Where were you guys?? I thought there would be a strong support for this charity event. I even overheard a few saying in the previous CAS tournament that it's a good cause and they will enter the tournament but I didn't see you guys here at all. Anyway, only 14 participants took part and almost all (excluding me of course)very strong players. Here are half the names I can remember off-hand. * Siti Zulaikha. * Kamaluddin Yusof. * Saprin Sabri. * Fariz Shafruddin. * Fadli Zakaria. * Farin Zakaria. * Masrin Erowan. * Johan Iskandar. * Francois * Anthony Tan * Soharno Final results :-

MCD Open Results

1     Siti Zulaikha     5   
2     Kamaluddin Y      4.5 
3     Saprin Sabri      4.5 
4     Fairin Z          4   
5     Fariz  S          3.5 
6     Zaidan Zul        3.5 
7 -8  Johan  I          3   
      Masrin  E         3   
9 -10 Francois Bardoul  2.5 
      Andrew Ooi        2.5 
11-12 Fadli Z           2   
      Anthony Tan       2   
13    Suharno           1.5 
14    Mohd Fariq        1   

For me personally, it was a let-down to see so few players participating. Perhaps the RM50 was too high?? Or perhaps, Chess players are not as charitable as I had hoped. I hope that is not true. As I said before, this is one of the rare events where chess players can get to play chess as well do some good for the community. It's a great departure from the usual chase for "cari makan" prize money or personal score to increase your national / FIDE rating. Anyway it was a nice experience for me. I got to see up close how the blind played chess using their special chess boards. As the top 10 players were pretty strong, I was satisfied with my less than 50% score. My opponents included: Round 1 Kamaluddin Yusof ( I lost of course) 2 Suharno (I won) 3 Fadli Zakari (I lost) 4 Fairin Zakaria (I lost) 5 Anthony Tan (I won) 6 FM Johan Iskandar (I DREW !!!) As you can see I met 4 players with ELO 2000+ ratings. It was really a different experience after losing one round and instead of meeting a weaker opponent, you get to meet another strong player next. Pretty stressful! But 2.5 points out of 6 is not too bad considering all the nice opening positions I got. Particularly against Kamaluddin and, Fadli and Johan. I think I had a plus in the opening or some point of the game. I even got a winning position at the end against Kamaluddin but blundered it away with only one minute vs Kamaluddin's 15 minutes. I even drew against Johan Iskandar in the final round. That really made my day! I think I even finished top 10 :) So to those who didn't come, or at least just to pay a visit, you missed a special chess event. (note: I'm selling my MegaBase 8 CD on databases of Malaysian Chess player games as well as 1.96 million game collection - all on one CD. Price - RM10. I'm donating RM8 for every CD sold to the Blind assosciation - contact me via my GilaChess website if you are interested)