Peter Long on Chess

The 4th World Schools Championship 2008 attracted 258 players from 24 countries of which about half, some 115 came from Singapore (of its neighbours, Indonesia had 37, Malaysia had just 3 but the again Brunei and the Philippines had none!). Organised by the Singapore Chess Federation, managed by Intchess Asia, and co-hosted by Teck Ghee Community Club, the event had 11 categories - Open 17, Open 15, Open 13, Open 11, Open 9, Open 7, Girls 15, Girls 13, Girls 11, Girls 9, and Girls 7 - so a total of 12 individual and 11 team gold medals were up for grabs. Singapore Chess With the largest contingent and especially in the categories where other countries were under represented, Singapore was always going to win the bulk of team medals but the question was how many individual medals would they actually get with their junior development program? In the end, Terry Chua in the Open 17 and Daniel Chan in the Open 15 did the host country proud with great fighting performances to become Singap

From my previous post, my readers would have gathered I was recently in Manila where amongst other things I witnessed the start of the Philippine National Championship Finals which also serves as their qualifier for the 38th World Chess Olympiad. On getting back home I started taking a harder look at the emails I was viewing there via Blackberry Connect and started inking in the events I might be involved in and the list just grew and grew! 22 to 31 July 2008: 4th World Schools Individual Championships, Singapore 3-10 August 2008: FIDE CACDEC Seminar for Trainers, Gaborone, Botswana, Africa 16-23 August 2008: Asian Dragons Invitation, Kaohsiung, Taiwan 26 August to 2 September 2008: 6th Leg ASEAN Grand Prix: 1st Dragon City - Vietnam Open, Vung Tau, Vietnam 6 to 13 September 2008: 1st Leg Asia-Pacific Pro Tour: 3rd PGMA Cup, Manila, Philippines 13 to 20 September 2008: 2nd Leg Asia-Pacific Pro Tour: 4th Pichay Cup, Manila, Philippine 3 to 18 October 2008: 1st World Mind

With the start of the National Chess Championship Finals today and which will be held in Manila from 1-13 July 2008, the National Chess Federation of the Philippines (NCFP) is at the final stage of a 4 month long Olympiad team selection process that saw 1,500 players participate in 16 regional qualifiers! The qualifiers, together with titled players, 150 in total advanced to the Semi-Finals where 12 men and 6 women made it to the finals where they were joined by the top 6 men and women on the FIDE rating list. NCFP President Prospero Pichay who inaugurated the event in a short opening ceremony announced that this event would, as published earlier, be the basis of qualification for both the 38th World Chess Olympiad 2008 and the World Mind Sports Games held a month earlier in Beijing. He also reminded the players present that it was indeed a honour and privilege to represent your country at such prestigious events and noted that GM Mark Paragua and GM Darwin Laylo had even returned fr