There is so many weekend tourneys in Malaysia I don't visit any except if I am invited or if it's near my place. (This tourney happened to be 10minutes away from IKEA where I was having breakfast). This tourney in Dr Cafe is special because it is held in a cafe and there is free lunch provided.

From the prize money and entrance fee (RM 40) it can be quickly deduced the cost is mostly covered by the main sponsor - Dr Cafe. Certainly a change with many other weekend tournaments that try to break even or profit from the entrance fee.


First thing I noticed is the nice atmosphere where the tourney was taking place. It was like playing chess in Starbucks!

I've never heard of Dr Cafe before but a quick check with FourSquares shows it is rated highly by locals. Few cafes are highly rated and Malaysian Foodies are a spoilt lot. Wished I got a chance to try any of Dr Cafe beverage but didn't so can
't write a review on that. Next time!



The event advertised the maximum of 100 participants but only 77 were present. That is a repectable number as this event clashed with another tournament taking place in Klang Valley at the same time.

41 were playing in the junior (Under 12) section  and a total of 36 players played under the combined Under 18 and Open section.




To show you how busy the junior section was here is a time-lapse video:


The Chief Arbiter



The cafe was certainly not big enough to cater for both chess participants AND their parents as well as their own customers so some tents were set up outside. That's good planning by DR Cafe otherwise it would have been pretty uncomfortable.


All participants got free lunch which was nice. (again since I didn't take part I didn't get to taste their lunch :( )


Arbiter! Arbiter!




The Open/Under-18 was won by Aron Teh with a score of a perfect 6/6!








Razali Hamzah (Ng6) won 2nd prize.


Dawson Tan took 3rd prize.


Esther Tan - U18 champion.

More pictures from the event:-

Full results in Chess-results.com

Open/U18: http://www.chess-results.com/tnr286613.aspx?lan=1&art=4&wi=821
U12: http://www.chess-results.com/tnr286612.aspx?lan=1&art=4&wi=821











Sponsorship from Dr Cafe also meant loss of normal customers for the day as can be seen we chess players totally monopolised the cafe space! :)

P/S: Would have love to have captured some top board games (especially those games from Aron Teh!)but the cafe tables were too small to place a big ass DGT board on top of it. I could have another camera capture the action live but I don't have enough spare cams yet. Next time!!