Blog GilaChess

Finally! Well to be fair,the website has been updated for a couple weeks now.


So much useful facilities can be added of course like online national rating search, news/updates on State affiliates, etc.

Trying out video during the Malaysia Inter States at Pahang to make things more interesting. Certainly seems refreshing compared to just reading about the results. I guess there should be some audio commentaries too but I hate the sound of my own voice.  :)


So what do you think? Should there more video content for chess news? Or should we just stick to old fashion pictures and words ?

Anybody who knows me, knows I avoid anything resembling chess politics like a plague. But this is one exception. Norazwan for President!!

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Open Table 1



Open Table 2




Open Table 3, Board 1

After Round 4, Penang takes a clear dominant lead after being unbeaten for all 4 matches. KL, Johor and Selangor following closely behind with 3 wins and 1 loss respectively.

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Open Table 1



Open Table 2




Open Table 3, Board 1

Arguably the strongest team contesting in the current Malaysia Inter States are Selangor, Penang and KL. Selangor meets Penang on table 1 in current Round 4.

Standings after 3 rounds:

Rk.	SNo	Team	Games	+	=	-	TB1	TB2
1	3	Pulau Pinang	3	3	0	0	6	11
2	1	Selangor	3	3	0	0	6	9
3	4	Johor	3	2	0	1	4	8
4	2	Kuala Lumpur	3	2	0	1	4	8
5	11	Pahang A	3	2	0	1	4	7.5
6	5	Sabah	3	2	0	1	4	7
7	7	Kelantan	3	1	1	1	3	6
8	8	Sarawak	3	1	1	1	3	4.5
9	6	Terengganu	3	1	0	2	2	5
10	12	Negeri Sembilan	3	1	0	2	2	5
11	9	Putrajaya	3	1	0	2	2	4.5
12	10	Perak	3	0	1	2	1	4.5
13	13	Pahang C	3	0	1	2	1	3.5
14	14	Pahang B	3	0	0	3	0	0.5

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Open Table 1



Girls Table 1




Open Table 1, Board 1

Round 3 on 2016/11/27 at 10:00 am
No.	Team	Team
1	Kuala Lumpur	Selangor
2	Kelantan	Pulau Pinang
3	Johor	Putrajaya
4	Terengganu	Sabah
5	Perak	Pahang A
6	Sarawak	Pahang C
7	Negeri Sembilan	Pahang B

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Open Table 1



Girls Table 1

Round 2 on 2016/11/26 at 17:00 pm
No.	Team	Team
1	Selangor	Johor
2	Sabah	Kuala Lumpur
3	Pulau Pinang	Terengganu
4	Kelantan	Sarawak
5	Putrajaya	Negeri Sembilan
6	Pahang C	Perak
7	Pahang A	Pahang B

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Open Table 1



Girls Table 1




Open Table 2, Board 1

ROund 1 started at 1.15 pm !!!
(GAMES are not live anymore but is still replayable)

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Open Table 1



Girls Table 1




Open Table 2, Board 1

-->

No.	Team	Team
1	Sarawak	Selangor
2	Kuala Lumpur	Putrajaya
3	Perak	Pulau Pinang
4	Johor	Pahang A
5	Negeri Sembilan	Sabah
6	Terengganu	Pahang C
7	Pahang B	Kelantan

-->

1. Selangor (RtgAvg:2109 / TB1: 0 / TB2: 0)
Bo.		Name	Rtg
1	FM	Nicholas Chan	2238
2	FM	Lim Zhuo Ren	2065
3	IM	Jimmy Liew Chee-Meng	2055
4		Marcus Chan	2078
5	CM	Mohd Kamal Abdullah	1994
2. Kuala Lumpur (RtgAvg:2059 / TB1: 0 / TB2: 0)
Bo.		Name	Rtg
1		Lye Lik Zang	1991
2	IM	Mas Hafizulhelmi	2161
3		Zaidan Zulkipli	2101
4	CM	Ng Jen Sheng	1982
5	WFM	Tan Li Ting	1896
3. Pulau Pinang (RtgAvg:2033 / TB1: 0 / TB2: 0)
Bo.		Name	Rtg
1		Looi Xin Hao	2023
2	FM	Wong Yinn Long	2090
3	IM	Ooi Zhi Yang	1977
4		Tan Khai Boon	1917
5		Ng Tze Han	2042
4. Johor (RtgAvg:1897 / TB1: 0 / TB2: 0)
Bo.		Name	Rtg
1		Abdullah Che Hassan	1913
2		Leong Mun Wan	1941
3		Shee Jia Wee	1648
4		Kamaluddin Yusof	1871
5		Tan Kok Liang	1862
5. Sabah (RtgAvg:1881 / TB1: 0 / TB2: 0)
Bo.		Name	Rtg
1		Jeppy Tewelu Asan Kese	1838
2		Abdul Sahim Wising	1831
3		Masrin Erowan	1998
4		Abdul Shukor A Rajah	1857
5		Ali Akbar Nadzrif	1613
6. Terengganu (RtgAvg:1789 / TB1: 0 / TB2: 0)
Bo.		Name	Rtg
1		Muhd Syazwan Zulkifli	1860
2		Fairul Yusoff	1759
3		Abdul Rahim Ramli	1745
4		Nor Azmi Mohd Nor	1793
5		Suhaidi Mustafa	1682
7. Kelantan (RtgAvg:1780 / TB1: 0 / TB2: 0)
Bo.		Name	Rtg
1		Muhd Ariez Azman	1635
2		Nik Ahmad Farouqi Nik Abdul Az	1981
3		Wan Mohd Azmie Wan Abd Rahim	1676
4		Nasrul Humaimi Mahmood	1693
5		Mohd Amin Mohd Noor	1768
8. Sarawak (RtgAvg:1765 / TB1: 0 / TB2: 0)
Bo.		Name	Rtg
1		Mohd Hifzhan Rafaie	1618
2		Ahmad Afiq Afyfy Rosli	1823
3		Fergus Lim See Siang	1787
4		Lim Kian Hwa	1695
5		Leong Zhi Wen	1755
9. Putrajaya (RtgAvg:1734 / TB1: 0 / TB2: 0)
Bo.		Name	Rtg
1		Muhd Naqib Syabani	1451
2		Muhd Ilhan Mansiz Hairul	1546
3		Hairul Abdul Hamid	1670
4		Amir Ghaazi Mohd Saprin	1839
5		Abdul Haq Mohd	1879
10. Perak (RtgAvg:1722 / TB1: 0 / TB2: 0)
Bo.		Name	Rtg
1		Syamaizar Lup	1877
2		Ahmad Kamal Rustam Affendi	1752
3		Ahmad Jamal Husni Jamaluddin	1704
4		Azmi Ishak	1554
11. Pahang A (RtgAvg:1705 / TB1: 0 / TB2: 0)
Bo.		Name	Rtg
1		Mohd Hanif Arkuni Abas	1727
2		Roazman Mat Rosley	1511
3		Muhd Asyraf Razman	1838
4		Mohd Huzairi Husin	1619
5		Muhd Khairilhelmi Rosseli	1635
12. Negeri Sembilan (RtgAvg:1613 / TB1: 0 / TB2: 0)
Bo.		Name	Rtg
1		Prashant Raj Ramani	1583
2		Ahmad Faizal Ahmad Fahmi	1461
3		Lohanathan Ponniah	1417
4		Cheah Cheok Fung	1825
5		Kamar Dani Abu Kassim	1581
13. Pahang C (RtgAvg:1481 / TB1: 0 / TB2: 0)
Bo.		Name	Rtg
1		Muhd Uthman Fikri Abd Majid	1597
2		Ahmad Amir Aizat Ahmad Basri	1280
3		Ahmad Ahlami Muzakkir Azman	1402
4		Zulkarnain Safri	1499
5		Muhd Faiz Jaidi	1425
14. Pahang B (RtgAvg:1473 / TB1: 0 / TB2: 0)
Bo.		Name	Rtg
1		Muhd Deraman	1469
2		Bokhari Ulud	1466
3		Shaharudin Mohd Said	1458
4		Hamzah Abdul Rahman	1472
5		Muhd Harith Fahmi Mohd Radzuan	1485

Sad but true as can be seen by the mass inactive Malaysian chess bloggers. We had more than 30 chess bloggers a few years ago and now it's down to a handful of active ones only. However it also means blogs have transitioned from text based to other medium such as video (vlogs??)

This blog is not dead yet but I will "follow the trend" and post more material in video form (usually to YouTube) as that is what people prefer nowadays. Who wants to read?!

So the short term target for the coming Pahang Interstate is to get a total of 40 subscribers and raise the views for my vidoes to 80,000. Basically this is about double of what I had for my almost dead YouTube channel :)

related link:
http://youtube.com/gilachess

About 17 thousand live viewers. Not bad for Chess most premiere event. Kudos to the two GMs for sitting and commenting for more than 6 hours!!

For our local traffic, I see about probably 15-20 live viewers using UStream traffic stats. However other live broadcasters are reporting hundreds of live viewers which I am a bit skeptical because the stats comes from website hits and not concurrent live viewers. Interested to see how many will tune in to watch the coming Inter States in Pahang starting tomorrow.

This will be a good opportunity to get a good measurement on the metrics of live traffic.

I have a DGT board but I always liked the idea of cheaper alternatives because of the high cost of the boards.The technology is definitely already here such as image recognition and the raising processing powers of gadgets such as tablets and phones further makes it even more achievable.


Hats off the Hairul Hamid for spotting this first. Using a phone and an app to recognize moves made over any ordinary chess boards is certainly a big step and I look forward for the day when mass board automatic recording and live broadcast is made cheaper and easier. Currently, the app developers still charge USD 4.99 per month for use of the app.

Related link:
https://worldchess.com/2016/11/22/a-new-vision-for-recording-games/

Map to the place:

I guess I need not announce it as most who are involved are already comitted and gettng ready to take part in just 3 days time. Here's the schedule. Since I am Mr forgetful I have saved this as my phone's wall paper for convenience.


Team events like these is inevitable as the Merdeka Team held during the Malaysian Chess Festival anually is not enough to quell the appetites of chess enthusiast for more team participation. I have not looked at the team list yet but I have a strong feeling that this event will be as big as the Merdeka if not bigger.

I know you guys are busy preparing (or not!). My preparation as usual will be to open ip channels to share info about the event via MITCC blog, FB page and twitter. Of course AI Chess will be there to for full live broadcast of the event.

Related link:
http://mychessteam.blogspot.my/
https://www.facebook.com/pg/mychessteam

See you there !!!

Masrin Erowan won the 2016 USIM (Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia) End Of Year Open today. He took the title Champion with a perfect 7/7 score in a field of 88 players and one point ahead of his nearest rivals.
From 2nd to 4th place respectively with 6 points are:
Muhd Irfan Haqqim Azhar, Mukhriez Shah Mahmood Shah and Kamaluddin Yusof.

Chessresults link here

Cross referece table (Interactive):





Photos courtesy of "Shin Norazwan" of the AI Chess app

Notable is the broadcast of 4 DGT boards live for just a local weekend event !

Please download AIChess app to view the live games. (Shortcut keys: press the d1, e1 square to move forward and backwards a move. If the game is over the moves are already recorded and can still be replayed )

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Not chess but Starcraft 2.

Just to show what top Starcraft 2 players earn compared to chess. Also this is one of the qualifying rounds for the coming World Championship in China.




Why I am posting this when the World Chess Championship is hours away?

It's a good opportunity to compare Chess and Starcraft 2 levels are when it comes to broadcasting the live games to the masses.


Chess
Agon Limited who are the official partner of the World Chess Federation (FIDE) are fiercely defending their rights to boradcast the World Championship. As can be seen from my email with Agon rep, I was denied access to place even the widget to show the game on my website. Take note it's only the game. No commentaries. No video or image of the chess players in New York. I know my websites are "not significant" but alieanating small sites is not really helping their cause.

Sure, you can still follow live (without buying the subscription from Agon) with commentaries from Chess.com and Chess24.com but these two sites will not have access to see the players themselves due to Agon protective stance on broadcasting. Incidentally, Agon has lost the court case vs Chess24.com in the Russian courts.

Starcraft 2
All live events for Starcraft, especially big events like the World Championship is open to EVERYBODY via twitch.tv live. Big difference compared to chess.

Of course the reason for this is simple. Blizzard has figured out how to support their media broadcasting using sponsors and other channels. I guess chess has to take the road of trial and error to find the correct formula to get chess out the masses. Frankly I feel that telling smaller websites their not significant enough and suing other chess websites is the way to go.

Note: The above video is 2 weeks ago (delayed telecast?) but when it was first shown it was live on twitch.tv


Those who want to follow the World Championship live tune in around 2am according to the Agon World Chess Championship website.

Wanted to get the widget for the World Championship live games so we can watch it live locally but alas my chess websites for Malaysian chess fans is "not significant enough". So just go to Chess24.com to view the games.

If you drive there, better park at Giant Supermarket just across as it is free. Parking at Ole-Ole space is not :)


Related link:
2015 Ole Ole winners

This is the first time I am talking about the local chess app AI Chess. Truth be told I have been sceptical about their efforts to write a multipurpose app that can :

1. give access to games of local chess players
2. live DGT chess games
3. event registration
4. chess puzzles
5. online chess games
6. and many other chess related services