Peter Long on Chess

Despite not showing his best form, top seeded and big favourite Sergei Tiviakov, the ex-Soviet Grandmaster who has now long represented the Nederlands, emerged the winner with 7/9 after edging defending champion Oliver Barbosa on tiebreak. Filipino Barbosa would have rued both his fourth round loss to Vietnam's Cao Sang and then failure to take advantage of a better position against Tiviakov in the second last round. But it was all in all a professional and convincing performance from a deserving winner! Taking the best woman prize was young Indian WGM Padmini Rout who at 18 has already been a World Champion in various age group categories while Ng Tze Han put in a steady performance to be the best local finisher after FM Dr. Ronnie Lim lost his last two games. Many local young players took the event as a warm up for the coming World Youth Championship to be held from 7-19 November 2012 in Maribor, Slovenia and while all had encouraging if not also commendable results, th

The newly renamed DYMM Dr. Raja Nazrin Shah International Open Championship 2012 is finally underway with 82 players from 17 countries including a record 27 Malaysians. There are also 24 titled players: 10 GMs, 1 WGM, 9 IMs, 3 FMs and 1 WFM. See www.klchess.com for more details.

The obviously facts are that while starting a lowly 83 ranked from 127 teams, the Malaysian Women Olympiad team finished 18 places better with 61st spot which was also good enough for third place in Group D and in doing so winning our first ever category prize. It can also be easily seen that all members of the team improved their ratings while Li Ting has now joined Mi Yen and Najiha as Candidate Master (although candidate for the Master title is the better way to put it) and of course Camila is now, together with Nabila, also a FIDE Master. Perhaps not all would have fully appreciated that after 10 rounds the team had 11 match points and so achieved a 50% score irregardless of the outcome of the last round which we are usually dependent upon, and that in 9 of the 11 matches they played teams higher ranked from which 4 were upset with 3 wins and a draw. So all in all a good outing but could we have done better (or worst?) and where will we be two years from now? I think these

It is not easy being the captain-coach of a bunch of high spirited young girls! You have to let them have fun and find the right balance between work and play....

Our girls had a very pleasant surprise before the start when they were able to meet World Champion Grandmaster Susan Polgar. A day later our junior boys arrived to play in the U-16 Youth Olympiad with Cheong Jie Yao making his international debut on board 1! Yeoh  Li Tian is often online with his computer enhanced father who not only follows his games but provides detailed analysis daily! Camilia Johari in training using a full range of electronic devices. But why is she laughing? Computers are an essential tool for chessplayers for databases (but the players also have tons of books in their luggage and rooms). Daily training session - mainly pre-game preparation - where all parts of FIDE Delegate Gregory Lau's room is utilised. Our men in the tournament hall before a match. Organisers are very strict about only those playing being allowed in and although Jimmy is the captain that badge was being held by Head of Delegation Haslindah Ruslan. Never min