Blog GilaChess

Today my maternal grandmother passed away. It's indeed a sad day for me amidst the Merdeka celebration. I'll be going back to attend the funeral tomorrow. My grandmother on my father's side also passed away in April this year. Understandably I will not cover the Merdeka Chess Festival as I will be back in my hometown in Teluk Intan. Please visit http://www.gilachess.com for updated news. Even though I'm not there, GilaChess # 3- da5thknight is taking part in the rapid team even. He will keep you guys posted on the news and updates. Here are the rest of the games I took and entered from the Merdeka Team Open section:

Game 1

Game 2

Game 3

Game 4

Game 5

Game 6

Game 7

Game 8

Game 9

Game 10

Game 11

Here is the game between GM Anthonio and GM Dao. Click here. PS: Sorry as I have left the bulk of the other games of Wang Hao on the computer at the tournament hall. Will collect the games tomorrow and post it. Ok here are the some of the games from the team championship (1 hour + 30 secs time control). Round 1

Wang Hao - Ng Kian Yee

Round 2

Johan Iskandar - Panopio Kodolfo Jr

Round 2

Antonio Rogelio - Wang Hao

Round 3

Wang Hao - Atanu Lahiri

A picture of me with the Champ. Wang Hao is champ!! Well that comes to no surprise to everybody who has seen his results throughout. He trashed 5 GMs with ease and didn't even slow down in the final round beating GM Ian Rogers. Here's mate in five. Can you see it? Black to move... I know you are tired of hearing it but his results is nothing but SENSATIONAL !! He won with 10 points out of 11!! Malaysia has never seen such strong chess performance from any individual. We are honored that he is here in Malaysia taking part in our tournament. Incidentally, he achieved his final GM norm here too. Not to be overshadowed by this Chinese genius, our local talents too had performed admirably well. FM Lim Yee Weng achieved his IM norm with 6 points. FM Nicholas Chan missed the norm even though he was the best Malaysian performer with 6.5 points. IM Mas Hafizulhelmi, the strongest rated Malaysian so far, did not take part this year. All in all it was a great tournament to be held at our soil. Will look forward to next year's edition of the Dato Arthur Tan Malaysian Open. Meanwhile the excitement is only begun for most Malaysians. The Merdeka Team tournament is up next! As usual I will be there at the tournament hall.

Photo CD

I've also compiled the hundreds pictures I took everyday of the Malaysian Open tournament into a CD. Please get it from me at the arbiter's table if you want (cost: RM10).

By now you should know that Wang Hao is the clear winner for the Dato Tan 2nd Malaysia Open. His result is nothing but sensational. A player would just require 8.5 points to be champion but Wang Hao achieved it with 2 rounds to spare. He was also the sensation of the Dubai tournament as he won clearly ahead scores of other GMs rated 2600+. It's no wonder he breezed effortlessly thru the Malaysian Open without breaking a sweat. If you want to take a closer look at this sensational 16-year old chess prodigy come to Mid Valley 3rd Floor MVEC on Friday (26th August 2005). This will be the final round and it will start at 9.00 am. Wang Hao may be playing in the blitz event too (30th August 2005) 7.30pm. Wang Hao leaving after a session of analysis with IM Situru Nathanael. He seems pleased as if saying... see, I win all variations

I have to say sorry to many chess fans out there who couldn't get news of the Malaysia Open for Round 3 and 4. My web host server had an error and they took the whole thing offline for one day. As a results, my website was down for the whole day. What's worse was even after the problem was fixed, the website worked very slowly and some people could not even see the first page. This is the first time the website has gone down (not counting the hacker attack) and it couldn't happen at a worse time. Today the website seems faster. Scanning the photos I took. I came across one that contained the picture on the right. It's NM Peter Long - one of Malaysia's strongest chess player (on the right) talking to Najib. Peter Long was (and still is) one of my local chess heroes from my teenage years. Peter turned up the Mid Valley third floor MVEC playing hall where the 2^nd Malaysian Open was being held. He has long left the chess scene and his appearance here was a big surprise to me. Peter, if you are reading this, I hope you don't mind me posting your picture here.

Many have been waiting for this. Here it is:-

CHEVY CHESS CHALLENGE 2005 - PLAYERS' LIST

  1 Mohan Raj                  MAS     2205  5700604  
  2 Zakaria, Fairin            MAS     2190  5700469  
  3 Kamaluddin Yusof           MAS     2180  5701171  
  4 Thaw Chee Yin              MAS     2143  5701090  
  5 Jax Tham                   MAS     2136  5701279  
  6 Tun Seri Lanang Othman     MAS     2129  5701449  
  7 Masrin Erowan              MAS     2032  5701775  
  8 S.Balendran                MAS     1979  5701805  
  9 Marcus Yeoh                MAS     1957  5701481  
 10 Abg Azman Abg Draup        MAS     0000           
 11 Abg Zain Azreen Abg Draup  MAS     0000           
 12 Albert Ang Keliang         MAS     0000           
 13 Alijeanda Ober             MAS     0000           
 14 Anizan Mahruf              MAS     0000           
 15 Anthony Tan                MAS     0000           
 16 Catherine Black            RSA     0000           
 17 Chan Tze Chen              MAS     0000           
 18 David Lu                   HKG     0000           
 19 Justin Ong Way             MAS     0000           
 20 Mohd Ekhwan Mohd Effandie  MAS     0000           
 21 Muhammad Rizal Jusoh       MAS     0000           
 22 Muhammad Tariq Amru        MAS     0000           
 23 Sahir Sarifdin             MAS     0000           
 24 Sarika Subramaniam         MAS     0000           
 25 Shreyas Subramaniam        MAS     0000           
 26 Srinivas Mantha            IND     0000           
 27 Sumant Subramaniam         MAS     0000           
 28 Syazrin Abd Rahman         MAS     0000           
 29 Tan Ken Wei                MAS     0000           
 30 Vijay Raj                  MAS     0000           

My personal favourite to win the Chervrolet event is 3^rd seed Fairin Zakaria. I know, Kamaluddin is also very strong and has been winning many allegros lately but my money is on Fairin as he is very strong at longer time controls. We'll see..

11 GM, 15 IM, 12 FM and many more WGN,WIM,WFM etc. This is Malaysia's strongest tournament ever!! Note: Participants are invited to attend the Player's Meeting at:

5th Floor (Ballroom) CityTel Hotel, Mid Valley, KL.

8.00 pm

Player's List

2nd Dato' Arthur Tan Malaysian Open 2005

                                                                                  
Starting rank list                                                                
                                                                                  
No.     Name                     Rtg FED 
  1 GM  Dao Thien Hai           2601 VIE 
  2 IM  Paragua Mark            2596 PHI 
  3 GM  Adianto Utut            2588 INA 
  4 IM  Wynn Zaw Htun           2578 MYA 
  5 GM  Rogers Ian              2569 AUS 
  6 GM  Kunte Abhijit           2561 IND 
  7 GM  Nguyen Anh Dung         2555 VIE 
  8 GM  Torre Eugenio           2535 PHI 
  9 GM  Koneru Humpy            2531 IND 
 10 FM  Irwanto Sadikin         2517 INA 
 11 IM  Myo Naing               2516 MYA 
 12 GM  Antonio Rogelio Jr      2513 PHI 
 13 GM  Wang Hao                2512 CHN 
 14     Wu Shaobin              2510 SIN 
 15 IM  Juswanto Denny          2509 INA 
 16 IM  Gonzales Jayson         2477 PHI 
 17 IM  Hossain Enamul          2473 BAN 
 18 GM  Mariano Nelson          2466 PHI 
 19 IM  Abdullah Al-Rakib       2462 BAN 
 20 IM  Dableo Ronald           2440 PHI 
 21 IM  Sriram Jha              2437 IND 
 22 IM  Bitoon Richard          2430 PHI 
 23 WGM S. Vijayalakshmi        2414 IND 
 24 GM  Handoko Edhi            2407 INA 
 25 FM  Wu Xibin                2390 CHN 
 26 IM  Situru Nathanael        2382 INA 
 27 FM  Salimbagat Rico         2379 USA 
 28 IM  Bancod Ronald           2374 PHI 
 29     Nolte Rolando           2372 PHI 
 30     Tirto                   2370 INA 
 31 WIM Zhang Jilin             2356 CHN 
 32 FM  Mok Tze Meng            2351 MAS 
 33 FM  Lim Yee Weng            2348 MAS 
 34 IM  Lahiri Atanu            2344 IND 
 35 FM  Sales Jesse Noel        2340 PHI 
 36     Sorbe Stephane          2340 FRA 
 37     Prayitno Sugeng         2333 INA 
 38 FM  Dimakiling Oliver       2329 PHI 
 39 IM  Liew Chee Meng Jimmy    2320 MAS 
 40 FM  Chan Nicholas           2313 MAS 
 41 IM  Tan Lian Ann            2302 SIN 
 42 FM  Simanjuntak Sebastan    2284 INA 
 43 WGM S. Meenakshi            2273 IND 
 44     Maliki Ahmad            2244 MAS 
 45     Lim Chuig Hoong         2239 MAS 
 46     Koneru Chandra Hawsa    2235 IND 
 47     Haessler Carl           2234 USA 
 48     Shen Si Yuan            2232 CHN 
 49     Panggabean Hasian       2222 INA 
 50 WIM Tamin Upi Darmayana     2219 INA 
 51 FM  Jones Lee               2189 AUS 
 52     Sonjaya Deni            2187 INA 
 53     Srivachirawat Kannapon  2186 THA 
 54 FM  Jones Brian             2173 AUS 
 55 WFM Yang Ning               2164 CHN 
 56 WIM Lumongdong Lisa Karlina 2163 INA 
 57 FM  Bakri Anas Nazreen      2150 MAS 
 58     Ahmad Ismail            2138 MAS 
 59     Chong Chor Yuen         2127 HKG 
 60 WFM Lombibao Sherrie Joy    2126 PHI 
 61     Lim Kan Hwa             2106 MAS 
 62 WFM Son Asia                2105 KAZ 
 63     Lindiawati Evi          2091 INA 
 64     Ahmad Kamal Rizal       2079 MAS 
 65     AL Zakiah               2058 INA 
 66 WFM Kharisma Sukander Irine 2010 INA 
 67     Edwin Lam               1983 MAS 
 68     Wang Xinyue             1978 CHN 
 69     Aplin Christer Jon      1947 SIN 
 70     Aw Wai Onn              1920 MAS 
 71     Wan Khye Theng          1911 MAS 
 72     K Naguchi               1832 JPN 
 73     Anasrullah                 0 INA 
 74     Chan Tze Wei            2039 MAS 
 75     Dotsenko Viacheslav        0 RUS 
 76     Kobes James                0 CAN 
 77     Norasa Verdiana            0 INA 
 78     Stefani Dian Chery         0 INA 
 79     Tri Handayani              0 INA 
 80     Yu Marco                   0 HKG 
 81     Yu Melvin                  0 HKG 

Still unsure whether I'll be playing in the Chervrolet Open this Saturday. I want to help out in producing the Malaysia Open bulletin like I did last year as well as play. Let's see if I can do both. Otherwise I'll just help in entering the games. Someone commented left a testimonial on friendster.com about me. This is what he said:-

His penetrating stare at the board searching for best moves really gives me some serious pshychological impact.

Wow! I didn't know that. So now instead of working on my opening, middlegame or endgame, I think I'll seriously work on my "stare". How? Scary or not??

Did not get to go Kepong Baru tourney with my friend Vicky this time. Instead he was at Berjaya Times Square to cover the Atanu simul at Borders bookstore in KL. I bravely went alone this time. As usual got lost again in Kepong even though I had been there last year. With embarassment I was forced to call one of the organisers again - Lee Pei Anne (hmm... last year it was Lim Pei Jean) and ask for directions. With the help of her friends I managed to reach the SMK Kepong school .... late but the good organisers had already placed my name in the list so I got to play after all. The announcement for this tournament was at the very last minute because the organisers didn't even plan to organise this years' tournament because of the form 3 trial exams held just a day after the 14th August 2005. Anyway, I'm very grateful they got together their comittee and manage to organise it. Since it was last minute, many would not have known about this tourney.I thought I had a good chance to top 10 again. There were 45 players in the open section. Just like last year, I finished 4 out of 6. Again, I never got to meet any strong player. But unlike last year where I finished in 10th position (my first top 10 win in many years), this time I was not even near top 10 this time. Perhaps it was the entry of very strong players such as Kamaluddin Yusof, Siti, Johan, Foo Chee Kin, Thaw Chee Yin, etc making the event more challenging this year. Someone said they could not enter my GilaChess.com website. Please leave a comment at the bottom if you too had any problems accessing my site. (Then I'll know if it is only an isolated case or something more serious)Usually I post all the resuts at GilaChess but I'll post it here too just in case:

Kepong 2005 Open Results

Kepong 2005 Under-12 Results

As for Atanu's Simul, I think the last minute announcement, Kepong clash as well heavy rains affected it. Sadly only 9 people turned up for the event. One good news is the haze is gone. And the tournament was played in a nice cooling atmosphere as it was raining for most of rounds 3, 4 and 5.

Related Link: Last Year's Report

Yesterday the winds changed direction and the number of hotspots in Indonesia reduced. Today there was a heavy downpour over KL and it is even clearer than ever before. It's as if the haze was never here. This is good news for the coming Malaysia Open!!

There are two chess events this weekend. (Check out GilaChess.com). Don't know which to go to. Want to go to Kepong for the tourney but I don't know the direction. Anybody know the direction there?

It's just over a week before the biggest chess event in Malaysia will start and we already have a hiccup. The picture shows Mid Valley Megamall where the Dato Tan Malaysia Open will take place. The hazy weather is certainly not conducive to a person's health and also certainly not conducive to producing super chess games in the Malaysian Open. Let's hope the situation will improve in the days to come..

Guardian Unlimited Sport | Special reports | Barden on chess: "Barden on chess Leonard Barden Saturday August 6, 2005 The Guardian The mystique around the best young talents can create unrealistically high expectations among the public. Teenage and student players typically experience many highs and lows - even Bobby Fischer and Garry Kasparov had to face setbacks. Luke McShane, 21, is the UK's best hope to join Michael Adams and Nigel Short as a serious contender in the top 30 elite. But McShane is also an Oxford undergraduate and, like John Nunn, Jon Mestel and Jon Speelman a generation earlier, has found that academic pressures and GM competitions are a bad mix. The stress of a long, hard tournament game is similar in intensity to sitting final exams.

Taken from : http://sport.guardian.co.uk/chess/story/0,15873,1543834,00.html

Chess is back in Perak!!

Being born in Perak I am very happy to see two big tournaments held in Perak recently. I never had a chance to play chess in Perak except for the school district chess championship held once a year. The one in Taiping attracted a record 193 players!!! I think that is definitely a Malaysian record for a one day allegro held anywhere. Anybody can back me up on this? My only regret was having no transport to Taiping that weekend to witness this great event. Out of curiosity, I SMSed one of the organisers just to ask if it was still possible to register a few days before the tourney. (Ching Kim Lye already told me they reached 180+ a week before the event). I got a short two worded response: "Too late". I laughed when I got that reply. The event was won by Khor Shihong after defeating up to that point joint leader Kamaluddin Yusof. It must have been exciting as many saw it was the battle between chess kaki's from Klang valley and Penang. Overall Klang Valley dominated the event. (anybody want to dispute me on this ?? :) )

The Return of the King

After that, the UTP chess tourney in Ipoh broke the record yet again with 194 players!!! Again I missed this event. I would have loved to look at the surprised faces of players who saw NM/FM Nicholas Chan taking part. Absent from the chess scene for a relatively long time, Nicholas appearance would have been shocking for many prize winner wannabe. Strong chess kaki's never had a chance to win when The-King-of-Allegro-Nicholas took part. His sudden appearance must have been shocking. Anyway, Nicholas showed that studies has not slowed him down at all and duely took his rightful place as champion yet again.

Welcome back Nicholas!!

You can get the detail results from my website - GilaChess.

CAS also had it's AGM the same day as the CAS Merdeka celebrations tourney at around lunch time (1.30pm). Good to see the old faces of Mrs Jackie Wong and her husband at the meeting. They were the ones who brought CAS to the level it is today. The 'new blood' have proven themselves as CAS is again the most active Chess society in the country and has done a lot of good to the Chess community. Now if only CAS could just restore their website back to function again and keep members informed about their activities .....

Ha. Thought I could finish top 10 in the CAS merdeka tourney. All the strong chess kaki's went to Ipoh for the UTP tourney. By the way, FM / NM Nicholas Chan won the Ipoh event (SMS info from Ching Kim Lye). Looked at the name list and counted only 7 names that I knew. So I thought heck, top 10 is in the bag for me. (shows how much I can tell from just looking at the name list) Of course, I got punished and didn't even get close to finishing top 10. Only finished with 3.5 points out of 6. Very dismal performance. Anyway, congratulations to the champ Cheah Eu Gene who practically is a well known name as he hold the record for being champion the most no. of times in Sunway College (or Monash University as it is now known). He modestly said he was lucky as he did not have to meet Norazman - his nemesis. Norazman incidentally lost to Izz who incidentally was Norazman's nemesis having defeated him twice before. (-2=1) 2nd of course is FM Anas who I met in the first round and gave him a scare by being up a pawn in the end game(2 rooks vs 2 rooks). But being the patzer I walk into a self mate :). Incidentally, this is the first time ever I've played Anas. I'm not too disappointed. At least I raised my national rating to about 1600+ from 1500+. Now I can call my self a Strong Patzer . To be fair the top 10 players were pretty strong but I am sure it won't be as strong if this event didn't clash with the Ipoh tourney. Category One

No.  PNo.  Name                       Score 
--------------------------------------------
  1.    2  Cheah Eu Gene               5.5  
  2.    1  Anas Nazreen Bakri          5.0  
  3.    4  Ernest Chia                 4.5  
        5  Norazman Ismail             4.5  
  5.    6  Muhd Izz Saifuddin          4.0  
       14  Leong Zhi Wen               4.0  
       10  Lim Zhuo Ren                4.0  
        3  Zach Han                    4.0  
       31  Lee Yeow Siong*             4.0  
       23  Bee Chia Foo                4.0  
       16  Muhd Tayah Wahab            4.0  
 12.   18  Andrew Ooi                  3.5  
       12  Shree Ganesan Sundaraj      3.5  
 14.   19  Muhd Tariq Amru             3.0  
       13  Alia Anin Azwa Bakri        3.0  
       15  Sansubari Che Mud           3.0  
       27  Zafran Khalis MokhtarAzizi  3.0  
       17  Chia Yoon Jien              3.0  
       21  Wong Tian Yu                3.0  
       11  Chan Tze Chen               3.0  
       24  Mokhtar Azizi Mohd Din      3.0  
 22.    7  Tan Ken Wei                 2.5  
        9  Sahir Sarifdin              2.5  
       20  Azhar Mohd Said             2.5  
       29  Azmi Mat Noor*              2.5  
 26.    8  Yang Boon Aik               2.0  
       32  Muhammad Kashif Ayub*       2.0  
       22  Hasidin Abdul Rashid        2.0  
       26  Azizul Azlan                2.0  
 30.   28  Mohd Asri Khamsan           1.5  
       33  Muslim Salleh*              1.5  
       25  Mohd Toha Hj Nasir          1.5  
 33.   30  Baharum Baharuddin*         1.0  


Category Two

No.  PNo.  Name                       Score 
--------------------------------------------
  1.    4  Chek Kin Keuw               5.0  
        6  Ng Ee                       5.0  
        8  How Meng Teik               5.0  
  4.    2  Edward Lee                  4.5  
       10  Izzauddin Syah Mahrome      4.5  
       16  Kee Ming Yu                 4.5  
  7.   20  Chai Chin Wen               4.0  
        1  Jared Ng                    4.0  
       11  Nicholas Lee                4.0  
       22  Lim Chin Shen               4.0  
 11.   12  Julian Koh                  3.5  
       15  Muhammad Syakir Shazmeer    3.5  
        7  Voon Yung Shen              3.5  
       18  Tan Aik Mund                3.5  
       14  Eunice Yee                  3.5  
 16.    9  Chan Chian Sing             3.0  
       13  How Meng Wei                3.0  
       23  Justin Ong Way              3.0  
        5  Ng Soon Seong               3.0  
       36  Wong Sue Yuin*              3.0  
       27  Muhammad Irfan Haqqim       3.0  
 22.    3  Chiang Ye John              2.5  
       24  Lim Daw Shin                2.5  
       34  Ng Kean Beng*               2.5  
       19  Lim Daw Zhe                 2.5  
       21  Ng Shyue Jer                2.5  
 27.   26  Young Zheng Foug            2.0  
       28  Chuah Aik Sheng*            2.0  
       30  Kee Ming Zhen*              2.0  
       25  Yap Seng Fei                2.0  
       29  Hu Jiun Ruey*               2.0  
 32.   17  Ambrose Yee                 1.5  
       35  Nicolas Ian Richards*       1.5  
 34.   33  Melvin Soo Chen Hou*        1.0  
       32  Lim Zhan Yi*                1.0  
 36.   31  Lim Chun Kiat*              0.5  

As usual I woke up late at 8:30am and I know I have to register at Sunway College before 9.30am. Made it in time.

There wil be another tournament in Kepong - as yet unannounced in GilaChess.com. Just found out about it.

Details:

Kepong Baru Open Date: 14th Aug 2005 Contact: 016-2665907(Chan Litt Binn) or 017-6256983(Lim Pei Anne) for more details.

Will post a more complete announcement in GilaChess.com later.

I've been busy setting some new chess related websites the past few days. What chess site? Will announce it later but not before it's 100% complete. Tomorrow (7th August 2005) will be CAS chess competition to celebrate Merdeka day. Don' t know what that means but I'm eager to play in any one day competition so I've already sent my name to Tse Pin (chessmate@cas.com.kg) to pre-register. Taking my "brain supplements" as they seem to have increased my chess performance. Was KYUEM a fluke ?? It may be imagined or otherwise but let's see tomorrow...

Chess players in the movies: "Chess players in the movies Aug. 3, 2005 04:45 PM Chess shows up a lot in the movies, often for no other reason than to make the protagonist seem smart or sophisticated. It's frequently used in advertisements for the same reason. But it's obvious - at least to chess players - that most ad designers don't play chess. The tip-off is in the way the board is set up. More often than not you'll see a dark square at each player's right, but that square is always light in chess. Check it out the next time you see a chessboard in an ad. Only a handful of movies actually have been about chess, or at least involved chess as a major plot element. Here's a sampling: • Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993). The best chess movie ever made, starring Joe Mantegna, Joan Allen, Ben Kingsley and Max Pomeranc as chess prodigy Josh Waitzkin. Based on the book by Fred Waitzkin about his son's phenomenal abilities, the film was dramatized, with Kingsley portraying chess coach Bruce Pandolfini. Laurence Fishburne plays a chess bum whose overly aggressive style of play influences Josh in ways Kingsley does not approve. • The Luzhin Defence (2000). John Turturro plays a chess master slipping into madness. The film is based on the Vladimir Nabokov novel of the "