Levon Aronian vs Alexander Grischuk, and Boris Gelfand vs Shakhriyar Mamedyarov.

source: The Star Online

Kaji Selidik Merancang Kewangan

2010-11-21T15:24:00.000+08:00

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Chess powerhouse

2010-11-16T15:01:00.002+08:00

CHESS
By QUAH SENG SUN

China makes its mark on international chess scene.

FORTY years ago, if I were to mention that chess was a popular game in China, I'm sure that you wouldn't be thinking of any other type of chess than xiangqi, better known to many of us as Chinese Chess.

And you wouldn't be wrong. Yes, down the centuries, xiangqi was the most popular board game in China and really, nothing has changed till today. It will always remain their most popular board game.

But there was a small section of people in China who decided on the big step to cross over and play what is known to you and me as international chess. It wasn't that they were abandoning the game that was their heritage but more that they were the innovators who decided to explore beyond their cultural boundaries.

In the years since then, there is no denying that China has become a very significant player on the international chess stage.

At the last Chess Olympiad in Khanty-Mansiysk for example, the Chinese national chess team finished fifth among 145 countries in the open event. That was no mean feat. Ahead of China were only the Ukraine, the Russian first team, Israel and Hungary, all very high-powered teams.

Plus, breathing down the Chinese necks were the Russian second team, Armenia, Spain, the United States and France. These teams finished with the same points as China but they lost out on the tie-breaks.

And in the Women's Chess Olympiad, the Chinese women were second behind the first Russian women's team. All in all, there is no denying that as a chess-playing nation, the Chinese are very strong indeed.

But what about their individual chess players? For this, there are two reference points: one is the static World Chess Federation's rating list that is published every two months, and the other is the rarified chess live rating list that ranks the chess players in the world who have an international rating of at least 2700.

The live rating list is dynamically changing all the time and presently, there are only 39 chess players on it. If a player gets onto this list, he is among the crème de la crème. China can claim to have two players there: Wang Yue is ranked 13th in the world and Wang Hao is joint 15th.

Lately, China has also been making its mark as an international chess organiser. In July, it organised the Asian youth invitational chess championships over various age groups.

And it was only last month that China organised the elite third Nanjing Pearl Spring chess tournament.

How high calibre was this double round-robin event? Well, in the first instance, only six players were invited. In the second instance, the organisers wanted only the best players and who would be among the best players in the world if not for Magnus Carlsen, Veselin Topalov and world chess champion Viswanathan Anand? Yes, indeed.

In the third instance, it was the first time that a chess tournament anywhere would feature three players whose ratings were 2800 or higher.

For 10 days then, all eyes were on Nanjing. There were only three games played every round but they were three games of the highest profile.

Not that the games were free of errors but on the contrary, the errors contributed to the tension and made this event one of the finest ever organised.

Carlsen was in superb form and he practically ran away with the first prize of 80,000. That was equivalent to earning about RM34,400 per game. Not bad for a player who was just a month shy of his 20th birthday.

Anand also turned in a strong performance but it was not enough to challenge Carlsen for the first prize. In fact, at one stage of the tournament, Anand was in danger of finishing third after losing to Etienne Bacrot but a combination of luck and hard work landed him the second prize of 55,000 (about RM236,000).

Bacrot was delighted with his third placing and I suppose, Vugar Gashimov, too, who finished fourth. An off-form Topalov found himself in fifth place, while a most disappointed Wang Yue finished last. He had the home support but this was just not his tournament.

This game is a typical example of the high tension in this event. If Carlsen had won this game, he would have pulled far, far ahead of his rivals and if Anand had lost this game, who knows what psychological damage it would have inflicted on him. But a draw, well, it allowed him to fight on for another day.

White: Magnus Carlsen (Norway)
Black: Viswanathan Anand (India)

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6 4.0-0 Nxe4 5.Re1 Nd6 6.Nxe5 Be7 7.Bf1 Nf5 8.Nf3 0-0 9.d4 d5 10.c3 Bd6 11.Bd3 Nce7 12.Nbd2 c6 13.Nf1 Ng6 14.Qc2 Nfh4 15.Nxh4 Qxh4 16.g3 Qd8 17.Ne3 Re8 18.Bd2 Nf8 19.Nf5 Bc7 20.Rxe8 Qxe8 21.Re1 Be6 22.Qc1 f6 23.Qd1 Qd7 24.Qf3 Re8 25.h4 (Undeniably, White has the better game here.)

25...Bf7 26.Rf1 Bg6 27.h5 Bxf5 28.Bxf5 Qf7 29.Kg2 g6 30.Bd3 f5 31.Rh1 Ne6 32.hxg6 hxg6 33.g4 (The first sign of tension) 33…Bf4 34.Be3 (34.Bxf4 is answered by 34...fxg4) 34...fxg4? (The second sign of tension. 34...Bxe3 would have been correct. Now, White increases his pressure on Black.)

35.Qxg4 Kg7 36.Rh5 (The threat of 37.Rf5 would be winning.) 36...Bxe3 37.fxe3 Nf8 38.Rh3 Kg8 39.Rf3 Qe6 40.Qf4 Kg7 41.b3 Qe7 42.c4 Rd8 43.Rh3 Rd6 44.Qh6+ Kg8 45.cxd5 cxd5 46.e4 Qg7 47.Qe3 Qe7 48.e5 Rc6 49.Qh6 Qg7 50.Qh4 a6 51.Rf3 Qd7 52.b4 b5 53.a3 Qc7 54.Kg3 Kg7 55.Bb1 Nh7 56.Ba2 Qd7 57.Bb3 Rc1 58.Kh2 Rb1 59.Bc2 Rb2 60.Rc3 Qf7 61.Kg3 (The third sign of growing tension. After 61.e6, Black's overworked queen cannot defend both his second rank and the g6 pawn.) 61...Nf8 62.Rf3 Qe6 63.Qd8?? (The fourth sign of tension. White throws the win away, having missed 63.Rf6 Qe8 64.Rf2 Ra2 65.Qf6+ Kg8 66.Bb3 Rxa3 67.Rf3. The game heads to a draw.) 63...Nd7 64.Rf2 Ra2 65.Kh2 Qg4 66.Qe7+ Kh6 67.Qd8 Qh5+ 68.Kg2 Qg4+ ½-½

source: The Star

Momentary slowdown

2010-10-29T14:28:00.000+08:00

CHESS
QUAH SENG SUN

The fourth quarter of the year is a good time for chess enthusiasts to pursue a little diversion.

LAST week, I asked a few chess players what they would be doing if they were not playing chess on weekends.

Right now there is a lull in local chess activities. Chess activities haven’t stopped but have slowed down considerably.

It happens almost like clockwork because the main bulk of chess players get too preoccupied with school revision work and examinations until the end of November.

The responses I received were varied but almost predictable. Watch football on television. Visit the shopping malls. Join the gym. Go for cinema shows. Indulge in photography pursuits. Catch up on reading. “Chess books?” I murmured. “No, just newspapers,” one replied.

Go web-surfing. Yeah, right, I thought, turn to the Internet for some instant chess gratification.

“Maybe I’ll catch up with you on one of the Internet chess servers,” I told a friend, adding: “There are some great top-level tournaments going on.”

“Erm, no,” he replied, “maybe I’ll see you on Facebook instead.”

My own non-chess hobbies may overlap with many other people’s, and it is during this stretch that I indulge more in them than at any other time of the year.

There is one person I know who turns himself completely off from chess in a big way at the end of the year. Come mid-October, he would jet off to Melbourne to immerse himself in the Spring Racing Carnival there. He owns a number of thoroughbred horses, you see.

Just last Saturday, he watched his horse, So You Think, thunder down the track at Melbourne’s Moonee Valley race course to lift the Cox Plate for the second time in two years. Come tomorrow, So You Think is again the favourite to win the Mackinnon Stakes at the Victoria Derby.

In Australia, Datuk Tan Chin Nam is regarded as one of the most successful, if not the most successful, horse owners in recent history. A four-time winner of the Melbourne Cup which takes place on the first Tuesday of November.

And come to think of it, that’s just next Tuesday, four days away.

There are two ways to enjoy the Melbourne Cup races in Australia: be there yourself at the Flemington race course in Melbourne, or entrench yourself in one of the drinking holes around Australia and cheer on the horses on television with scores of other beer guzzlers.

Or alternatively, be an audience of one and watch the races on television at home here in Malaysia. The Australia Network says that they’ll be carrying the races live and it so happens that this channel is available on Astro. It offers the same thrill as the two options mentioned above, but that’s what I’ll be doing.

I shall leave you this week with a mention that the annual World Youth Chess Championships are currently taking place in Greece. The official website is wycc2010.chessdom.com/

Among the 814 boys and 573 girls from around the world taking part, 14 of them are our own boys and girls battling in the under-8, under-10, under-12, under-14 and under-16 age group events in the championships. The event ends tomorrow.

source: The Star Online

Our Chess Olympiad players did us proud

2010-10-19T13:24:00.000+08:00

CHESS
By QUAH SENG SUN

Kudos to our players for turning in their best.

IN the last week or so since the end of the Chess Olympiad, I have witnessed heated debates in the local chess scene about the selection process and the performance of our men’s team in Khanty Mansiysk.

The post-mortem was lively but personally, I believe that while everyone has a right to say whatever he wants about chess in this country, the debates do not matter anymore. It’s moot; the Chess Olympiad’s over.

It’s important to me, however, that we look on the positive side. At the Olympiad, what struck me was that our players tried their best. Each and every one of them, in their own way, gave their best to the Malaysian team. Collectively, it was a team effort from start to finish.

Girl power: The Malaysian women’s team comprising (from left) Nurul Huda Wahiduddin, Nur Nabila Azman Hashim, Alia Anin Bakri, Fong Mi Yen and Roslina Marmono.

So allow me to acknowledge the contributions of our players, both the men’s and women’s teams.

For Mas Hafizulhelmi, playing on the first board on the men’s team was never going to be easy. The final round was very unfortunate for him (refer to last week’s column to know what happened) but to his credit, he scored 5½ points from 10 games. That’s a 55% score.

Neither was it supposed to be easy for Alia Anin Bakri who played on the first board of the women’s team. However, she turned in the most memorable result for the Malaysian contingent. Seven points from 11 games for a 63.6% score. It’s uncertain whether her results would merit her the title of woman international master (WIM) but at the very least, it should be good enough for a WIM norm.

I’m crossing my fingers that FIDE, the World Chess Federation, will award her the title.

In the men’s team, Mok Tze Meng’s uncompromising style on the second board netted him six points from 11 games (a 54.4% result). Peter Long was a very steady player on the fourth board and he turned in 5½ points from 11 games (a 50% score). Both Mok and Long were the only players in the men’s team to play every round of the Olympiad.

Current national champion Tan Khai Boon was probably overwhelmed by his first international duty but he still contributed three points from nine games (a 33.3% result). I believe the tension got to him towards the end of the event and he was replaced by Gregory Lau. Despite playing only three games (winning two of them with a 66.7% result), Lau will be best remembered for delivering that vital final point for the Malaysian men’s team.

On the second board in the women’s team was Nur Nabila Azman Hisham. Like Alia, Nabila played in all 11 rounds and she scored five points for a 45.4% result. Although Nurul Huda Wahiduddin brought in only one point from six games on the third board, she achieved an important draw against a Dutch woman international master in the ninth round.

Roslina Marmono had a 50% result as our fourth board player, collecting 3½ points from seven games while our debutant reserve board player, Fong Mi Yen, who is also the current national women’s champion, had the tournament of her life with 5½ points from nine games (a 61.1% result).

I’m still waiting for word from the Malaysian Chess Federation whether this would warrant Fong a woman candidate master title from FIDE.

Finally, the games this week feature some of the best moves from our women players:

White: Alia Anin Bakri (Malaysia)

Black: IM Baquero Martha Fierro (Ecuador)

1. d4 g6 2. Nf3 Bg7 3. e4 d6 4. c4 Nf6 5. Nc3 O-O 6. Be2 Nbd7 7. O-O e5 8. Be3 Ng4 9. Bg5 f6 10. Bd2 c6 11. Ne1 Nh6 12. d5 f5 13. dxc6 bxc6 14. Bxh6 Bxh6 15. Qxd6 Rf6 16. Qd1 Qe7 17. Qc2 Nc5 18. Rd1 a5 19. Bf3 Ne6 20. Ne2 Ng5 21. Ng3 f4 22. Ne2 Nxf3+ 23. Nxf3 g5 24. Qd3 Bg4 25. h3 Bh5 26. Qd7 Re8 27. Qxe7 Rxe7 28. Rd8+ Bf8 29. Ra8 g4 30. hxg4 Bxg4 31. Rd1 Rg7 32. Kf1 Rh6 33. Neg1 Bxf3 34. Nxf3 Rh1+ 35. Ke2 Rxd1 36. Kxd1 Rxg2 37. Ke2 Kg7 38. Rxa5 Kf6 39. Rxe5 Bd6 40. Rf5+ Ke7 41. Rh5 Rg7 42. Nd4 Kd7 43. Kf3 Re7 44. Ne2 Ke8 45. Nxf4 Rf7 46. Rf5 Ra7 47. a3 Ra4 48. c5 Bxf4 49. Kxf4 Rc4 50. f3 Rc2 51. b4 Rc3 52. Rh5 1-0

White: Damaris Abarca Gonzalez (Chile)

Black: Alia Anin Bakri (Malaysia)

1. e4 e6 2. d3 d5 3. Nd2 Nf6 4. g3 Bc5 5. Bg2 dxe4 6. dxe4 e5 7. Ngf3 Nc6 8. O-O O-O 9. Qe2 Qe7 10. c3 a6 11. b4 Bd6 12. a4 Be6 13. Nc4 Rfd8 14. Bg5 h6 15. Bxf6 Qxf6 16. Ne3 Ne7 17. Rab1 c6 18. c4 b6 19. Qc2 Bc7 20. Rfd1 Ng6 21. b5 cxb5 22. axb5 axb5 23. Nd5 Bxd5 24. cxd5 Bd6 25. Rxb5 Bc5 26. Qe2 Ra7 27. h4 Rda8 28. Rdb1 Qd6 29. h5 Ne7 30. R5b2 Qf6 31. Qd3 Ra3 32. Rb3 Ra2 33. R1b2 Ra1+ 34. Bf1 R8a3 35. Rxa3 Rxa3 36. Rb3 Ra2 37. Be2 Nc8 38. Rc3 Nd6 39. Rc2 Ra4 40. Qb3 Ra1+ 41. Kg2 Nxe4 42. Qb2 Ra8 43. Qxe5 Qxe5 44. Nxe5 Rd8 45. f4 Nf6 46. Bc4 Bd6 47. Rb2 Bxe5 48. fxe5 Nxd5 49. Kf3 Nc7 50. Rxb6 Re8 51. Rc6 Re7 52. Kf4 Kf8 53. Rd6 Ne8 54. Rd8 Rb7 55. Bd5 Rc7 56. Bb3 Rb7 57. Bd5 Rc7 58. Kf5 Ke7 59. Rb8 Rc1 60. Bb3 Rc3 61. g4 Nc7 62. Rb7 Rf3+ 63. Ke4 Rc3 64. Kd4 Rc1 65. Bc4 Rd1+ 66. Bd3 Kd8 67. Ke4 Ne6 68. Rb5? Re1+ 69. Kf5 Nd4+ 70. Kf4 Nxb5 71. Bxb5 Ke7 72. Bc4 Rc1 73. Bd5 Rf1+ 74. Ke4 Re1+ 75. Kf4 f6 76. e6 Re5 77. Bc4 Kd6 78. Ba2 Rb5 79. Kf3 f5 80. Kf4 fxg4 81. Kxg4 Rg5+ 82. Kh4 Ke7 83. Bc4 Kf6 84. Ba2 Rb5 85. Kg4 Rb2 86. Bd5 Rb4+ 87. Kg3 Rb5 88. Bf3 Kxe6 89. Bg4+ Kf6 90. Be2 Rb4 0-1

White: Roslina Marmono (Malaysia)

Black: Sohair Basta (Eqypt)

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. Qc2 c5 5. e3 cxd4 6. exd4 Nc6 7. Nf3 O-O 8. Bd3 h6 9. O-O d5 10. c5 Bxc3 11. bxc3 Qc7 12. Re1 a6 13. h3 Bd7 14. Ne5 Ne7 15. Bf4 Qa5 16. Nxd7 Nxd7 17. Rab1 Ra7 18. Bd6 Re8 19. f4 Qd8 20. f5 exf5 21. Bxf5 Nxf5 22. Qxf5 Nf6 23. Rxe8+ Qxe8 24. Qe5 Qxe5 25. dxe5 Ne4 26. Rb3 Nxd6 27. exd6 Kf8 28. c4 dxc4 29. Re3 Ra8 30. Rc3 Ke8 31. Rxc4 Kd7 32. Kf2 Re8 33. Rc2 Re5 34. Kf3 g5 35. g4 Kc6 36. Kf2 Re4 37. Rd2 Kd7 38. Re2 Rc4 39. Re7+ Kd8 40. Rxb7 Rxc5 ½-½

White: Fayrouz Elgohary (Eqypt)

Black: Fong Mi Yen (Malaysia)

1. d4 g6 2. Nf3 Bg7 3. e4 d6 4. Nbd2 Nc6 5. c3 Nf6 6. Bd3 e5 7. O-O O-O 8. h3 Nh5 9. Nb3 h6 10. Be3 Qf6 11. Nc1 Kh7 12. Ne2 Bxh3 13. Ng3 Bg4 14. Nxh5 gxh5 15. Be2 Rg8 16. dxe5 dxe5 17. Nh2 Rad8 18. Qc2 Qg6 19. Nxg4 hxg4 20. Rad1 Bf6 21. Rxd8 Bxd8 22. g3 h5 23. Kg2 Rh8 24. Rh1 Kg7 25. Bd2 Ne7 26. Bd3 Qf6 27. Qd1 Ng6 28. Be3 a6 29. Bc2 Be7 30. Qe2 b5 31. a3 c5 32. Bd1 Nf4+ 33. gxf4 exf4 34. Bxf4 Qxf4 35. Qd3 Rd8 36. Qg3 Qxe4+ 0-1.

source: The Star Online

Mixed fortunes at Chess Olympiad

2010-10-01T18:57:00.000+08:00

Chess
BY QUAH SENG SUN

Highs and lows at this year’s Chess Olympiad.

IT IS at times like this, with the Chess Olympiad in full swing, that I yearn to own the biggest computer monitor so that I can open multiple windows with my web browser and view several chess games simultaneously.

In any given round of this Chess Olympiad in Khanty-Mansiysk, there are 524 games being played at the same time. Of course, many games are not worth the time to follow but certainly, it is always useful to keep an eye out for those match-ups between the top countries. And there are plenty.

Tan Khai Boon (white) vs Vladimir Klasan (black).

Then there are the games of the Malaysian teams. Regardless of who they play against, as a Malaysian I follow their progress closely. I cheer when the team wins and despair when they miss winning chances and lose. So far in this Chess Olympiad, I’ve had my fair share of highs and lows.

Take, for example, the seventh round on Tuesday. The men were playing a team from the International Committee for Silent Chess (ICSC). The ICSC is one of three non-country teams in the event, the other two being the International Braille Chess Association (IBCA) and the International Physically Disabled Chess Association (IPCA).

The match between Malaysia and the ICSC started off well enough and our players – Mas Hafizulhelmi, Mok Tze Meng, Tan Khai Boon and Peter Long – were pressing their opponents hard. There were good chances of them winning the match.

But suddenly, the tables turned. Mok came under heavy pressure, could not defend his position adequately and had to resign his game. Long’s defence unravelled and he had to resign also. Mas Hafizul suddenly found his king being encircled by enemy pieces and he, too, had to give up. These frustrations aside, the consolation came when Tan rounded off the evening with a decisive attack on his opponent. That game cheered me up. Here it is.

White: Tan Khai Boon (Malaysia)

Black: Vladimir Klasan (ICSC)

Eduardas Rozentalis (white) vs Mas Hafizulhelmi (black).

1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 dxc4 5. a4 Bf5 6. Ne5 Nbd7 7. Nxc4 Nb6 8. Ne5 a5 9. f3 Nfd7 10. Nxd7 Nxd7 11. e4 Bg6 12. Be2 Qb6 13. h4 h5 14. f4 e6 15. O-O e5 16. f5 exd4 17. fxg6 dxc3+ 18. Kh1 O-O-O 19. bxc3 Ne5 20. Qc2 f6 21. Rb1 Qa7 22. Bf4 Nxg6 23. e5 Nxf4 24. Rxf4 Be7 25. Qf5+ Kc7 26. Qg6 Qc5 27. Rc4 Qa3 28. Qe4 Bc5 29. Bf3 Rc8 30. Qg6 Rhe8 31. Qxg7+ Re7 32. Qxf6 Rce8 (see Diagram 1) 33. Rxb7+ Kxb7 34. Qxc6+ Ka7 35. Rxc5 Qc1+ 36. Kh2 Qf4+ 37. g3 Qd2+ 38. Bg2 Qd8 39. Rb5 Qc7 40. Qd5 Ka6 41. Rc5 1-0

Until the seventh round of this Chess Olympiad, the most memorable round for the Malaysians must be the third. Our men were playing against a strong Lithuanian team that comprised three grandmasters and one international master.

Like many others watching through the Internet, we were expecting the worst but on the contrary, our players rose to the occasion and at one point, there were real chances of our team winning the match. Unfortunately, that was not to be and all they got away with was a tied match.

This, here, is Mas Hafizul’s Herculean effort on the first board. In my opinion, a masterful game in which he gave up a pawn but completely tied down his grandmaster opponent. A good strategical decision.

White: Eduardas Rozentalis (Lithuania)

Black: Mas Hafizulhelmi (Malaysia)

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Bb5+ Nc6 4. O-O Bd7 5. Re1 Nf6 6. h3 a6 7. Bf1 Ne5 8. Nxe5 dxe5 9. a4 e6 10. b3 Bc6 11. d3 Bd6 12. a5 Bc7 13. Bd2 O-O 14. Bc3 Nd7 15. Nd2 Bb5 16. Qb1 Rc8 17. Nc4 f6 18. g3 Rf7 19. Bg2 Nb8 20. Qd1 Nc6 21. Qd2 Bxc4 22. bxc4 Nb4 23. Bxb4 cxb4 24. Qxb4 Bd6 25. Qd2 Bf8 26. Red1 Rd7 27. Qe1 Bc5 28. Rdb1 Rf7 29. Qd2 Qd6 30. Kh1 Ba7 31. Ra4 Rcc7 32. Rf1 Rfd7 (see Diagram2) 33. f4 Qd4 34. Qe2 exf4 35. gxf4 Rc5 36. Ra3 g6 37. Qf3 Qb2 38. Rfa1 Qxc2 39. Rf1 Qb2 40. Rfa1 Rh5 41. R3a2 Qc3 42. Ra3 Qb4 43. Ra4 Qd6 44. Rf1 Bb8 45. c5 Rxc5 46. d4 Qc6 47. dxc5 Qxa4 48. e5 Qc2 49. exf6 Qxc5 50. Qb3 Kf7 51. Bxb7 Qxa5 52. Bc8 Qd5+ 53. Qxd5 Rxd5 54. Re1 Rd6 55. Ra1 Rc6 56. Bb7 Rb6 57. Bc8 Rc6 58. Bb7 Rc3 59. Bxa6 Rxh3+ 60. Kg2 Rc3 61. Ra4 Kxf6 62. Bb7 Kf5 63. Be4+ Kf6 64. Bf3 Rc2+ 65. Kh3 Rf2 66. Kg3 Rb2 67. Kh3 Bd6 68. Rd4 Rb6 69. Kg2 Kf5 70. Be4+ Kf6 71. Bf3 Bb8 72. Bg4 Rb2+ 73. Kf3 h5 74. Bh3 Rb3+ 75. Kg2 e5 76. fxe5+ Bxe5 77. Rd7 g5 78. Rh7 Rg3+ 79. Kh2 Re3+ 80. Kg2 Kg6 0-1

And below is Mok’s game in the same Malaysia-Lithuania match. Our player had very good chances to win but he missed the best continuation and allowed his grandmaster opponent to wriggle out with a draw.

White: Mok Tze Meng (Malaysia)

Mok Tze Meng (white) vs Sarunas Sulskis (black).

Black: Sarunas Sulskis (Lithuania)

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Bc4 Be6 4. d3 Nf6 5. Nc3 c5 6. Bg5 Be7 7. Bxf6 Bxf6 8. Nd5 Nd7 9. h3 Nb6 10. Nxb6 Qxb6 11. b3 Qc6 12. a4 O-O 13. O-O d5 14. exd5 Bxd5 15. Bxd5 Qxd5 16. Qe2 g6 17. Qe4 Qxe4 18. dxe4 c4 19. Rfd1 Rfd8 20. Kf1 Rac8 21. Rxd8+ Rxd8 22. Ke2 Be7 23. Rd1 Rxd1 24. Kxd1 f6 25. Nd2 cxb3 26. cxb3 Kf7 27. Ke2 Ke6 28. Kd3 Bc5 29. f3 h5 30. Kc4 Be3 31. Nb1 Bd4 32. Na3 f5 33. Nb5 Bf2 34. Nc7+ Kd6 35. exf5 gxf5 36. Ne8+ Ke7 37. Ng7 h4 38. Nxf5+ Ke6 39. Nh6 Be3 40. Ng4 Bb6 41. b4 Bg1 42. Kd3 Kf5 43. Ke2 a6 44. Nf2 b6 45. Kf1 Bh2 46. Ne4 Bf4 47. Ke2 Bh2 48. Kd3 (see Diagram 3) 48…Kf4 49. Ke2 Bg1 50. Nc3 Bd4 51. Nd5+ Kg3 52. Kf1 a5 53. bxa5 bxa5 54. Nf6 Kf4 55. Nd5+ Kg3 56. Ne7 Kf4 57. Ke2 Kg3 58. Nf5+ Kxg2 59. Nxh4+ Kxh3 60. Nf5 Bb6 61. Kd3 Kg2 62. Ke4 Kf2 63. Nh6 Ke2 64. Nf5 Bc7 65. Ne7 Bd6 66. Nc6 Bc7 67. Na7 Kf2 68. Nb5 Bb8 69. Na3 Ke2 70. Nc4 Bc7 71. Nb2 Bb8 72. Nd3 Bd6 73. Nc1+ Kf2 74. Nb3 Bb4 75. Na1 Ke2 76. Nc2 Kd2 77. Ne3 Kc3 78. Kxe5 Kb3 79. Kd5 Kxa4 80. Nc4 ½-½

Visit www.ugra-chess.com to watch the Chess Olympiad games on the Internet. Today’s penultimate round starts at 5pm local time. Tomorrow is a rest day and the final round will be contested on Sunday at 1pm.

--- The Star Online

All set for chess fest

2010-09-02T14:46:00.000+08:00

Chess
By Quah Seng Sun

TODAY is the eve of the Malaysia Chess Festival and tomorrow, the first of six main events – the Merdeka individual rapid open tournament – will kick off the 11-day chess festival at the ballroom of Cititel Hotel at Mid Valley in Kuala Lumpur.

Elsewhere on this page is a summary of the various events that everybody can look forward to. There is something for everyone, be it a simultaneous chess game, a five-minute blitz tournament, a 30-minute rapid chess tournament or a full 90-minute normal time regulation tournament.

Concerns that I voiced last week about the Malaysia Chess Festival taking a possible beating from a major rival tournament being planned at the same time in nearby Manila seems to have eased.

I have been checking with the organisers the whole of this week, and their confidence seems to have been restored. In fact, the organisers are delighted that the response to the festival has exceeded last year’s.

Pitting wits: Current national champions Tan Khai Boon (left) and Fong Mi Yen will be participating in the Malaysia open tournament.

Tomorrow’s one-day event has attracted at least 74 players. This was the number told to me three days ago and as more chess players arrive in Kuala Lumpur, the number of participants is set to increase.

Similarly, too, there are at least 67 teams in the Merdeka team rapid open with foreign grandmasters from Australia, Bangladesh, Uzbekistan, Germany and India joining in the fray.

But the real icing on the cake is the increased entries for the main event, the Datuk Arthur Tan Malaysia open, that will start on Sept 1. Last year, the field consisted of exactly 100 players. Until Tuesday, 135 players have already registered for this year’s edition.

For a long time, the organisers have been overly cautious about disclosing publicly the list of participants for fear that the foreign entries could be persuaded to withdraw and play elsewhere. Maybe the fear was unfounded but then, anything can happen in the world of chess today.

Fong Mi Yen.

Nevertheless, today being the eve of the Malaysia Chess Festival where everything comes together, I can now safely say that the grandmasters registered for the Malaysia open include:

Abhijeet Gupta (India, rated 2587), Zhou Weiqi (China, 2570), Ziaur Rahman (Bangladesh, 2543), Cao Sang (Vietnam, 2540), Prasad Arun (India, 2535), David Smerdon (Australia, 2526), Dao Thien Hai (Vietnam, 2516), Wen Yang (China, 2507), R.R. Laxman (India, 2503), Xu Jun (China, 2503), Nguyen Anh Dung (Vietnam, 2500), Saidali Yuldachev (Uzbekistan, 2496), Jha Sriram (India, 2490), Xu Yuhua (China, 2488), Marat Dzhumaev (Uzbekistan, 2484), Gerhard Schebler (Germany, 2474) and Niaz Murshed (Bangladesh, 2406).

They may not be the top echelon of grandmasters in the world but hey, the Malaysia open was never about attracting the crème de la crème of grandmasters in the first place. Much like water finding its own level, grandmasters and international masters will find the right level of tournaments to suit their playing levels.

Anyway, the Malaysia open will also feature two woman grandmasters from China and Vietnam, at least 18 international masters, several Fide masters and woman Fide masters.

The Malaysian challenge will be spearheaded by international masters Mok Tze Meng and Jimmy Liew.

There is a sizeable number of Malaysian entries and apart from Mok and Liew, we have four national masters in the field, too, namely, Lim Chuin Hoong, current national champion Tan Khai Boon, Edward Lee and Evan Timothy Capel. There will also be a spotlight on Yeoh Li Tian. I should also mention the presence of two of our woman national masters, current women’s national champion Fong Mi Yen and Alia Anin Azwa Bakri, as among the competitors.

--- The Star Online

Clash of the titans

2010-08-13T11:10:00.001+08:00

Chess

by Quah Seng Sun

The game’s super- powers battle it out.

WHO do you think would win if a match were to be played today between Russia and China? Russia is, of course, the traditional chess powerhouse of the world, while China is the top chess-playing country in Asia.

If the top 10 players in each country are taken as the basis of comparison, the Russian men leads their Chinese counterparts by 89 rating points today. And if a comparison is made of their women chess players, the difference is even smaller: a mere 11 points separate the 10 best players from both sides.

Therefore, a match between these two chess superpowers would make a very good reason to determine which country is superior.

And actually, there is such a match going on today. It is the seventh such encounter between the two countries but it did not start out as an annual match because after the first one was played in Shanghai in 2001, there was a three-year gap before the second match was organised in Moscow in 2004.

After that, the chess federations of the two countries thought it best to have an annual match and so, Argun in Russia was the host in 2006, followed by the fourth match in Nizhni Novgorod in 2007, Ningbo in China in 2008, and last year’s match in Sochi, Russia.

Tough opponent: Wang Hao, China’s chess champion.

This year’s match is taking place today in Yinzhou, Ninbo in China. It started on Aug 4 and will end this Sunday. Each side is fielding five men’s players and five women’s players.

The match comprises a Scheveningen-style of team event where the members of each team will play the members of the opposing team once at normal time controls, followed by rapidchess games and finally, a series of blitz games. Of course, to ensure an even playing field, the men are competing among themselves only and likewise, the women are playing among themselves, too.

In the first round, the China men’s team won with a 3-2 score but the Russian women won 3½-1½. In the second round, the Russian men were almost whitewashed when China won by 4½-½. However, the women’s teams fought to a 2½-2½ draw. In the third round, Russia and China tied at 2½-2½ in both the men’s and women’s contests.

The fourth round saw the men drawing on all the boards, while the Russian women edged out their Chinese opponents by a 3-2 margin. In the fifth, both the Chinese men’s and women’s sides won by 3-2.

The final score at the end of the normal time control games on Tuesday was 27 points to the China team and 23 points to Russia.

The Chinese men’s team could take credit that they did not lose any of the rounds. At their worst, they drew the third round but at their best, they almost totally blanked out the Russian men in the second round.

Here are two Wang Hao games from the match. Wang Hao is the current national champion of China. He is also a previous winner of the Malaysia open chess tournament in 2005. The first game below was from the fifth round while the other one was played in the fourth round.

White: Vladimir Potkin (Russia)

Black: Wang Hao (Chinese)

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e3 0-0 5.Bd3 d5 6.Nf3 c5 7.0-0 Nc6 8.a3 Bxc3 9.bxc3 Qc7 10.Bb2 Na5 11.cxd5 exd5 12.Ne5 Re8 13.a4 Rxe5 (A rather inspired exchange sacrifice. In exchange for the rook, Black gets a dominating knight into the game.) 14.dxe5 Qxe5 15.h3 c4 (This fixes White’s black-squared bishop and after which, Black can look to exchanging off White’s other bishop.) 16.Bc2 Bf5 17.Re1 Bxc2 18.Qxc2 Nb3 19.Rad1 Re8 20.f3 Nc5 21.Rd4 Nd3 22.Re2 (It was time to eliminate the black knight with 22.Rxd3.) 22...Nh5 23.e4 (23.Rxd3 is too late because of 23...cxd3 24.Qxd3 Nf4.) 23...Nhf4 24.Rd2 f5 25.Ba3 fxe4 26.fxe4 Qg5 27.Kh2 Rxe4 28.Qd1 Qe5 29.Rxe4 dxe4 30.Qg4 h5 0-1

White: Wang Hao (China)

Black: Sergei Rublevsky (Russia)

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nc6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be2 Qc7 7.0-0 Nf6 8.Be3 Be7 9.f4 d6 10.a4 0-0 11.Kh1 Re8 12.Bf3 Rb8 13.Qd2 Na5 14.b3 b6 15.Rad1 Bb7 16.Nde2 Rbc8 17.Bf2 Nc6 18.g4 d5 19.e5 Ne4 20.Nxe4 dxe4 21.Bg2 Nb4 22.c3 Red8 23.Bd4 Nd5 24.Qc2 e3 25.Qd3 Bc5 26.c4 Bxd4 27.Qxd4 Nf6 28.Qxe3 Nxg4 29.Qg3 h5 30.Nd4 Bxg2+ 31.Kxg2 Qb7+ 32.Kg1 Rd7 33.h3 Nh6 34.Rd2 Rcd8 35.Rfd1 g6 36.Qe3 Kg7 37.Kf2 Qc7 38.Ke2 Kh7 39.Rd3 Qb7 40.Qf3 Qc7 41.Qc6 Rc8 42.Qxc7 Rdxc7 43.Nf3 Nf5 44.Ng5+ Kg8 45.Rd8+ Rxd8 46.Rxd8+ Kg7 47.Ne4 h4 48.Kd3 Rc6 49.b4 Rc7 50.Nf6 Rb7 51.Ra8 a5 52.b5 Ng3 53.Ne8+ Kh6 54.Nd6 Rc7 55.Rh8+ Kg7 56.Rb8 Rc5 57.Rxb6 g5 58.Rc6 g4 59.Ne4 gxh3 60.Nf2 Rxc6 61.bxc6 Nf5 62.Nxh3 Kf8 63.c7 Ne7 64.Kd4 (This was a mistake that threw away the full point. White should have played 64.c5 and 65.c6 to cut off Black’s king from the queenside.) 64...Ke8 65.Kc5 Kd7 66.Kb6 Kc8 67.Ng5 Nf5 68.Kxa5 Kxc7 69.Kb5 Nd4+ 70.Kb4 Kc6 71.a5 Ne2 72.Nh3 Nd4 73.c5 Kb7 74.Kc4 Nc6 75.Kb5 Nd4+ 76.Kc4 Nc6 77.Ng5 Nxa5+ 78.Kd3 Kc6 79.Ke4 Nb3 80.Kf3 Nxc5 81.Kg4 Nd3 82.Nh3 Kd5 83.Kxh4 ½-½

---- The Star Online

Tough choice for chess players to turn pro

2010-08-06T12:02:00.000+08:00

Are our players prepared to sacrifice for the game?

RIGHT after my column last week, I received a short message from one of Malaysia’s international masters.

By all accounts, it can be safely assumed that Wong Zijing is no longer playing in chess competitions. As far as I can determine, he hasn’t been playing much at all since August 2006. In fact, even social chess may have taken a back seat for him as his last known attempt at a serious chess game must have been at last year’s annual chess match between the teams of Cambridge and Oxford universities.

His friends and fellow chess players in the country may want to know that he is now pursuing his Doctorate at the University of California Berkeley in the United States. He asked me to say “hi” to them.

Before going to the States, Wong was at University of Cambridge in England and before that, the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. He is now doing research on a specialist area of science called metamaterials.

Anyway, after taking a look at the picture in last week’s column, Wong dropped me a short note to say that it was about time that 12-year-old Yeoh Li Tian, pictured playing a blitz game with former world chess champion Anatoly Karpov, decide whether he wants to be like “Le Quang Liem” or “one of us”.

He didn’t mince his words. The “one of us” refers explicitly to himself and his chess peers, local players like Mas Hafizulhelmi, Lim Yee Weng, Marcus Chan, Nicholas Chan and Lim Chuin Hoong.

Note this: Wong Zijing has some interesting things to say about 12-year-old chess player Yeoh Li Tian.

The “Le Quang Liem” he mentioned happens to be Vietnam’s top chess player. Liem joined the world’s grandmaster club four years ago.

Today, while only 19 years old but with an international rating of 2681 points, he is already knocking on the doors of that even more elite club of chess grandmasters who are rated at 2,700 points and above. There are not many of them, certainly not more than 40 players currently in this category of super-grandmasters.

I knew fairly well what Wong was trying to say but his note made such a fascinating impression that I wanted to know more from him.

He said that it is well known that to become a grandmaster like Liem, you need to be a professional chess player and the financial support to train abroad.

Recently, the Vietnam Chess Federation stated that Liem would require an annual fund of US$100,000. Then there is the player’s own commitment and sacrifices, especially academic sacrifice. Is our society ready for that, he questioned.

“I have a good friend in China who told me that many of the Chinese grandmasters had quit school early in their lives to take up a professional career in chess. Many of them had not even completed their primary education.

“Are our chess players prepared to make such personal sacrifices?” he asked. “My peers and I had to balance chess with our studies because at the end of the day, we have to think about our own livelihood and our direction in life.”

Livelihood. Indeed, if we look at some of our national champions, I can say that they have ended up very well in life. Mas Hafizulhelmi is today a chemical engineer, both Lim Chuin Hoong and Nicholas Chan are medical doctors, Lim Yee Weng is a lawyer while Marcus Chan is an electronics engineer.

Even Ooi Chern Ee, arguably our highest ranked player not to have become a national champion, is an actuarist. But to get where they are today, they recognise that they had to sacrifice their chess.

According to Wong, only geniuses are able to continue with this fine balance in their lives. He believed that Gata Kamsky, a chess prodigy, was one of them.

(Kamsky was born in the old Soviet Union in 1974 and his family emigrated to the United States in 1989. At 16 years old, he took his first steps towards the pinnacle of world chess and ultimately challenged Viswanathan Anand for the Professional Chess Association version of the chess crown in 1995. One year later, he challenged Anatoly Karpov for the World Chess Federation version of the chess title. After he lost both matches, he disappeared completely from the chess world for nine years to earn his law degree and then returned to top-level chess in 2004 with great success.)

Unless you are like Kamsky, Wong said, it is almost impossible to find that balance between chess and work. Where Li Tian is concerned, he suggested that the boy would have to make up his mind soon.

No doubt, his one-month stint in Beijing last year and his present chess tutelage under Bangladeshi grandmaster Ziaur Rahman would help his chess grow in the short to medium term. But he must either have the courage to make chess his profession or concentrate on his studies and eventually “be like one of us”.

“It’s a tough decision, very tough indeed,” Wong acknowledged, “but there are no two ways about it.”

---- The Star Online

Ex-chess champ Karpov on the campaign trail

2010-07-30T13:48:00.001+08:00

Former world champion Anatoly Karpov wants to bring dignity back to the game.

CHESS By QUAH SENG SUN

THE message was clear enough. The World Chess Federation (Fide) must change or else it will continue to lose influence and significance, said Anatoly Karpov, the 12th world chess champion.

Karpov, 59, was in Kuala Lumpur for three days last week as part of a whirlwind visit through several Asian countries to raise support in his bid to be elected the next Fide president.

According to Karpov, the leadership in Fide had not achieved much in the past 15 years and had neglected the interests of many of the chess federations in its fold.

One of the sore points that Karpov raised was that the incumbent Fide president, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, had alienated international sponsors.

Face-to-face: Karpov playing with 12-year-old Yeoh Li Tian.

“Chess is one of the most active sports in the world and Fide has 158 member countries.

‘In terms of members, we are among the biggest international sports federations and yet we don’t see long-term ties with sponsors that should benefit us,” Karpov charged.

“For example, world chess championship matches used to offer prize money by the millions of dollars but ever since the present Fide president came on board, we have seen lower prize monies. In fact, the many changes in the formats for the world championship cycles have caused a lot of confusion. Is it any wonder that international sponsors have shied away?” he asked.

If his team gets elected at the Fide congress this September, one priority would be to bring dignity back to chess. According to him, short 10-game or 12-game matches were hardly reflective of chess struggles at the highest levels.

“World championship matches should not be less than 16 or 18 games but Fide presently finds difficulty to bring in quality sponsors who can support matches of this length.” he said.

Karpov gave another example of the decreasing visibility, saying that significant activities like world championship matches used to be played in the big cities of the world – New York, London, Seville, Paris – but he claimed that since 1995, these events were being moved to lesser cities.

“It doesn’t say much for chess that this year’s chess Olympiad – the traditional biennial gathering for the worldwide chess family of close to 160 countries – is being held in Siberia, in a place called Khanty-Mansiysk,” he claimed.

And in truth, that is correct because I’ve written about Khanty-Mansiysk before. Even getting there is going to be problematic as most connecting flights are only available from Moscow and it’s a journey of several days.

But the chord that struck home was that in recent years, national chess federations have been feeling the pinch of having to pay increasingly higher fees for all sorts of activities. Smaller chess federations such as the Malaysian Chess Federation find that annual fees have gone up significantly.

Getting new players onto the Fide rating list, no matter their rating levels, means getting billed. Then there are the fees for registering even Fide-rated events. All these add up and it is not surprising that there are countries that find themselves temporarily out of benefit from Fide because fees are in arrears.

The MCF, for example, found out that our players were temporarily removed from the Fide rating list because of unpaid dues.

According to Karpov, countries should not be forced to fund Fide. It should be the other way around, that Fide should instead be helping the countries raise funds for their activities.

“It should make sense,” he argued, “that a happy national chess federation will contribute more towards the progress of chess.”

Apart from Malaysia, Karpov and his small entourage that included his candidate for deputy president, Richard Conn Jr, had travelled through China, Japan, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand.

While in Kuala Lumpur, Karpov paid a courtesy call on Olympic Council of Malaysia president Tunku Imran ibni Almarhum Tuanku Ja’afar at the OCM office and was guest of honour at a function hosted by the Malaysian Chess Federation’s honorary life president, Datuk Tan Chin Nam, who incidentally also sits in Karpov’s Advisory Team.

The former world champion also played two exhibition blitz games with Malaysian international master Mas Hafizulhelmi and up-and-coming youngster Yeoh Li Tian, winning against both players.

■ Quah Seng Sun can be contacted at ssquah@gmail.com.

--- The Star Online

Serious business

2010-07-15T13:33:00.003+08:00

Chess
BY QUAH SENG SUN

Training programme to groom young chess talents in the country.

BANGLADESHI grandmaster Ziaur Rahman (pic), who will be based in Malaysia for the next year or so, will soon be getting down to the serious business of training young chess talents in the country.

The Malaysian Chess Federation (MCF) has finalised a 15-month development programme stretching over six terms to groom young talents.

Each term of the MCF Young Talent chess development programme is self-contained and will last 30 days. Every programme will cover all aspects of chess training. These include assessment of a player’s capability and understanding of the game, an intensive study of the chess middlegame and endgame, and the important chess opening theory.

Ziaur will take the students through all the stages of chess preparation, identify their playing styles, their strengths and weaknesses, and look into areas of improving them. To achieve this, he will have a small group of local international masters to assist him during each term.

According to the MCF, the focus of the programme is to discover and develop junior chess talents in the country who are between eight and 14 years old as they represent the future of Malaysian chess. Nevertheless, older youths are welcomed, too.

The programme will run from this month until September next year. The first term is from July 24 to Aug 22 so that the first batch of students to finish the programme can also take part in the Malaysia Chess Festival scheduled for September.

There will be a fresh intake of students every term. The second term starts in September, the third term in November, the fourth in February next year, the fifth term in April and the sixth term in July. So there will be ample opportunities for readers to send their children to attend these intensive programmes.

The approach to each term’s programme is simple: group training for all students to learn the fundamentals of chess, and a personalised session during which the students are paired with the grandmaster or an international master who will take them through a more detailed study mode. This session will help the trainer fine-tune the student’s skills to the best advantage of his playing style and preferences.

At the end of the term, each student would have undergone a maximum of 68 hours of end-to-end chess improvement experience and learning.

The fee is capped at RM500, thanks to sponsors. Normally, such training programmes with grandmasters can easily cost between RM4,000 and RM6,000.

Students interested in attending the first term should contact the MCF before July 19. Due to space constraints, there are only places for 10 students.

The MCF stressed that the development programme is not meant for beginners. Students are required to possess certain playing strength and skills.

For enquiries or to request for the programme prospectus, contact Najib Wahab (016-3382542, najib.wahab@chess-malaysia.com) or the MCF secretary Gregory Lau (012-9020123).

---- the star online

Anand is World Chess Champion 2010!

2010-05-12T20:22:00.002+08:00

Anand defeats Topalov, retains the crown
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Viswanathan Anand defeated Veselin Topalov 6,5:5,5 in their WCC 2010 match in Sofia and retained the crown of FIDE World Chess Champion. After a close battle with equal score one round before the end, Anand won the last game with black to claim the title.

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Congratulations to Anand, Aruna and Vishy's team - Nielsen, Kasimdzhanov, and Ganguly!

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Game 12: Topalov - Anand 0-1

Game 11: Anand - Topalov draw

Game 10: Topalov - Anand draw

Game 9: Anand - Topalov draw

Game 8: Topalov - Anand 1-0

Game 7: Anand - Topalov draw

Game 6: Anand - Topalov draw

Game 5: Topalov - Anand draw

Game 4: Anand - Topalov 1-0

Game 3: Topalov - Anand draw

Game 2: Anand - Topalov 1-0

Game 1: Topalov - Anand 1-0

WCh G6: another Catalan, another draw

2010-05-03T13:27:00.004+08:00

The sixth game of the World Championship match between Viswanathan Anand and Veselin Topalov ended in a draw today. For the third time a Catalan came on the board, and after an interesting fight between Anand’s knight pair and Topalov’s bishop pair a drawish ending was played out till move 58 where a move repetition again brought a silent end to the game..
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The match will take place April 21 – May 12 in Sofia, Bulgaria. Venue is the Central Military Club in Sofia, Bulgaria. The match will consist of 12 games, and if necessary, a 4-game rapid tiebreak, if necessary 5 2-game blitz matches and if necessary 1 sudden death game.
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The classical games will be played in pairs of 2, so there will be a rest day after every 2 games. No postponements are allowed. Topalov has White in games 1,3,5,8, 10 and 12.The time control for each game is 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, 60 minutes for the next 20 moves and then 15 minutes for the rest of the game with an increment of 30 seconds per move starting after move 61.
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The Chief Arbiter is Panaqiotis Nikolopoulos (Greece). The Deputy Chief Arbiter is Werner Stubenvoll (Austria). The total prize fund is 3 million Euros: 2 million for the players, 400,000 for FIDE taxes and 600,000 for organizational costs. The winner will receive 1,2 million Euros while the loser receives 800.000 Euros.
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Anand-Topalov, Game 6
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1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 d5

Despite scoring 0 out of 2 so far, Topalov sees no reason to change his Black repertoire.

4. g3 dxc4 5. Bg2 a6

Topalov returns to the move he tried in the second game. 5... Bb4+ 6. Bd2 a5 7. Qc2 Bxd2+ 8. Qxd2 c6 9. a4 b5 10. Na3 Bd7 11. Ne5 Nd5 12. e4 Nb4 13. O-O O-O 14. Rfd1 Be8 15. d5 was game 4.

6. Ne5 c5 7. Na3

Again Anand goes for the line where White sacrifices a pawn.

7... cxd4 8. Naxc4 Bc5 9. O-O O-O 10. Bg5!?

Like in the previous game, Anand doesn't allow Topalov to show his prepared improvement. Preparation wise, the Indian has the 'initiative' in the match. 10. Bd2 Nd5 11. Rc1 Nd7 12. Nd3 Ba7 13. Ba5 Qe7 14. Qb3 Rb8 was game 2, where Anand came up with the much debated 15. Qa3!?

10... h6 11. Bxf6 Qxf6

In fact only this is the first new move. In the only previous game where 10.Bg5 was tried, Black went 11... gxf6 12. Nd3 Be7 13. Qd2 Kh7 14. Rac1 Ra7 15. Qf4 Nc6 16. Bxc6 bxc6 17. Qe4+ f5 18. Qxc6 Rc7 19. Qa4 Bb7 20. Na5 Ba8 21. Rxc7 Qxc7 22. Rc1 Qd6 23. Nc6 and White was better in Raetsky-Panchanathan, Biel 2004

12. Nd3 Ba7 13. Qa4!?

Still played rather quickly (after 4 minutes). Anand keeps on putting psychological pressure on his opponent, who was most probably out of book already.

13... Nc6!?

Topalov is ready to give back the pawn when it allows him to gain the bishop pair and finish development. 13... b5? 14. Qc2 bxc4 15. Qxc4 just loses an exchange for not enough compensation.

14. Rac1!?

Anand refrains from 14. Bxc6 bxc6 15. Qxc6 Rb8 which wins the pawn back, but is surely fine for Black.

14... e5

14... b5 15. Qa3! bxc4 16. Rxc4! is good for White.

15. Bxc6

Now that ...b5 became a real threat, it's time to go for this.

15... b5!

15... bxc6?! 16. Ncxe5 and the Black c-pawn is very weak.

16. Qc2

16. Bxb5?! axb5 17. Qxb5 e4 is clearly not to be recommended.

16... Qxc6 17. Ncxe5 Qe4 18. Qc6 Bb7 19. Qxe4 Bxe4

The ending is roughly equal, but highly interesting, as we're about to see a fight between bishops and knights. The knight on d3 is well placed and strong, and the knight on e5 can jump to lots of squares. Let's see what happens.

20. Rc2

White doesn't need to worry about ...f6 and . ..Bxd3. OK, it isolates the white pawn, but it's hard to attack and what's left is another white knight that will be stronger than the bishop on a7. 20. Nd7 Rfe8 21. Rc7 Bf5 22. Rfc1 Rxe2 23. Rxa7 Rxa7 24. Rc8+ Kh7 25. Nf8+ is a drawing line given by Shipov.

20... Rfe8

20... Rac8 21. Rfc1 Bf5? 22. Rxc8 Rxc8 23. Rxc8+ Bxc8 24. Nc6! as given by Shipov, nicely illustrates the power of the knights.

21. Rfc1 f6 22. Nd7

Time left: 1:12 Anand, 1:13 Topalov. 22. Ng4? h5 and the knight has no squares. Also interesting was 22. Nc6 Bb6 23. a4!? with the idea 23... bxa4 24. Rc4

22... Bf5 23. N7c5 Bb6

Let's toss in a quote from GM Sergey Shipov: "They say, the worst elephant [Russian for bishop - CV] is better than the best horse. And if anyone does not know the differences between an elephant and a horse - let him go down to the zoo ... In general, I have created a hundred proverbs on the subject, but the essence is the same."

24. Nb7!? Bd7 25. Nf4

The immediate 25. Nd6 Re6 26. Nc8 was possible too, and not easy for Black either.

25... Rab8 26. Nd6 Re5 27. Nc8!?

This knight is really going for an Academy Award in this game.

27... Ba5 28. Nd3

Time left: 0:40 Topalov, 0:35 Anand.

28... Re8 29. Na7

29. Nd6!? Re6 30. Nf5 Bb6 31. Kf1

29... Bb6

29... Ra8 seems to be leading to a draw almost by force: 30. Nc6 Bxc6 (30... Bb6 31. Nf4 Bf5 32. Rd2 += ) 31. Rxc6 Rxe2 32. Kf1! Rd2 (32... Ree8?! 33. Rd6 Red8 34. Rcc6 += ) 33. R1c2! Rxd3 34. Ke2 Rd2+ 35. Rxd2 Re8+! 36. Kd3 Bxd2 37. Kxd2 a5 and Black will hold the rook ending because 38. Rc5 can be answered by 38... Re5

30. Nc6 Rb7

30... Bxc6 31. Rxc6 Rxe2

31. Ncb4 a5 32. Nd5

Time left: Anand 0:27, Topalov 0:28.

32... a4 33. Nxb6

From the e5 square this knight has followed the route e5-d7-c5-b7-d6-c8-a7-c6-b4-d5-b6 and now it gets exchanged. That's ten lost tempi! ;-)

33... Rxb6 34. Nc5

White has made a move with a knight thirteen moves in a row - this could be a record for a World Championship game.

34... Bf5 35. Rd2 Rc6 36. b4 axb3 37. axb3 b4

This pawn sacrific e is almost forced; otherwise White will protect the knight with b3-b4 with a slight advantage.

38. Rxd4 Rxe2 39. Rxb4 Bh3

Black has nice compensation but not more than that. (But he does threaten Rxc5 here.)

40. Rbc4 Rd6 41. Re4

41. b4!? Rdd2 42. Rf4 Rc2 43. Ra1 Ra2 44. Rc1 Rac2 =

41... Rb2 42. Ree1 Rdd2 43. Ne4 Rd4 44. Nc5 Rdd2 45. Ne4 Rd3 46. Rb1

Whit has to give back the pawn. 46. Nc5? Rf3 suddenly wins on the spot for Black.

46... Rdxb3 47. Nd2 Rb4 48. f3

Around this move the clock turned seven and so the game lasted longer than four hours, which we hadn't seen yet so far in this match.

48... g5

Is it really 'better for the spectators' that play continues in this position? Especially when the sun is shining brightly outside, we're not so sure...

49. Rxb2

Not 49. g4?! Kg7! and Black will continue with ...f5 at some point. (49... Bxg4?! doesn't work: 50. fxg4 Rxg4+ 51. Kf1 Rxd2 52. Re7 = )

49... Rxb2 50. Rd1 Kf7 51. Kf2 h5 52. Ke3 Rc2 53. Ra1 Kg6 54. Ra6 Bf5 55. Rd6 Rc3+ 56. Kf2 Rc2 57. Ke3 Rc3+ 58. Kf2 Rc2

And again a repetition ended this game and the point was split. We still don't see the point here and we promise we won't accuse Topalov of being inconsistent when next time he DOES offer Anand a draw. .. 1/2-1/2

Punch and counter-punch

2010-05-02T23:52:00.002+08:00

by Quah Seng Sun

The ongoing world chess championship has its exciting moments.

IT HAS been a week since the start of the world chess championship match between defending champion Viswanathan Anand and his challenger, Veselin Topalov. After all the drama of Anand’s overland journey from Frankfurt to Sofia, the match was put off for a day and it kicked off last Saturday instead of Friday.

I was a little miffed to learn that the Bulgarian Chess Federation and the match organisers had refused to meet Anand halfway. A lot of reasons were given but I think they were only trying to make it difficult for the world champion. Initially, Anand had requested for a three-day postponement but a one-day postponement would have been reasonable enough.

In the end, it was left to the World Chess Federation (Fide) to find an amicable solution and they decided that the first game would start on Saturday. However, it doesn’t seem to be the end of the story because the latest word from Sofia is that Silvio Danailov, who is Topalov’s manager, is contemplating suing Fide for the late start.

Of course, he is well within his rights to seek legal redress but I think it also paints him in a bad light. After all, it was no fault of anybody that the volcano in Iceland erupted and caused air traffic chaos in Europe.

Everybody knows that this is a very high-stake match in Bulgaria. All the more reason that if Danailov really wants Topalov to win the world championship title, let him win it fair and square from Anand over the board.

By the way, I’m writing this story during the first lull in the match. As I write this on Monday, only the first two games have been completed. And I’m already having withdrawal symptoms!

Unfortunately, the match rules stipulate that there should be a rest day after every two games. As the schedule would have it, Monday was a rest day. The players are resting or preparing themselves for more battles ahead, but we chess followers can only wait impatiently for the next day to come.

The only consolation is that the two games have been very exciting and decisive. At the opening ceremony three days earlier, Topalov drew the white envelope, meaning that he would play the first game of this match with the white pieces. That was the first stir of excitement. With the white pieces, we can expect the Bulgarian grandmaster to kick off the match in his aggressive style.

True enough, Topalov was first off the block. He came out fighting and slugging. Remarkably, Anand tried to match him blow for blow. When I was following this game live through the Internet, my first thought was whether both players were playing blitz chess or world championship chess.

For this particular match, they had agreed on a time control of 40 moves in two hours, followed by 20 moves in one hour, and then a final 15 minutes for a play-to-death session. There’s lots of time to think and yet, Topalov and Anand sailed through their first 18 moves in barely 10 minutes.

It was only on the 19th move that Topalov paused long enough to think. Here was where the real battle began. Unfortunately, the game ended early, after another 11 moves. Anand made an uncharacteristic blunder in the game. He made his position more difficult for himself by walking into a piece sacrifice. This is the game:

Veselin Topalov – Viswanathan Anand, Game 1

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5 4. cxd5 Nxd5 5. e4 Nxc3 6. bxc3 Bg7 7. Bc4 c5 8. Ne2 Nc6 9. Be3 O-O 10. O-O Na5 11. Bd3 b6 12. Qd2 e5 13. Bh6 cxd4 14. Bxg7 Kxg7 15. cxd4 exd4 16. Rac1 Qd6 17. f4 f6 18. f5 Qe5 19. Nf4 g5 20. Nh5+ Kg8 21. h4 h6 22. hxg5 hxg5 23. Rf3 Kf7? (Black needs to tread carefully in this position. His knight and one of the rooks are terribly out of play on the queenside and his king is rather exposed. On the other hand, White has good chances on the kingside and there’s always a danger of him infiltrating through the c-file. Black’s 23rd move is a blunder and allows a decisive stroke from White. The best resistance may be 23…Bd7.) 24. Nxf6 (After this sac, which White played almost immediately, Black’s position is untenable.) 24….Kxf6 25. Rh3 Rg8 26. Rh6+ Kf7 27. Rh7+ Ke8 28. Rcc7 Kd8 29. Bb5 Qxe4 30. Rxc8+ 1-0

People like me watching from afar were shell-shocked. Why was it so easy for Topalov to dismantle Anand’s game? Has Topalov’s preparation been so superior that Anand had no answer? Or, was the Indian grandmaster still suffering from his overland drive?

It was also almost impossible to gauge Anand’s frame of mind after this loss. Would he brush it aside as an aberration? Certainly, it came as a shock to his system and to his world-wide fan base. Most people would be demoralised to have lost in only 30 moves. However, Anand is made of sterner stuff and he came back with a firm resolve on the next day. In the second game, he gave Topalov no opportunity at all for open tactical play and scored a fine win to level the match at 1-all. Here it is:

Viswanathan Anand – Veselin Topalov, Game 2

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 d5 4. g3 dxc4 5. Bg2 a6 6. Ne5 c5 7. Na3 cxd4 8. Naxc4 Bc5 9. O-O O-O 10. Bd2 Nd5 11. Rc1 Nd7 12. Nd3 Ba7 13. Ba5 Qe7 14. Qb3 Rb8 15. Qa3 Qxa3 16. bxa3 (Shades of Bobby Fischer. Inspirational. I still remember one of Fischer’s games with Spassky in 1972 when he willingly saddled himself with a doubled pawn on the h-file. Likewise in this game, Anand accepted the doubled pawns on the a-file. However, in return, he keeps up the pressure on the queenside.) 16….N7f6 17. Nce5 Re8 18. Rc2 b6 19. Bd2 Bb7 20. Rfc1 Rbd8 21. f4 Bb8 22. a4 a5 23. Nc6 Bxc6 24. Rxc6 h5 25. R1c4 Ne3? (This move is considered a mistake. Black showed impatience with the position.) 26. Bxe3 dxe3 27. Bf3 g6 28. Rxb6 Ba7 29. Rb3 Rd4 30. Rc7 Bb8 31. Rc5 Bd6 32. Rxa5 Rc8 33. Kg2 Rc2 34. a3 (At this stage, Black is probably already lost. This unassuming pawn will ultimately decide the game.) 34….Ra2 35. Nb4 Bxb4 36. axb4 Nd5 37. b5 Raxa4 38. Rxa4 Rxa4 39. Bxd5 exd5 40. b6 Ra8 41. b7 (I hope you remember that this was the pawn that was originally on the a2 square) 41….Rb8 42. Kf3 d4 43. Ke4 1-0

Main catur hingga dinihari

2010-03-13T12:07:00.003+08:00

Oleh NORLIDA AKMAR IDROS norlida.idros@kosmo.com.my

TIDAK mudah bagi kalangan peserta untuk menumpukan minda pada gerakan buah catur dengan betul dan tepat apabila pertandingan diadakan di kawasan tumpuan orang ramai membeli-belah iaitu di bazar larut malam.

Lebih sukar, Pertandingan Catur Uptown Shah Alam 2010 memerlukan kekuatan mental dan fizikal pemain kerana ia berlangsung pada waktu malam sehingga awal pagi iaitu ketika minda dan tubuh bersedia untuk beristirehat.

Semua itu walau bagaimanapun berjaya dilalui oleh Abdullah Che Hassan, 26, yang berjaya merangkul tempat ketiga. Menurutnya, pertandingan itu sememangnya mencabar kerana peserta perlu memerah otak hampir enam jam.

"Ini kali pertama saya masuk pertandingan catur pada waktu malam sehingga awal pagi dan ia amat memenatkan kerana perlu berfikir ketika badan letih.

"Tetapi itu tidak menjadi masalah kerana saya anggap ia satu pertandingan yang unik dengan memberikan pengalaman yang mencabar kemampuan diri," katanya kepada Kosmo! pada pertandingan yang berlangsung di Seksyen 24, Shah Alam baru-baru ini.

Menurut Abdullah, selain memberi kelainan dari segi masa penganjuran, pertandingan berkenaan juga menawarkan satu lagi keunikan iaitu dilangsungkan di kawasan perniagaan bazar larut malam.

"Bukan sahaja terpaksa lawan perasaan mengantuk, peserta juga perlu mengawal minda supaya tidak terganggu dengan persekitaran bazar yang hingar-bingar," ujarnya.

Dia yang berasal dari Terengganu berjaya membawa pulang wang tunai sebanyak RM100 dan hamper.

Tempat pertama dirangkul oleh peserta Filipina, Ian Udani, 40, dengan hadiah wang tunai RM300 berserta hamper manakala tempat kedua dimenangi oleh Kamaluddin Yusof, 40, dari Shah Alam.

Pertandingan catur berkenaan menggunakan sistem pusingan Robin iaitu semua peserta berlawan dengan setiap pencabar secara serentak dalam enam pusingan. Peserta yang memperoleh mata paling tinggi dikira sebagai pemenang.

Menurut Duta Uptown Shah Alam, Irwan Shah, pertandingan yang merupakan anjuran Persatuan Catur Kuala Lumpur dan Uptown Shah Alam itu berlangsung dari pukul 9 malam, dan berakhir 2.30 pagi keesokannya.

"Kita pilih tempoh masa ini selaras dengan waktu operasi bazar larut malam Uptown Shah Alam bagi mewujudkan satu kelainan dan untuk menarik lebih ramai pengunjung," katanya.

AIZUL HISHAM MOHD. DOM

Ujar Irwan, pertandingan catur tersebut mendapat sambutan hangat daripada kalangan peminat catur yang datang dari serata Lembah Klang, Ipoh dan Johor Bahru selain terdapat penyertaan seorang lelaki warga Filipina.

"Pertandingan berlangsung dengan meriah dan para peserta berentap sesama sendiri dalam kalangan pemain yang terdiri daripada peserta seawal usia lapan tahun hingga mencecah 52 tahun," jelasnya.

Kata Irwan, pihaknya mungkin akan menjadikan pertandingan catur pada waktu malam sehingga awal pagi itu sebagai aktiviti tahunan Uptown Shah Alam dengan menarik penyertaan lebih ramai peserta dalam penganjuran akan datang.

"Selain aktiviti perniagaan, kita juga mahu jadikan Uptown Shah Alam sebagai satu destinasi rekreasi keluarga yang menarik untuk dikunjungi," ujarnya.

Tambahnya, selain catur, Dataran Usahawan Selangor Sdn. Bhd. yang menguruskan Uptown Shah Alam turut menganjurkan pelbagai aktiviti lain termasuk pertandingan Uptown Idol 2 dan Uptown Bintang Kecil 2. Pencariannya berlangsung sepanjang Mac 2010 dan peringkat akhir pada 10 April ini.

Game for the KL open?

2010-03-05T13:37:00.002+08:00

CHESS
By QUAH SENG SUN

Chess activities continue to heat up in Malaysia.

THE Kuala Lumpur Chess Association’s third KL open chess tournament next month will be quite an affair, judging by the number of foreign participants.

The grandmasters who are expected to take part are Mikheil Mchedlishvili (Georgia), Hou Yifan (China), Ziaur Rahman (Bangladesh), Saidali Yuldashev (Uzbekistan), Nguyen Anh Dung (Vietnam), Niaz Murshed (Bangladesh), Wong Meng Kong (Singapore), Barus Cerdas (Indonesia) and Susanto Megaranto (Indonesia).

Familiar names among the international masters will include Richard Bitoon (Philippines), Oliver Dimakiling (Philippines), Alexander Wohl (Australia), Irwanto Saidikin (Indonesia), Liu Dede (Indonesia) and Tirto (Indonesia).

Impressive: Hou Yifan, 16, a chess prodigy from China will be playing in the KL open chess tournament.
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Mok Tze Meng will be leading the local challenge. He will be playing together with other top players like Jimmy Liew, Nicholas Chan and Lim Chuin Hoong. Altogether, there should be about 15 local representatives among the 90 registrants.

In addition to all these players, the organisers expect a special guest from England to turn up towards the end of the tournament. Nigel Short, former world championship contender and many times Commonwealth chess champion, will be arriving from Bangkok and staying for the weekend.

Whilst in Kuala Lumpur, Short will give a simultaneous exhibition to a maximum of 20 players on April 10.

The KL open will be held at the Grand Olympic Hotel in Jalan Hang Jebat, Kuala Lumpur, from April 6 to 12. There will be a total of nine rounds and on the last day, a blitz tournament is planned for the afternoon before the closing ceremony.

Entry fees for the KL open are staggered. Grandmasters, woman grandmasters, international masters, woman international masters and players with Fide ratings of above 2400 get free entry into the tournament.

Fide masters, woman Fide masters and players whose Fide ratings are between 2300 and 2399 are charged RM100. Thereafter, the entry fees go up to RM150, RM200, RM250, RM300 until RM350 for unrated players. Entry fees are to be paid fully to the organisers by March 16 or a 50% penalty will apply.

For registration and more information, visit the KLCA blog at klchess.blogspot.com or contact Peter Long (013-392 0920 / peterlong@aol.asia).

Tobey Maguire Set to Play a Chess Master in 'Pawn Sacrifice'

2010-02-25T13:12:00.003+08:00

In a move that will take him from comic book geeks to a whole new level of nerd, former superhero Tobey Maguire may take on the role of famous chess master Bobby Fischer in a project called Pawn Sacrifice. This bit of news comes from a brief mention in the same Deadline Hollywood article that announced Matt Damon's turn as Robert F. Kennedy, but all we know is that Steven Knight wrote the script which focuses on Fischer around the year 1972, which is when the legendary player faced off against Russian chess champion Boris Spassky in a highly publicized match that went hand in hand with the Cold War tensions of the time.

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Bobby Fischer is considered to be one of the greatest chess players of all-time, winning championships when he was just a young teenage boy to setting legendary tournament records in his 30's. However, as he became older, Fischer became more reclusive, strange and even offensive, making anti-American and anti-Semitic statements.

The film will be intent on focusing on this first and all-important match between Fischer and Spassky, probably much in the same way other inspirational sports movies have average families everywhere latching onto one team and their hopes of triumph and victory.

Sounds like a great project for Maguire, and a great start to his career after leaving Spider-Man behind. We'll be sure to keep you updated.

Veselin Topalov win Linares 2010

2010-02-25T12:55:00.002+08:00

Topalov qualifies for Grand Slam Final Masters

Veselin Topalov won the 2010 edition of the Linares chess tournament. He collected 6,5/9, half a point more than Grischuk (winner of 2009) and a point more than Aronian. With this victory, Topalov becomes the second player to guarantee his spot at the Grand Slam Final after Magnus Carlsen.

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Entering the second half of the double round robin tournament with a large margin of point and a half ahead of the opposition, Topalov's victory appeared imminent, but he almost threw it away in the penultimate game after losing against the last-year winner Alexander Grischuk, who then caught up on the shared first place.

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But Topalov quickly bounced up and beat the 2009 World Cup winner Boris Gelfand in the last round in an impressive Rook endgame. Meanwhile, Grischuk could not achieve more than a draw with black pieces against Francisco Vallejo Pons and remained half a point behind the Bulgarian. Levon Aronian secured the third place by winning against Vugar Gashimov.

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This is Topalov's first sole victory of Linares, which comes after an year off which he took to play the Challengers match against Kamsky. In 2005 he shared first with Garry Kasparov after defeating him in the last round, a game after which Kasparov announced he is retiring.

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Linares 2010 was the last tournament of Veselin Topalov before his WCC match against Viswanathan Anand.

Linares R9: Grischuk beats Topalov

2010-02-24T14:05:00.001+08:00

Alexander Grischuk defeated Veselin Topalov in round 9 of the Linares super-tournament. The two are leading with just one round to go. Gashimov-Vallejo and Gelfand-Aronian were both drawn. Big pictorial report.

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The 27th Torneo Internacional de Ajedrez “Ciudad de Linares” takes place February 12-25 in Linares, Andalucia, Spain.

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A six players, double round-robin, with Veselin Topalov (2805), Levon Aronian (2781), Boris Gelfand (2761), Vugar Gashimov (2759), Alexander Grischuk (2736) and Francisco Vallejo Pons (2705).

Linares 2010 starting

2010-02-16T14:32:00.002+08:00

The 2010 Linares chess tournament, part of the Grand Slam circuit and one of the top chess events in the world, is starting today with the games of the first round.

The field is reduced to six players, which will compete in a double round robin event.

Tournament director Juan Fernandez underlined at the opening ceremony that he is happy the tournament has a category XXI despite the economic crisis and expressed the desire the competition to share venue with Morelia, UAE, or another city in 2011.

Last year champion Alexander Grischuk and FIDE Grand Prix winner Levon Aronian are making another consecutive appearance. Former World Champion Veselin Topalov, who skipped the last year event because of the FIDE Challengers match against Gata Kamsky, is back to play in one of his favourite tournaments.

He noted, "It will be very important to enter the World Chess Championship match against Anand with a victory in Linares. However, it will not be easy, as the competition is very strong."

Boris Gelfand was invited after his win at the prestigious FIDE World Cup, while Vugar Gashimov of Azerbaijan is making a debut at the super-tournaments. Francisco Vallejo Pons was happy returning to Linares five years after his last participation and shared, "It is an honor for a Spanish player to participate in the most prestigious tournament in the world."

Pairings of the first round are:

Francisco Vallejo Pons - Veselin Topalov (draw signed)

Levon Aronian - Alexander Grischuk (draw)

Boris Gelfand - Vugar Gashimov, still in progress

Wijk 09: Kramnik beats Carlsen, leads with Shirov

2010-01-27T15:06:00.003+08:00

In his distinguished career, Vladimir Kramnik has never yet won Wijk aan Zee, but today he took a giant step towards doing so, by beating Carlsen with Black. A fascinating battle ended with a colossal time-trouble blunder by the world number one.

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Carlsen,M (2810) - Kramnik,V (2788) [E04]

Corus A Wijk aan Zee NED (9), 26.01.2010

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 d5 4.g3. An interesting choice, confronting Kramnik with one of his own favourite weapons. 4...dxc4 5.Bg2 Bb4+ 6.Bd2 a5 7.Nc3 0–0 8.a3 Be7 9.Qa4 c6 10.Qxc4 b5 11.Qb3 Ba6 12.Bg5 Nbd7 13.Bxf6 gxf6 14.Qc2 b4 15.Na4 Rc8 16.0–0 c5

17.d5. A very interesting pawn sacrifice. 17...exd5 18.Bh3 Bb5 19.axb4 axb4 20.Rfd1 d4 21.Bf5 Ne5 22.Bxh7+ Kg7 23.Nxe5 fxe5 24.Bf5 Rc6 25.Qe4 Rh8 26.Qxe5+ Bf6 27.Qe4 Re8 28.Qg4+ Kf8 29.Be4

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29...c4!? Fritz 12 strongly prefers 29...Qd6. 30.Bxc6 Bxc6. At this point, Carlsen had just two minutes, plus increment time, to reach move 40 – little enough in any position. In this one, I am sure, he would have preferred a couple of hours. 31.Qh5 Re5 32.Qh6+ Ke7 33.e4 d3 34.Qe3 Bxe4

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And now, with his flag tottering (yes, I know digital clocks don't have flags – it's called poetic licence...), the World Blitz Champion, clearly in turmoil, produced the horror blunder. 35.Nb6?? and a piece was lost after 35...Bb7. The game ended 36.Qf4 Qxb6 37.Qxc4 Re2 38.Rf1 0-1.

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Kramnik's win, his third in four rounds, took him to +4 and a share of the lead. Earlier in the afternoon, Shirov had achieved the same score, after notching the easiest of draws against Ivanchuk, with a remarkable piece of computer-based preparation.

source: Chessbase

Budget cut

2010-01-20T14:24:00.002+08:00

Chess

By QUAH SENG SUN

Budget slash a setback for development of chess in schools.
SO it happens yet again. The rumour that I have been hearing for the past few months has been confirmed. Chess is out from this year’s national schools’ sports programme, a victim of the drastic cost-cutting measures by the Education Ministry.

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According to a news report last week, the ministry had slashed its annual grant to the Malaysian Schools Sports Council (MSSM) from RM6mil to a measly RM1.5mil. As a result, the MSSM is forced to reduce the number of sports in its calendar from 24 to 13.

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Of course, I’m disappointed with the consequences of the budget slash. Who wouldn’t be? A student’s all-round education should encompass both academic and non-academic activities.

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While emphasis should rightly focus on academic results, non-academic activities should not be overlooked. This nation is not built on bookworms alone.

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So chess is one of the sports affected. There won’t be an MSSM chess tournament at the national level this year. No doubt, there may still be some school chess tournaments on a state-wide level if the states can find the funds themselves, but without a school competition at national level, it will never be the same.

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More than 10 years ago when the country was hit by recession, chess was also a convenient victim. Funds were also withdrawn from chess at the MSSM and it was only many years later that the game was re-instated into the programme.

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In the process, we lost more than a generation of chess players. The luckier states like Selangor and Penang were able to continue nurturing their young crop of players but in most of the other states, chess development in the schools was practically at a stand-still. These states suffered the most.

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Losing this generation of chess players meant that many of our young citizens never had the opportunity to uncover or develop their full potential. Goodness knows how many of them were wasted.

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Then, when chess was re-introduced into the national sports programme a few years ago, it took a while before the game got back into its natural groove. No doubt, the same thing is going to happen again. There’ll be another generation lost.

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The only comfort which chess players can perhaps derive from this setback is that we are not alone. Together with chess, other sports like bowling, squash, archery, table tennis, rugby, cricket, sailing, softball, handball and cross country have been axed from the programme.

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But is this the time for self-pity?

No! Not for chess or any of the other games that were taken off the MSSM calendar. If anything, this is the opportunity for the state sport associations and the national sport federations to do something positive on their own to maintain the interest and momentum in the sport they profess to represent.

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If a state education department cannot organise a state-wide school chess competition, come in with your expertise to hold your own state-level age group tournaments. If there is no MSSM competition for your game, the federation should step in to help out with a national age group event.

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In this sense, perhaps chess is a little fortunate because the Malaysian Chess Federation (MCF) has had an annual national age group chess competition running for a few years already. It started about the same time that chess went off the MSSM radar in the last decade.

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It just grew from there. The national age group competitions never stopped, even when chess was re-instated into the MSSM calendar. They simply co-existed, one event complementing the other.

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So this year, the national age group competition in March will be taking on a special importance again. It will be a premier junior tournament to judge the chess abilities of our youth on a national platform. I would urge them – all the chess players who are still below the age of 18 – to come and give your support to this event. It will be your chance to demonstrate that scholastic chess can continue growing despite this momentary setback.

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Incidentally, I shall be in Kuala Lumpur this weekend to attend a meeting at the Datuk Arthur Tan Chess Centre – initiated by the grand old man of Malaysian chess, Datuk Tan Chin Nam – of interested chess parties in an effort to find a common ground for chess organisations and chess personalities to grow together.
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I laud his efforts in organising a brain-storming session. We have to take the cue from the axing of MSSM chess. It is imperative for everyone connected with chess to cooperate and take the game to the next level. In the face of shrinking grants, chess in this country should look to more efficiency. By working together, we’ll find that the chess pie is large enough for everyone to share.

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See you at the meeting on Sunday morning.

Source: The Star

Kasparov kalahkan Karpov

2010-01-20T14:05:00.005+08:00

MADRID 25 Sept. - Legenda catur Rusia, Gary Kasparov menewaskan Anatoly Karpov hari ini untuk memenangi perlawanan ulangan daripada kejohanan catur dunia yang klasik pada 1984, dengan meraih sembilan daripada 12 pertarungan.

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Dalam persekitaran yang jauh daripada perlawanan sebenar mereka dahulu iaitu ketika ketegangan Perang Dingin - telah menjadikan Kasparov diminati di blok Barat.

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Semalam, Kasparov turut memenangi lima pertarungan pantas dalam lapan permainan.

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Kedua-dua mereka merancang untuk 'bertarung' semula di Paris pada Disember ini, kata jurucakap kerajaan tempatan Valencia, lokasi pertarungan mereka semalam.
Pada 1984, Kasparov, kiri berusia 46 dan merupakan pembangkang terkenal terhadap Perdana Menteri Rusia, Vladimimir Putin - bersaing hebat dengan juara bertahan, Karpov, kini 58 tahun, tetapi ditamatkan selepas 48 perlawanan berikutan kebimbangan mengenai kesihatan mereka yang bermain berterusan.

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Ketika perlawanan 1984 dihentikan, Karpov sudah pun memenangi lima perlawanan dan Kasparov tiga, dengan 40 seri. - REUTERS

Johor Chess Festival 2010

2010-01-12T22:57:00.003+08:00

The Johor Chess Festival 2010 incorporating:

1) 14th Bandraya Chessmaster Johore Open Chess Championship

2) 2nd Bandaraya Chessmaster Johore Open Team Championship

14TH BANDARAYA CHESSMASTER JOHORE OPEN CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP

Organiser : MBJB, Johore Chess Academy and JB Chess Association

Venue : JB Indoor Stadium ( Stadium Bandarya Johor Bahru )

Date&Time :Sunday, 28th March 2010

Time Control : Swiss system of 7 rounds with 25 minutes per player to complete the game.

Entry Fee : RM 70 for Open

RM 15 for Under 18

RM 10 for Under 12

Prizes :

Open Category ( 1st to 10th placing cash prizes 11th to 15th hampers)

( RM3000, RM1000, RM700, RM600, RM400, RM300, RM300, RM200, RM200, RM200 )

Under 18 ( 1st to 10th placing cash prizes and 11th to 15th placing hampers)

( RM600, RM250, RM100, RM80, RM70, RM50, RM50, RM 50, RM 50, RM50)

Under 12 ( 1st to 10th pacing cash prizes and 11th to 15th placing hampers)

( RM300, RM150, Rm80, RM70, RM60, RM50, RM50, RM 50, RM50, RM50 )

Closing Date : Shall not be later than 24th March 2010

Late entries and entries without payment will not be accepted. Entry fees are not refundable. In the event of any disputes(outside the Laws Of Chess) the organizer'sdecision shall be final and no further correspondences shall be entertained.

Those interested in participating this event, kindly email your names to me.

For further information, kindly contact :

Narayanan Krishnan

Tournament Director

Johore Chess Academy

H/P N0 : 013 7717 525

Masters of the game

2010-01-08T15:36:00.002+08:00

CHESS By

QUAH SENG SUN

ssquah@gmail.com

Kudos to Malaysia’s two new international masters.
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NEW Year’s Day brought some mixed news for the Malaysian chess scene. I don’t like to use well-worn clichés but anyway, the good news should come first and it is that two new International Masters were confirmed by the World Chess Federation last November.
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Lim Yee Weng achieved his three IM title norms at the Turin Chess Olympiad in 2006 and two of the Malaysia open tournaments in 2007 and 2008.
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Last September, we knew that Mok Tze Meng had been awarded a provisional IM title pending his rating points jumping above 2,400. Well, his title has now been confirmed.
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The other player who now also has a confirmed IM title is Lim Yee Weng. His application to Fide was made in November 2008 after he had achieved his three IM title norms at the Turin Chess Olympiad in 2006 and two of the Malaysia open tournaments in 2007 and 2008. At that time, Fide agreed to the application but made his IM title conditional upon his rating rising above 2,400 points. He did achieve this subsequently and the title was finally confirmed in last November’s rating list.
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Good for the two of them because they had put in a lot of hard work to get their titles.
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As it stands right now, Malaysia has five international masters.
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Jimmy Liew was the first to achieve this title so there is always a special place reserved for him whenever this subject of international masters is raised locally. Mas Hafizulhelmi was our second player to gain this title and he also has a special place in Malaysian chess because after all these years, he remains our strongest player.
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Apart from Liew, Mas Hafizul, Mok and Lim, our other international master is Wong Zijing who is unfortunately inactive because he’s totally caught up with his studies overseas. Hopefully, we shall be able to see him return to active chess duties sometime in the future.
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The bad news is that, suddenly, I discover that Malaysia’s name has disappeared from the Fide list of member nations. For that to happen, it can only mean one thing: that the Malaysian Chess Federation’s (MCF) membership standing with
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Fide has not been regularised in the past one year. The MCF has been such a long-standing member of the world body since 1974 (even longer if we consider the days of the old Chess Association of Malaysia, which was the MCF’s predecessor) that it is embarrassing that this should happen.
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New level: Mok Tze Meng, who was awarded a provisional International Master title pending his rating points jumping above 2,400, has finally achieved that.
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Unfortunately, such delistings do happen once in a while even to more active chess federations. The least that the MCF should do now is to take steps to rectify this hiccup as soon as possible.

On top of the world

2010-01-04T00:13:00.004+08:00

by Quah Seng Sun
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Norwegian Magnus Carlsen has risen to the top of the World Chess Federation rating list for the new year.

WELL, a happy new year to you! By tradition at the start of every new year, the World Chess Federation (Fide) releases its January edition of the Fide rating list. It’s always the case that chess players worldwide – those who are internationally-rated, anyway – look forward to the release of the Fide list to see where they stand.

It is a numbers game and the higher one’s rating gets, the inference is that one has become a stronger player. It works conversely, too. A decline in chess ratings means a decline in a player’s chess strength.

However, much interest also centres on the top echelons of chess players. Understandably, people are also very interested to know the rankings of those super-level grandmasters whose ratings are way above the ordinary folks. And any number above 2700 qualifies a player as super-level.

If you have been following the developments in world chess, it will probably not come as a surprise to know that today, there is a new, official No.1 chess player in the world.

Yes, Bulgaria’s Veselin Topalov has been toppled from the Numero Uno spot. His successor? None other than Magnus Carlsen – that 18-year-old former Norwegian wunderkind that I had written about last October.

His new official rating is 2810, a jump upwards by nine points from his last published rating in November last year. Within a spate of two months, he now stands entrenched at the top of the chess world.

Although this does not mean that he is world champion, surely that target cannot be too far away if Carlsen continues to improve. And he will improve with Garry Kasparov as his trainer.

Last September, the chess world was abuzz with news that the two of them would be working together to take the Norwegian’s chess level to a higher plane. Prior to that announcement, the former world champion had already been working informally with Carlsen for about six months.

I had the opportunity to ask Kasparov recently at Putrajaya how long he hoped to work together with Carlsen.

“I wish I have the luxury of making long-term plans,” Kasparov replied. “We live in an ever-changing world. I cannot foresee the consequences of this cooperation. However, I hope that we will have at least one more year and I hope that I will help him to become not only No.1 in the unofficial rating list but a solid No.1 in the official rating list and eventually the world champion. And he will deserve to win the title if he continues to work hard and if he brings more hard work to his unique talent.”

What about his chess ideas, I asked Kasparov. In his decades at the top of world chess, he would have accumulated a wealth of information. How much would he be prepared to reveal to Carlsen?

“It doesn’t make any sense to hide my secrets,” he told me. “Undoubtedly, I have the largest database of opening ideas in chess and I keep working on updating this. Carlsen will always have full access to my library.”

So there you have it. The great man himself obviously sees a lot of himself in Carlsen. Will the Norwegian cement his position at the top of the world chess rankings? The next one year will see how the cooperation between the two of them bears out.

How Carlsen rose to be No.1

Soon after news broke of Carlsen training under Kasparov, the Norwegian grandmaster flew to Nanjing, China, to participate in the Pearl Spring chess tournament in September together with Topalov, Wang Yue, Dmitry Jakovenko, Teimour Radjabov and Peter Leko.

His results in this double round-robin event made nearly everyone sit up to take notice of this young man. Carlsen scored an astounding eight points. By comparison, second-placed Topalov obtained only 5½ points. This tremendous result against his fellow super-level grandmaster opponents boosted Carlsen’s rating by 28.8 points.

In November, Carlsen was playing in the Mikhail Tal memorial tournament in Moscow. The field included notable chess heavyweights like Vladimir Kramnik, Alexander Morozevich, Levon Aronian and world champion Viswanathan Anand. Though he did not win this event – he came second behind Kramnik – the result was still good enough to add a further 4.7 points to his rating and lift his standing to unofficial world No.1 position.

Then in December at the London Chess Classic, he finished ahead of Kramnik and six other players to add a further 3.9 points to his rating.

I should also point out Carlsen has played 28 straight games at the top level without loss. His last defeat was at the hands of Kramnik at the Sparkassen tournament in Dortmund, Germany, as long ago as July last year.

Here is an example of Carlsen’s recent form in a game from the Pearl Spring tournament in China:

Magnus Carlsen – Dmitry Jakovenko,

Pearl Spring tournament, China

1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Be7 4.cxd5 exd5 5.Bf4 c6 6.Qc2 Bd6 7.Bxd6 Qxd6 8.e3 Ne7 9.Bd3 b6 10.Nf3 Ba6 11.0-0 Bxd3 12.Qxd3 Nd7 13.e4 0-0 14.e5 Qe6 15.Rae1 Rfe8 16.Nh4 Ng6 17.Nxg6 Qxg6 18.Qd2 Nf8 19.f4 Qf5 20.Nd1 f6 21.Ne3 Qd7 22.Qd3 fxe5 23.dxe5 Ne6 24.f5 Nc5 25.Qd4 Ne4 26.Nxd5 Qxd5 27.Qxe4 Rad8 28.e6 Qxe4 29.Rxe4 Rd6 30.g4 Kf8 31.g5 Ke7 32.Kg2 Rd5 33.Kg3 Kd6 34.h4 c5 35.f6 gxf6 36.gxf6 Rd3+ 37.Kh2 Rd2+ 38.Kh1 1-0. -The Star

Winning edge

2009-12-26T17:37:00.002+08:00

CHESS
By QUAH SENG SUN

Experience gives players the edge over the competition.

THE results of two recent chess tournaments here and elsewhere have left me doubly convinced that experience can be a great leveller. Time and again, the player with the greater experience has shown the resilience to come up tops in chess events.

In faraway Khanty-Mansiysk, the experience of a 41-year-old Boris Gelfand triumphing over 26-year-old Ruslan Ponomariov in the Chess World Cup knock-out tournament was a typical example.

King of kings: (from left) Ibrahim Bakar (MCF), Mok Tze Meng, Nicholas Chan and the triumphant Mas Hafizulhelmi.
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Gelfand was the oldest player in the tournament but in 26-year-old Ponomariov, he was facing a former Fide world champion in 2002 who knew his way around the chessboard.

Many did not expect Gelfand to last the distance against the younger Ponomariov. The previous six rounds had been gruelling enough and in the final, Ponomariov had been expected to play better in the rapidchess tie-break games should their classical time control games ended drawn.

Sure enough, all four of the classical games were drawn and the two players went on to play rapidchess. However, they also ended with a drawn result and so, everything boiled down to blitz chess. Here, Gelfand sprang the greatest surprise by beating Ponomariov 3-1, thus ending the latter’s hopes of winning the Chess World Cup.

Likewise at home, we have found this year’s Malaysian King of Kings. After six months, the Malaysian Masters knock-out tournament is finally over. A much more experienced Mas Hafizulhelmi triumphed over Nicholas Chan in the final which was staged in Kuala Lumpur last weekend.

Both players have played chess for long years but in terms of recent exposure to the game, Mas Hafizul held a big advantage over Chan. Whereas Mas Hafizul has been totally immersed in playing competitive chess all over the world in the past two years, Chan had been more pre-occupied with his studies. As a result, the rustiness showed in Chan’s play and this was well exploited by Mas Hafizul.

Although six games had been scheduled for this match, it was practically over by the end of the first day of play when Mas Hafizul went two-up in the match. The third game was drawn but Chan again faltered in the fourth game and allowed Mas Hafizul to wrap up the match with a 3½-½ score.

Mas Hafizul had progressed through the Malaysian Masters by beating Muhammad Tariq Amru in the first round and Mok Tze Meng in the semi-finals. In the meantime, Chan advanced to the final of this event by beating Evan Timothy Capel in the first round and Lim Yee Weng in the semi-finals.

Here are the four games from the Malaysian Masters finals:

Mas Hafizulhelmi vs Nicholas Chan (Game 1)

1. e4 c5 2. f4 d5 3. exd5 Nf6 4. Bb5+ Bd7 5. Bxd7+ Qxd7 6. c4 e6 7. Qe2 Bd6 8. d3 O-O 9. dxe6 fxe6 10. Nf3 Nc6 11. O-O Rae8 12. Nc3 e5 13. f5 Nd4 14. Qd1 Nxf5 15. Bg5 Ng4 16. Qd2 Nd4 17. Ne4 Be7 18. Bxe7 Qxe7 19. Rae1 Nxf3+ 20. Rxf3 Rxf3 21. gxf3 Nh6 22. f4 exf4 23. Nf6+ Qxf6 24. Rxe8+ Kf7 25. Re4 g5 26. h4 Nf5 27. hxg5 Qxg5+ 28. Qg2 Qh4 29. Re2 Kf6 30. Qxb7 Qg3+ 31. Qg2 Nd4 32. Rf2 Kg5 33. Kf1 Nf5 34. Qf3 h5 35. b4 Qxf3 36. Rxf3 Kg4 37. Rf2 Ne3+ 38. Ke2 Kg3 39. bxc5 Nf5 40. Rf3+ Kg4 41. Rf1 h4 42. Kf2 Nd4 43. Rg1+ Kf5 44. Rg7 h3 45. Rxa7 Nc6 46. Rh7 Kg4 47. Rh6 Ne5 48. c6 Nxd3+ 49. Ke2 1-0

Nicholas Chan vs Mas Hafizulhelmi (Game 2)

1. c4 e5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. g3 Bb4 4. Qb3 Nc6 5. Bg2 Nd4 6. Qd1 O-O 7. e3 Bxc3 8. bxc3 Ne6 9. e4 Qe7 10. Ne2 Nc5 11. d3 Qd6 12. d4 Ncxe4 13. Qc2 Nxf2 14. Kxf2 Ng4+ 15. Ke1 Re8 16. Qf5 exd4 17. Bd5 Nf6 18. cxd4 c6 19. Bf3 Qxd4 20. Rb1 Qxc4 21. Bb2 d5 22. Qf4 Ne4 23. Rc1 Qxa2 24. Bh5 Be6 25. Rf1 Qxb2 0-1

Mas Hafizulhelmi vs Nicholas Chan (Game 3)

1. d4 c5 2. d5 Nf6 3. Nc3 d6 4. e4 g6 5. Nf3 Bg7 6. Nd2 O-O 7. Be2 Nbd7 8. O-O Ne8 9. a4 Rb8 10. f4 a6 11. a5 Nc7 12. Nc4 Nb5 13. Na4 Nf6 14. Bd3 e6 15. Nab6 exd5 16. Nxd5 Nxd5 17. exd5 f5 18. c3 Nc7 19. Nb6 Bd7 20. Be3 Be8 21. Qd2 Na8 22.Nc4 Bb5 23.Bf2 Re8 24.Rfe1 Qc7 25.Ne3 Bxd3 26.Qxd3 Bh6 27.g3 Qd7 28.Nc4 Qb5 29.Re6 Bf8 30.Rae1 Nc7 31.R6e2 Rxe2 32 Rxe2 Ne8 33 Re6 Rd8 34. h3 Ng7 35. Re2 Nh5 36. Kg2 Bh6 37. Kf3 Rf8 38. Re6 Nf6 39.Qe2 Qb3 40.Be3 Ne4 41.g4 Bg7 42.g5 Bg7 43.h4 Kf7 44.Bc1 Rd7 45.h5 Rd8 46.Kg2 Qb5 47. Kh3 Qb3 48.Ne3 Qb5 49.Nc4 Bh8 50. Kg2 Rd7 51. Kf3 Bg7 52. Be3 Qb3 53. Qd3 Qa2? 54. hxg6+ hxg6 55. Rxe4 fxe4+ 56. Qxe4 Re7 57. Qd3 Kg8 58. Nxd6 Qxb2 59.Qxg6 Qh2 ½-½

Nicholas Chan vs Mas Hafizulhelmi (Game 4)

1. Nf3 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. Qb3 a5 5. g3 d5 6. a3 Be7 7. d4 O-O 8. Bg2 c6 9. O-O a4 10. Qa2 b6 11. Rd1 Ba6 12.Ne5 Nfd7 13.Nxd7 Nxd7 14.cxd5 cxd5 15. e4 Bc4 16. Qb1 Nf6 17. e5 Nd7 18. Re1 b5 19. Qc2 Qb6 20. Qd1 Nb8 21. Qg4 Kh8 22. Be3 Nc6 23. Ne2 Bxe2 24. Rxe2 Na5 25. Rd1 Rac8 26. h4 Rc4 27. h5 Nb3 28.Bf1 b4 29.axb4 Qxb4 30.f3 Rfc8 31.Qf4 Kg8 32.Rf2 R4c7 33.Bd3 Bf8 34.Kg2 Na5 35.Ra1 Qb3 36. Bb1 Qb5 37.Kh2 Nb3 38.Ra2 Nc1 39.Ra1 Ne2 40.Qg4 Qxb2 41.h6 Qxa1 42.hxg7 Qxb1 43.hxf8+=Q Kxf8 44.Bh6+ Ke7 45.Rxe2 Rc2 46.Bd2 R2c4 47. Qg5+ Kd7 48. Qf4 Qf5 49. Qe3 f6 50.g4 Qg5 51.Qd3 Qh4+ 52.Kg2 f5 53.Be1 Qe7 54.gxf5 Qg5+ 55. Kf1 Qxf5 56.Qa3 Qf8 57. Qd3 Rb8 58. Qxh7+ Qe7 59. Qh6 Rb3 60. Bh4 Rxf3+ 61. Kg2 Qf8 62.Qg6 Qf5 63. Qg7+ Qf7 64. Qg4 Rcc3 65. Rb2 Kc6 66. Be1 Rce3 67. Rc2+ Kd7 68. Bh4 Re4 69. Qg5 Rxh4 70. Qxh4 Qg6+ 71. Kxf3 Qd3+ 72. Kf4 Qxc2 73. Qh8 Qf2+ 74. Kg4 Qxd4+ 75. Kg3 Qd3+ 76. Kg2 Qe2+ 77. Kg3 a3 78. Qb8 Qd3+ 79. Kh4 Qc4+ 80. Kg5 Qc7 81. Qb5+ Kd8 82. Qa6 Qxe5+ 83. Kg6 Qf5+ 84. Kg7 Qg5+ 85. Kf7 Qe7+ 86. Kg6 Qb4 87. Kf7 Kc7 88. Qa7+ Kc6 89. Kf6 Kb5 90. Kxe6 Qc5 91. Qh7 a2 92. Qd3+ Qc4 93. Qa3 d4+ 94. Kd7 Qa4 0-1 -The Star

Chess: Carlsen number one

2009-12-15T23:00:00.000+08:00

As the youngest chess player ever, Norwegian Magnus Carlsen (19) now tops the list over the world's top players, after his match at the London Chess Classic against British Michael Adams on Monday ended in a draw.
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Carlsen whose 19th birthday was on November 30th, is also the first player from a western nation to reach the top since Bobby Fisher in1972.
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The Norwegian will meet Nigel Short on Tuesday in the last round of the tournament.
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(NRK/Aftenposten)
Rolleiv Solholm
http://www.norwaypost.no

GM Boris Gelfand wins Chess World Cup

2009-12-15T14:19:00.003+08:00

Dec 15 - Justifying his top billing Grand Boris Gelfand of Israel won the Chess World Cup, defeating former world champion Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukraine in the tie-breaker of the final here.

After the first three games ended in a draw, the fourth game under normal time control was intense but also ended in a draw leading to the tie-breaker which was also not devoid of venom.

Gelfand enjoyed early lead in the rapid tie-break games and was almost closed to shut the doors on Pono when suddenly in the last (fourth) game of the rapid games the giant rose and squared the one point advantage that the Israeli had.

The stage was thus set for the tie-break blitz games that have been known to give the seeds a taste of their own medicine. Gelfand won the second set of Blitz tie-breaker 2-0 after drawing the first set 1-1.

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