MALAYSIA IN OLYMPIAD (LA VALLETTA 1980)

La Valletta, a city in Malta named after Jean Parisot de la Valette who has succesfully defending the islands from an Ottoman invasion in 1565, is also the host for 1980 Chess Olympiads.

Malaysia send a man team but not a woman team.

Malaysian Team
Malaysia was represented, according to the board order:

1. Jimmy Liew
2. Foo Lum Choon
3. Chang Hing Wah
4. Eric Cheah
5. Abdul Rahman
6. Fang Ewe Churh

We have a nice mix of veteran (Jimmy, Foo, Fang) and first timer (Chang, Eric, Abdul Rahman). Of no surprise with this bunch of players we have performed a best outing so far.

As usual below are top 5 teams and neighbours placing.
1.Soviet Union (Karpov, Polugaevsky, Tal, Geller, Balashov, IM Kasparov) Sorry, could not resist to put IM here :-), a mighty team that consist 3 World Champs, past and present!

2.Hungary (Portisch, Ribli, Sax, Csom, Farago, Pinter)

3.Yugoslavia (Ljubojevic,Ivkov, Parma, Kurajica, Marjanovic, Nikolic)

4.United States(Alburt, Seirawan, Christiansen, Tarjan, De Firmian, Shamkovich)

5.Czechoslovakia (Hort, Smejkal, Jansa, plachetka, Ftacnik, Lechtynsky)

15. The Philippines (Torre, Mascarinas, Rodriquez, Pacis, Bernal, Ramos)

42. Thailand (Chaivichit, Sinprayoon, Trisa-Ard, Darakorn)-Thai send only 4 players!

45. Indonesia (Handoko, Suradiradja, Iskandar, Ardiansyah, Gunawan, Kusnadi)

49. Malaysia

Singapore did not send their team while Thailand send theirs for the first time.

Individual Performance

1. Jimmy Liew (9/13) P=2321
2. Foo Lum Choon (3/12) P=na
3. Chang Hing Wah (5/11) P=2130
4. Eric Cheah (8.5/11) P=na
5. Abdul Rahman (2/7) P=na
6. Fang Ewe Churh Did not play

Trivia

1. Rank wise, this is the best finishing for Malaysia (49 out of 81 teams) but ELO performance wise, at 2082 this is the worst ever (?!), Buenos Aires (2108) Nice (2126) and Skopje (2098)
2. Jimmy Liew's performance at 2321 is the best so far for Malaysian at Olympiads, breaking Chan Mun Fye's record at 1972 Skopje Olympiad (2223 performance). Jimmy went undefeated in his last 10 rounds.
3. Both Jimmy and Eric Cheah contributed more than 67% of points collected by Malaysian team.
4. Both Foo Lum Choon and Abdul Rahman scored their first win in the last round (14th round) against Faroe Island.
5. Let's take a look at nice win by Jimmy against Robert Wheeler (Jamaica) during the first round. Jimmy's knight just dance around destructively and suddenly black's position is beyond save.

Black has just played 20. ...d5. From above diagram game continued

21. f5! gf5
22.Nf5

Sac a Knight that could not be taken, 22. ...ef5, 23. e6! threatening a nasty discovered check 24. Nb5!.

22. ... Bg5
23.Ne7

Of course this knight could not be taken. 23. ...Be7 24. Qh7 mate.

23. ... h6
24. Ng6
1-0

Next stop
1982 Luzerne