Correction about my previous post about the Ole Ole tournament offering RM 200 for first prize for both open and junior category. My mistake, it's RM300.

Nevertheless, one veteran chess player commented that during the BPM allegro over two decades ago the first prize money was RM 300. Back then that was a lot of money so many top players travel from state to state to try to win as much as they could.

Now, we still see tournaments with RM 300 for first prize !!

I think that just shows the state of chess in Malaysia. Sure, the frequency of small weekend tournaments is healthy but it hasn't progress much since the days of the BPM allegros. Of course, by evolution, we will have the odd but special tournaments where players are lucky to see prizes like RM 2000 and RM 1000 like the recent Pekan and Tronoh rapid event.

Still, those are far and in between.