09-06-2006 chess

From Malaysia Encyclopedia

Firm solidarity

CHESS: By QUAH SENG SUN

MALAYSIAN chess aficionados were solidly behind their national men’s and women’s teams at the Chess Olympiad in Turin, Italy. We shared the joys and despair of their roller-coaster ride during the Chess Olympiad which ended five days ago.

I have never seen so much passion coming from our chess supporters before. All these, of course, thanks to the Internet where we had three things going to generate continuous interest among our chess players.

Firstly, there was live coverage of the games, though an Internet broadcast. Not only were the games of the leading countries shown in real time, the lesser countries also had their fair share of exposure. Anyone with decent broadband Internet access could tune in to any of the 499 games daily.

It helped that the matches started at 9pm Malaysian time daily and continued until about 1am. By midnight, 75% of the games would have finished.

Secondly, our most senior international master, Jimmy Liew, started a chess blog and provided daily updates of our chess reps’ latest adventures in Turin. His chess blog was read even within international circles, and you can still access it at www.rainswater .com/chess

Thirdly, a lot of heated discussion about our players was also generated on the chess-malaysia mailing list. There were plenty of agreements and disagreements, and at one point, even our players in Turin joined in.

For the first time since chess-malaysia was created in 1998, it became an interactive forum to connect our representatives in Turin with their chess friends back home and I think they appreciated the words of encouragement.

Our men’s team finished 80th place out of 148, while our women’s team was a creditable 44th out of 108 teams. Our women, led by Siti Zulaikha Foudzi, played very consistently to score 20.5 points, while our men played their hearts out to collect 25.5 points.

Their highest points during the 13-round competition was a mauling of Canada by 3.5-0.5 and a 2.5-1.5 win against Switzerland which was described in some circles as “the biggest upset of the ninth round”. In this match, Mas Hafizul delivered a masterly knock-out blow to veteran super-grandmaster, Viktor Korchnoi, in a 21-move game.

There is more to be said about our teams’ performances but this shall be left to the next article.

Quah Seng Sun can be contacted at ssquah@gmail.com. Join Malaysia’s biggest chess mailing list by registering at groups.yahoo.com/ group/chess-malaysia

UP NEXT

Sri Aman open

The Sri Aman open tournament for under-16, under-14, under-12, under-10 and under-8 players will be held at SK Sri Aman in Bandar Baru Air Itam, Penang, this Sunday. For details, contact Eoh Thean Keat (016-4540070, e-mail: t_k_eoh@hotmail.com)

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The Perak International Chess Association will organise a one-day, seven-round tournament at Kolej Syuen in Jalan Kampar, Ipoh, on June 18. The event will be run in two categories. Category A is an open event for players with a Perak rating of at least 1600, while Category B event caters to players with a Perak rating of 1599 or less, including all new players. For details, contact Yunus Sharif (05-5458453 / 013-3908129) or Hamisah (012-4313326).

CLB open

SMJK Chung Ling Butterworth will hold its first open tournament at the school on June 18. Registration and inquiries: Tan Eng Seong (012-4299517 / e-mail: estan64@streamyx.com) or Teh Wei Li (%019-4161486). Closing date for entries is June 17.

Stonemaster open

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