Last year for the chess festival, one of my lofty for fun #syiokSendiri idea was having my mac mini m1 16gb RAM sitting idle in the room upstairs of the AirBnB do something useful to contribute to the festival content.


Of course that never happened.

The Festival was before OpenClaw came out in November which was unfortunate. Because OpenClaw fulfilled every box that I wanted ticked.

This is a brilliant application of OpenClaw. I can set up a 24/7 autonomous GilaChess "rival" to shadow my own coverage. When I post in any format - blogspot, wordpress, PHP CMS, Facebook or YouTube, it has access to all these mediums.

Because OpenClaw operates as a local background gateway with direct access to shell commands and the web, it can completely automate the understanding, drafting, and publishing cycle. I will give it resources - the same that I have in the new blogs and websites, Facebook account, YouTube etc.

Sure, it will be duplicate content, but the AI version will strive to better me in every way. Who will win?

But the bigger question is, whether this just #syiokSendiri or become reality?

I created app.catur.org last year because I wanted to open my phone and quickly check the Malaysian Chess Festival schedule without having to search for the tournament PDF and open it. It grew as I added other info like prize structure, link to registration, player lists etc.

Then I made festival.catur.org because I like the name, as it sounds very close to  "chess festival" just from the URL. If you look at both mini websites, they have the same content.

So I asked Perplexity.ai what it thought the difference between the two websites and it responded:

Website purpose

app.catur.org appears to serve as a mobile-friendly companion app/site for festival participants, with quick access to schedules, player lists, results, venue maps, and news updates. It also still carries archived festival content from earlier editions, so it functions like a practical information hub during the event.

festival.catur.org is the official registration portal and event homepage for the 21st Malaysian Chess Festival 2026. It emphasizes sign-up, the event schedule, categories, and festival logistics, making it the main entry point for players who want to register or review the full event structure.

Perplexity got most of it right but not the official registration portal part. Both are not "official" but they do link the official registration page which is at DATCC website.

app.catur.org purpose is a static informational site for all the essential festival info which is mobile friendly - so as to be quickly referenced when needed.

festival.catur.org seems to have all the same content but it goes further to report on events as it happens - sort of like a blog and link to live results and the latest developments related to the festival.

So there! Think of app as the fast and efficient office assistant and festival as the hardworking reporter.

 

Abstract (Because Every Serious Document Needs One)

Ladies, gentlemen, and those still capable of independent thought: we need to talk about an epidemic sweeping the globe with the quiet, relentless creep of a Berlin Defense endgame. It doesn't shamble. It doesn't moan for brains. It just... sits down across from you, offers a friendly "you wanna play?", and three months later you're explaining the Sicilian Najdorf to your dry cleaner. This is the Chess Plague, and unlike other zombie outbreaks, there is no headshot that stops it. There is only resignation — and even that comes with a post-game analysis.

Patient Zero: A Case Study in Denial

It always starts the same way. Someone — a coworker, a cousin, a guy at the park who "just happened to have a board" — says the fateful words: "It's a great way to relax." Nobody relaxes playing chess. Grandmasters lose weight during tournaments. Bobby Fischer didn't look relaxed a day in his adult life. But the infected don't know this yet. They still believe chess is a nice, quiet hobby, like knitting, but with more crushing existential despair.

You agree to "one quick game." This is the equivalent of a zombie movie character saying "I'm sure it's fine, let's just go check the basement." Ninety minutes later, you've learned what "zugzwang" means, you've been forced to trade your queen for what turns out to be a devastating positional advantage you didn't know existed, and somewhere deep in your amygdala, something has changed. Welcome to Stage One.

The Four Stages of Infection

Stage One: Curiosity (Days 1–3) Symptoms include downloading a chess app "just to see," losing to the built-in bot on the easiest difficulty, and feeling personally offended about it. The infected individual insists this is a one-time thing, much like every smoker's first cigarette and every gambler's first "just for fun" hand of blackjack.

Stage Two: Acquisition (Days 4–14) The subject begins accumulating chess-adjacent objects: a board "for the coffee table," a book with a title like My 60 Memorable Losses, a mug that says "Not All Who Wander Are Lost, Some Are Just In Zugzwang." They start saying things like "I'm just a beginner, I don't really know what I'm doing," while simultaneously beating your uncle at Thanksgiving and refusing to make eye contact afterward out of what can only be described as predatory modesty.

Stage Three: Obsession (Weeks 3–8) This is when the language changes. Full sentences are replaced with phrases like "I hung my rook," "the engine says I was only slightly worse," and "I could've had a forced mate in six but I blundered into a draw by repetition." Loved ones report the infected staring at ceilings, mouths moving silently, running imaginary calculations. This is not meditation. This is a man replaying a loss from four days ago in a game against someone named xXRookSlayer42Xx.

Stage Four: Full Conversion (2+ Months) The subject now has opinions about openings. Strong ones. They will explain, unprompted, why the London System is either the greatest invention in human history or a crime against the game, depending entirely on their mood and the phase of the moon. They own multiple chess sets "for different occasions." They know what an Elo rating is and, worse, they know theirs, and they will tell you, and you will not have asked.

They will appear in swarms especially in a tournament hall when two other zombies are short on time.

Transmission Vectors: How It Spreads

Public health officials (me, right now, making this up) have identified several primary transmission vectors:

1. The Park Bench. Ground zero for most outbreaks. A man in a flat cap sits alone with a board. He looks lonely. He is not lonely. He is a spider, and the board is his web.
2. The Office Lunch Room. One innocuous "chess.com tournament" Slack channel is all it takes. Within a fiscal quarter, productivity across three departments has quietly collapsed.
3. Netflix Docuseries. A single viewing of a show about a fictional chess prodigy has been linked to a 4,000% spike in board sales, according to a statistic I am extremely confident someone, somewhere, has said out loud.
4. Close Family Contact. Chess is disturbingly hereditary. One infected grandparent can convert an entire family tree by Christmas.

Why There Is No Cure

Every other addiction has a support group. Chess does not, because the enthusiasts don't believe they need one — they believe you need to understand that the Ruy Lopez is objectively the most elegant opening in human history, and if you would just sit down for a moment, they can show you why.

Rehabilitation attempts consistently fail. Confiscating the board only drives the behavior underground — into phone apps, into scribbled notation on napkins, into "friendly" games that end with someone in tears over a blundered endgame. Attempts at cognitive behavioral therapy typically end with the therapist five games deep and asking if the infected individual has ever considered the Caro-Kann.

A Word From "Recovered" Patients

We reached out to several self-described "recovering" chess enthusiasts. All of them, without exception, tried to show us their most recent game before answering a single question. One gentleman, mid-interview, paused to say "wait, actually, hold on" and spent the next eleven minutes re-litigating a loss from 2019. He has not touched a board in "six months," a claim he made while wearing a t-shirt that said Passed Pawns Don't Have Feelings But I Do.

There is no such thing as an ex-chess player. There are only chess players who are, at this exact moment, between games.

Prevention Guidelines (Doomed to Fail, But We Tried)

• Avoid eye contact with anyone carrying a folded board.
• Never say "how does that piece move," as this is the chess equivalent of investigating the noise in the horror movie basement.
• If someone says "I'll go easy on you," understand this is a lie, and also somehow simultaneously true, because they will beat you slowly, patiently, and with visible regret about your life choices.
• Do not, under any circumstances, watch "just one clip" of a chess commentator getting excited about a move. This has been directly linked to same-day board purchases.
• If bitten — i.e., if you find yourself agreeing to "just one game" — seek help immediately. Unfortunately, the only known helpers are other chess players, and they will not want to cure you. They will want to show you their opening repertoire.

Conclusion: Learning to Live With the Infected

The truth is, total quarantine isn't realistic. Chess enthusiasts walk among us — at parks, in offices, at your own dinner table, disguised as ordinary, reasonable people, until the moment someone mentions "the Queen's Gambit" and their eyes glaze over with the thousand-yard stare of the truly converted.

Our best advice, as a society, is not eradication but coexistence. Nod politely when they explain the Sicilian Defense. Let them win sometimes, so they feel powerful and leave you alone sooner. And above all — never, ever, under any circumstances, ask them if they want to play "just one quick game."

You will not be the same person by the time it's over. None of us are.

India is probably one of the worse hit country in this zombie apocalypse. They have the highest infected. Not only that, some of the infections are so advanced that doctors and scientist have classified the highest evolution - Grandmaster Zombies. These super strong zombies number almost 100 today. No other countries have these high numbers. Grandmaster Zombies command legions of other zombies from all over the world. The medium they use: Livestream games !!

I must admit I am one of those rare "recovered" chess zombies. I no longer play the game, but although I look human now, the infection is still strong in my body, I still congregate and move within the zombie swarm called chess tournaments. I just can't help it!!!

Also, I am the worst type of "recovered" zombie. The one that will go out on the street with a megaphone and shout out that there is a tournament going on somewhere, thus attracting more humans to watch and ultimately get infected.

This article is a work of satire. No pawns were harmed in the making of it, though several were tragically, needlessly sacrificed for "positional compensation" that never quite materialized.

My Sony A5100 was failing me ever since the last Malaysian Festival. The LCD would blank out and I would take pictures "blind". After the Penang Open 2025, it totally gave out. Now I am without a camera. It is sad because the A5100 has been my faithful companion to chess tournaments since before COVID. RIP old friend.

I need a camera but can't afford it.

✨ I am putting this intention out into the universe:
The right opportunity will come at the right time.

Whether through:
• Extra work
• Unexpected blessings
• Generous support
• Or a chance I haven't yet imagined

I trust that the path to my next camera is already unfolding.

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📝 Until then, I'll keep doing what I love:
• Sharing stories from the chess world
• Supporting our players
• Contributing to the community with whatever resources I have

Sometimes manifestation isn't about waiting for miracles—
It's about holding onto the vision while continuing to take steps toward it every single day.

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🌟 One day, I'll be covering tournaments with that Sony ZV-E10 in my hands. (aiming for a used one @ RM 2000)

And when that day comes,
I'll remember this moment as the beginning of that journey.

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 What's in a name, and why it matters

The festival began in 2004 and is one of the oldest and arguably the largest chess festivals in Asia. With over two decades of history, the "Malaysian Chess Festival" brand carries real institutional weight — players, parents, international participants, and the global chess calendar have come to associate that name with the event. Changing it, even temporarily, has genuine consequences worth unpacking from different angles. 

The case for "Merdeka Chess Festival"

From a positive public perspective, adopting "Merdeka" (meaning "independence" in Malay) in the festival name is not without logic. The 21st edition is scheduled to run from 28 August to 6 September 2026, and the opening weekend sits squarely on Malaysia's National Day on 31 August — Hari Merdeka. Timing the festival around the independence celebration is a long-standing tradition; individual events within the festival have carried "Merdeka" branding for years, such as the Merdeka Blitz Chess Championship and the SMS DEEN Merdeka Open Rapid Team Chess Championship. Calling the overall festival "Merdeka Chess Festival" could therefore be seen as a natural patriotic rebrand that better reflects the spirit of the occasion and aligns the festival's identity more visibly with national pride. It could also make it more attractive for national-level sponsorship and government support tied to Merdeka celebrations. 

The case against — and why reverting matters

On the other hand, there are meaningful reasons why the general chess public might view this change unfavourably, and why reverting makes sense.

The most immediate issue is brand confusion. The Malaysian Chess Festival is recognised as one of the oldest international open events in Asia, with the festival having drawn over 1,400 participants from nine events in a single edition. International players, rating agencies, and the broader FIDE community have indexed the event under its established name for over 20 years. A sudden rename— risks fracturing that recognition. Players searching for the event, tournament databases, or historical results could find the linkage broken. 

There is also a question of inclusivity. "Malaysian Chess Festival" signals something broad and nationally inclusive — chess for all Malaysians. "Merdeka Chess Festival," while patriotic, is more time-bound in connotation and may feel less welcoming to international participants, who represent a significant portion of the field. Past editions have drawn players from countries including Australia, Indonesia, India, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, the Netherlands, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, and New Zealand. For those players, a name tied to Malaysian independence carries less resonance than one that signals an open, international competition. 

On reverting the name

With the name changed back to "Malaysian Chess Festival," the public reaction is likely to be largely positive. It signals that the organisers are responsive, that they value the event's established identity, and that community feedback matters. The downside is minimal reputational damage from the inconsistency itself, but this is far outweighed by the long-term benefit of restoring a name with genuine brand equity.

In short, the "Malaysian Chess Festival" name is more than a label — it is a 20-year-old reputation that has made the event a fixture on the regional and international chess calendar. Temporary rebranding without explanation creates noise, and reverting to the original is the sensible move from a public relations standpoint, even if the "Merdeka" branding within individual events remains a perfectly appropriate and popular tradition.

Whatever the reason, I for one support the name change back to Malaysian Chess Festival.