Peter Long on Chess

The Malaysian Chess Federation (MCF) today approved a Malaysian Masters - a National Championship Final - that will be organised by the Kuala Lumpur Chess Association for MCF with support from the Chess Association of Selangor from 22-26 June 2013 at the National Centre for Chess Excellence to be located at the Asia Metropolitan University. It will be 10 player, 9 round robin FIDE rated and titled tournaments for both our men and our women! Yes, indeed FIDE allows National Championships to be title events. But of course the opportunity for IM norms for the participants is very much subject to the average rating of the participants. What MCF has agreed to is for the top three finishers among the men and women at the National Closed Championships to qualify and they will be joined by the Malaysian top six men and top six women in the active FIDE rating list as at 31 March 2013. One wild card, one each for one man and one woman, will be decided by MCF on the recommendation of its

The Asian Indoor & Martial Arts Games will be held in Incheon, Korea from 28 June to 7 July 2013 and I have been invited by the Asian Chess Federation to attend as a lowly match arbiter, the usual fate of those qualified but without access to the corridors of power within club FIDE! No, I am of course joking(?), seriously I would gladly go if the Olympic Council of Malaysia (OCM) does approve our national team's participation. Do see the official website at http://www.aimag2013.org/en but I can't say it is looking particularly exciting right now although of course the event is still some time away and details of teams, etc. will be better as it gets closer to the start.

During the time of the National Age Groups, I got a call from KLCA President Dato' Sri Dr. Edmund Santhara who told me that MCF President Tan Sri Ramli Ngah Talib had asked to see him and it turned out that it was a request to come on board to strengthen the leadership of Malaysian chess. Unlike Tan Sri, Dato' Sri is a chessplayer who is also a corporate figure, and so when he accepted the invitation to become Tan Sri's Deputy, we immediately reviewed the situation and started to draw up plans in consultation with many stakeholders for a MCF that would be world class. Of course a succession plan was also agreed to as part of the process. It is not Dato' Sri's style to come in just like that and create conflict via an aggressive takeover and so he was happy for a period to get to know the people at national and state level and to have time to work with everyone to collectively put into place what was needed, one step at a time. What many people do not know wa