Peter Long on Chess

The FIDE Trainers' Commmission (TRG) is pleased to announce the results of the FIDE Trainer 2008 Awards as approved by the Kallithea Halkidiki FIDE Congress 2009. Botvinnik Medal (Men): Arshak Petrosian (Armenia) Furman Medal (Women): Ye Jiangchuan (China) Euwe Medal (Juniors): Adrian Mikhalchisin (Slovenia) Boleslavsky Medal (Book - Build Up Your Chess Series): Artur Jussupow Petrosian Medal (Special Achievement): Smbat Lputian (Armenia) Hall of Fame: Mikhail Botvinnik (USSR) The full story is of course at http://trainers.fide.com/ . I was part of the nomination commitee and am really pleased that I was able to ensure that Asia was represented in the process through Ye Jiangchuan being recognised for his work with Hou Yifan and previously with their first ever World Champion Xie Jun!   But his winning against tough competition from Yuri Razuvav who of course is the trainer of current World Champion Alexandria Kosteniuk was a very big bonus indeed!   A

Some of us might not know this but the Asian Team Championship was started by Malaysia, and first held in Penang in 1974 with the challenge trophy named for and provided by Tun Abdul Razak, our second Prime Minister and father of the current leader of Malaysia, Dato Seri Najib Tun Razak! I remember that a few years back, before the previous event (it is held every two years), I had called then MCF (Malaysian Chess Federation) Secretary Abdul Hamid Majid and asked him if Malaysia would be sending a team and when he finally had to answer, the reply was no money! That was so typical of Hamid in his time, no information and when caught out he would say: “I like senang (easy life)”. To be fair, there is consistency in that it was exactly the same response for Asian Junior Championship in Mumbai that year where if I remember correctly our big young talent then, Anas Bakri, was keen to play. Well, as you can see from the title of his blow and the introduction and link below, this even