Malaysia is doing well at least better than most countries in this covid pandemic times. I feel we are wasting a lot of resources with disposable masks and washable/reusable masks is more sensible.

A chess friend got the idea and came up with a chess-motif mask! I think it's a great idea. He sent me one but I am in Cameron Highlands for holiday at the moment but I will post a review when I try it in a few days.






♟️DOUBLE LAYER WITH FILTER POCKET

♟️BUY TWO GET RM5 DISCOUNT

♟️FREE POSTAGE

You can get the mask from this link to  Shopee 

 
 

If someone described me a procrastinator and dreamer, they are so right!

Talked about "wanting" to do this - setting up a local (Malaysian or at least Asia based) chess playing webserver for many years now. Wrote about the Holy Grail of Installing Chess Servers in 2016. Nothing has happened since then.

The obvious questions is why on earth would anyone want to compete with the already established chess webservers like Lichess, Playchess, Chess.com, ICC and FICC?

Here are the reasons why:

1. It's possible
Just like Nike's slogan "Just Do It", it can and should be attempted just because it's possible!
LICHESS, one of the most popular online playing platform is open source. The games played just surpassed 1 billion the beginning of this year. Anyone with motivation and knowledge can take the source code and build their own version of LICHESS. The installation process is documented at github.





2. Local equals fast
LICHESS itself is hosted in France in 3 separate servers. Distance matters. For Malaysians, the ping rate is higher because of the distance. What this means is that there is a slight delay for moves to be transmitted and played on the game server. The delay is relatively small but serious chess players will notice it particularly if they are playing fast chess like bullet chess. If there is a LICHESS installation in Malaysia, the ping rate will be fast and the experience of almost instantaneous response in the game play will definitely make it a more enjoyable experience.






3. Open source equals modifiable

Programmers can modify and add new features to the server. Eg: interactive rooms for chess coaching, custom local tournaments etc. The possibilities are endless.

Please don't wait for me to do this (for obvious reasons). Anyone out there want to take this challenge and implement a local chess server?


Also with the current COVID19 crisis, it emphasises the importantce of online facilities like a chess server.

3rd Johor Bahru International Chess Championship is postponed due to the covid19 virus.

I love this romantic comedy movie and it's about Drew Barrymore who plays an amnesiac whose short term memory can only retain the last 24 hours and forgets everything the very next day. It's a beautiful and creative story which I really liked.

It's perfect to illustrate GilaChess relationship with GACC. For example, I've helped them in the early days when blogs and website were a thing and there were not many other than GilaChess and a few other blogs. So much so that GilaChess was chosen as "Web sponsor" and covered the event reporting on the many editions of GACC. But they (GACC) do forget the role the websites and blog play for publicity and left us out for some years. Who can blame GACC as they comprise university students who change every year and "memory loss" such as benefits and things that work previously is forgotten when the new batch of GACC takes over.

Last year I decided to remind them, and they did appoint GilaChess the old post of "web sponsor" so the event was covered in my blog and websites in 2019. As web sponsor the official website GACC.tv was created to post daily updates on the tournament.
     
As expected, without reminder this year, it was forgotten again. And I did not remind them and as such did not cover the event this year. There is no malice or ill feelings towards GACC but I just want to point out the weaknesses of not remembering. Not that blog coverage is important or anything. In fact I am relieved they did not invite me to cover the event this year. It's both expensive (in terms of time and effort) and without any monetary compensation (not that I was expecting it). I even let the website GACC.tv expire (too expensive to maintain).


What I want to point out is that GACC managed to attract better sponsors in the past. For example, the closing ceremony dinner was sponsored by the Legend hotel and playing conditions were good to attract strong players. Because of this GACC bigger and far more successful. For example, they had top Russian GMs taking part in the inter-varsities event. I remember one was top 10 junior in the world. Even Wang Hao took part in one of the years. There was this successful formula in attracting top talents but sadly what worked then was forgotten or lost. They cannot replicate it in the later years which is a shame.


The formula today is not bad. It's sort of like a mini Malaysian Open. We have the age group, blitz, inter-varsities and the team event is especially popular based on the successful Merdeka Team event which many love. But if you, like me remember the past, it was more exclusive and bigger then. Ah .. those were the days..

Just to reiterate, I bear no grudge against GACC not inviting me this year. Like I said, I appreciate the rest this year. Also, I wish GACC success for future editions! Probably one advice is to maybe remember what worked and what didn't and make future GACC better.