Results of Recent Regional Tournaments
Not updated yet.
Maung Maung Lwin I.A. (Honorary Secretary and Rating Director Myanmar Chess Federation) reports: The 3rd International Chess Tournament organised in Yangon, Myanmar took place January 31st - February 13th 1999. 14 players in Group A played 14 players in group B in this Scheveningen system event.
Ye Jiangchuan of China scored a huge result on the way to 13/14 in this event (draws in the 10th and 13th rounds). Al Modiahki(QAT) scored 11 for a big result for the group A players too. Zhu Chen(CHN) and Zaw Win Lay(MYA) both scored 10/14 to top the B group. (By the way, Zhu Chen is a WGM from China. Talk about women power!)
Particularly, our very own GM-elect Wong Meng Kong did well in the B group, scoring 9/14. He gained rating points from his last tournament to 2459. He should raise that by some more after this event, as his performance rating of 2591(!) shows clearly that Meng Kong is on fire!
To see results, check out issue 225 at TWIC. Much of this article are extracted from TWIC with minor modifications.
Many thanks to Dr. Nithianathan, who kindly agreed to contribute this article on my request.
The tournament was held on 21/11/98 in Komtar Building and was a resounding success and an event to remember because of the large no. of participants(more than 300 counting all sections),the keen participation from players from several states and from S'pore,the official address from a Minister and UMNO sponsorship, not to mention the electrical problems(the airconditioning konked out from the tension too!)
There were some organisational(pairing,etc.)delays and minor confusion from the players, but otherwise chess is certainly much more popular accross the causeway than over here. The patience of the players was admirable and the spectator interest was no less than spectacular----there was always a large crowd of heads around every exciting finish and parents,friends and supporters(who were happy to egg on 'underdogs' and newcomers as well------probably how I won it/I always had someone coming up to shake my hand and congratulate me after every win against some 'illustrious' opponent!!). Some non-players actually pulled up chairs and followed the entire games of some of the top boards!
At one time it was a S'pore-M'sia slugfest on the top eight boards-----some of the top players included Defending Champion IM Giam Choo Kwee(SIN), JB Open Champion Michael Siong(SIN), M'sian Olympiad Representative Ismail Ahmad,State Players Saifuddin Fitrul, Julian Navaratnam,our own Olympiad Players Tan Chor Chuan,Jopie Massie,etc. After the last two S'pore-M'sian Challenges,where S'pore was simply whitewashed,we did manage to salvage some pride with three S'poreans within the top 4 positions.
Results
IM Tu did very well in that tournament, scoring a remarkable 7/11 games. Among his achievements were win over GM Wu Shao Bin (!) and draw against the champion of this event, GM Xu Jun from China! It is unfortunate that he missed his GM norm by just one point. I am sure everyone, especially Li Yang, can sympathise with that so-close-and-yet-so-far-away feeling.
There are many 2500-2600+ grandmasters in that tournament. Ian Rogers from Australia and Tony Miles from England are among the more notable ones.
Local star CM Foo did credibly too, making a final 5/11. Hsiang Ming won 3 games, drew 4 and lost the other 4. Among his best games were a draw against a 2400+ FM, pawn down! With more exposure, the talented Hsiang Ming will definitely make it big in the international chess arena.
The 1998 Johore Open was a big success.
It was held on a sunny Sunday morning on the 31st of August. More than 200 chess players took part in this grand annual event. However, because the tournament was a six-rounds rapid event, many felt that there were not enough rounds to decide a clear winner. This reminded me of the Bukit Batok Open in June, when the traditional 6-rounds event had to be stetched to 7-rounds because of the huge number of players.
Most of the chess players there were of course Malaysians, but there are players from the region too, including Singapore.
The most notable players from Singapore were IM Giam Choo Gwee, Michael Siong and Jopie Massie. All of them did well. Jopie took 4th position while IM Giam settled for a respectable 9th place.
The surprise winner of this year's Johore Open is Michael Siong! Michael is famous both in Singapore as well as across the causeway, both as an arbiter-cum-organiser as well as a hustler. Many had fallen victim to his $2.00 a game challenge.
Congratulations to all winners and especially to the champion , who is now RM$1000.00 richer!
NM Lim Kok Ann, CM Foo Siang Ming, CM Mark Chan and Navin Sawalani formed the team that represented Singapore in that event. We came in 11th place out of a total of 26 teams! Not bad at all!!
This is an annual chess tournament conducted by the chess federations from both countries. Singapore was the host this year. Event was held at the Chinese Swimming Club.
For the past few years, Singapore was repeatedly trounced by our Malaysian chess friends. This year was no difference.
Due to a slight change in the playing method, the former time control of 1hour per side for 2 games was reduced to half an hour each for an increased number of 4 games.
Singapore lost round 1 - 12/18. Round two was 12.5/17.5 and round three was 13/17. The joke circulating among the Singapore contingent was that we were improving slowly but surely by 0.5 points per round. Unfortunately, round 4, the last round, came as a shock as we got whacked 8.5/21.5. The final score was a dismissal 46/74. Reframing the results more 'mathematically', Singapore had a 38.33% performance. Sigh..
But on the bright side, we must not forget the tremendous effort our players had put into preparing for this tournament. Special mention must be made concerning our several 'top scorers'. Goh Weiming, Giam Choo Gwee and Lau Keng Boon all made perfect scores of 4/4, 4/4 and 3/3 respectively. Keng Boon did remarkably with 2 wins over Lim Yee Weng, current Malaysia's National Champion! Apologies are give here for leaving any others out. That is due to little information I had. Details should be published in the next issue of the SCD, if I am not mistaken.
During the closing ceremony, a proposal to expand this chess event to include Indonesia was mentioned. Nothing is finalized as yet but I for one would look forward to having to opportunity to play against fellow chessmates from Indonesia, as well as those from Malaysia.
For those who were not there at Chinese Swimming Club, I hope this article will help provide some information.
I do not have much on this year's Singapore-Malaysia Match, except that we, again, lost badly against our Malaysian friends, who are this year's host.
The Singapore contingent arrived at their hotel on the Friday evening of 26/06/98. The two rounds match was held on the following day. Our players all had the white pieces in round one. The result of after round one favoured the Malaysians but not by much. However, that showed clearly that our Malaysian chess friends are comfortable playing black. They also proved to be most lethal with the white pieces, having almost wiped out the Singaporeans. The final result stood in Malaysia's favour at roughly 2:1.
Our many loses in round 2 could be due to our players themselves, who had a hell of a time playing blitz, cards and watching World Cup the entire night before Saturday! Many did not sleep and fatigue affected their performance greatly. Many of them won or drew their first round but lost the next.
The few exceptions were Foo Hsiang, Ong Yi Pin and Jopie Massie. Yi Pin did well with 1.5/2 while Jopie and Hsiang Ming won all their games. Hsiang Ming appeared to have an immense amount of endurance(NS?). Although he too had very little sleep before his rounds, he still mustered enough tricks to beat IM Jimmy Liew!
A big congratulation to our Malaysian friends. As for ourselves, we should not despair but instead prepare even harder for next year's Singapore-Malaysia Match.