RESORTS WORLD
ASIAN CITIES CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP
ASIAN WOMEN'S CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP
8 - 22 APRIL 1998, GENTING HIGHLANDS, MALAYSIA

SHIJIAZHUANG EXTENDS LEAD
- by Ignatius Leong -

After five rounds of play in the Asian Cities Team Chess Championship, Shijiazhuang has extended its lead after comfortable wins by 2.5-1.5 and 3-1 scores over Indonesian teams Palembang and Padang. Defending champions Tashkent chalked up 3.5 points from Talesh and later won a narrow but important victory over Palembang. While these two Indonesian cities had a bad day, their counterparts Pontianak scored its first victory by over-coming Hong Kong 3-1. The next four rounds shall see the top three seeds race to collect as many points as possible. From now onwards, every half point counts.

So far, the players having impressive results of 4.5 points from 5 games are :-

Board 3 : Zaw Oo Mandalay Myanmar
Board 4 : FM Wang Rui Shijiazhuang China
Board 5 : IM Danny Juswanto Palembang Indonesia

Defending Asian Women’s Chess Champion WIM Tamin Upi Darmayana of Indonesia lost to former champion WIM Sathe Bagyashree in the third round today. The Indian player shares the joint lead with WIM Mekhri Ovezova from Turkmenistan who earned her point in less than an hour against WIM-candidate Angela Khegai of Uzbekistan.

Most of the foreign participants should be enjoying the free day today. They have the choice of a tour in Kuala Lumpur or to Malacca. Others have registered for a blitz tournament while some may prefer to relax or simply sleep! In any case, all participants and officials should welcome today’s free day.