Of late I have been hungry for chess information especially coming out from recent tournaments. However it seems that the major chess blogs have gone inactive. Hairulov, Gilocatur etc all have gone into hibernation with Gilocatur with the occasional blog post and explanation why his blog is quiet.

Fireyrook is also busy and reduced to cutting and pasting results only. Even the Lim Chong tournament recently was not attended by any blogger (not including Chess Odyssey 2000 and Chess is Chess who were actually playing in the tourney).

Does publicity and coverage by bloggers and media affect participation and attendance? It would be interesting if someone did a study. Lim Chong Memorial had around 80 participant last year and dropped to 60 this year.

I did take half a day off work to visit the KL Masters and Lim Chong and immediately saw a boost in traffic in my blog. Also the graph (above) from Facebook page on Malaysian Chess Blog tooka spike for that one day post. 

Anyway, today is the start of the Malaysian Masters and Closing ceremony of the KL Masters at the Palace of the Golden Horses hotel. I hope there will be some coverage by chess bloggers. So chess bloggers now is your time to gain a huge traffic spike from the hungry readers :)

P/S: I tired from work and need to take time off this weekend to rest so I won't be at any chess event today or tomorrow.