Malaysia again sent a man team but not a woman team.
Malaysian Team
Malaysia was represented, according to the board order:
1. Jimmy Liew
2. Christie Hon
3. Goh Yoon Wah
4. Choong Yit Chuan
5. Quah Seng Sung
6. Annvar Bin Zainal
For the first time in Olympiad, two of Malaysian player have a FIDE rating (Jimmy 2270, Christie Hon 2235). Top two boards are veteran and the rest 4 are all first timer.
As usual below are top 5 teams and neighbours placing.
1.Soviet Union (Karpov,Kasparov,Polugaevsky,Beliavsky,Tal,Yusupov)
2.Czechoslovakia (Hort,Smejkal,Ftacnik,Jansa,Plachetka,Ambroz)
3.United States (Browne,Seirawan,Alburt,Kavalek,Tarjan,Christiansen)
4.Yugoslavia (Ljubojevic,Gligoric,Kovacevic,Velimirovic,Ivanovic,Hulak)
5.Hungary (Portisch,Ribli,Sax,Pinter,Csom,Groszpeter)
19. The Philippines (Torre,Mascarinas,Maninang,Yap,Cain,Lupian)
27. Indonesia (Ardiansyah,Handoko,Adianto,Milo,Ginting,Fauzi)
43. Singapore (Leow,Wong MK,Chia CS,Chan PK,Tan CK,Lim KA)
54. Thailand (Sinprayoon,Trisa,Chaivichit,Rittiphunyawong,Ruenwongsa,Kavakul)
57. Malaysia
Individual Performance
1. Jimmy Liew (5/13) P=2238
2. Christie Hon (6/13) P=2249
3. Goh Yoon Wah (7/13) P=2285
4. Choong Yit Chuan (8/13 P=2339
5. Quah Seng Sun (0.5/4) P=1903
6. Annvar Bin Zainal Did not play
Trivia
1. Malaysian team continued to improve. We are now playing at 2253 level, bettered our previous best (Nice 1978’s 2126 performance) by 127 Elo points!
2. Malaysia continued its previous Olympiad Policy of 6th-bord-not-playing. Wonder why? Is it because of the low budget so we have to list down manager as a player? Or is it because we have a very strong top 5 players until our 6th board player do not have a chance to play? Hopefully someone can shed some lights on this!
3. Choong Yit Chuan's performance at 2339 is the best so far for Malaysian at Olympiads, breaking Jimmy Liew's record at 1980 La Valetta Olympiad (2321 performance). He alone (8 points from 13 games) contributed more than 30% of Malaysian points. His score would even been better should he able to convert his nice attacking winning game against Andruet Gilles (France). He lost that game :(
4. Below is Christi Hon's nice win against Juarez Flores (Guatemala) in round 10th.
White:Christi Hon
Black:Juarez Flores
1.e4 e6
2.d3 d5
3.Nd2 Nf6
4.Ngf3 Be7
5.g3 b6
6.e5 Nfd7
7.Bg2 Be7
8.0-0 c5
9.Re1 Nc6
10.c3 0-0
11.Nf1 b5
12.h4 Nb6
13.N1h2 d4
14.cd4 cd4
15.Ng5 Na5
16.Qh5 h6
Postion after 16. ... h6
17.Ng4 hg5
Sacrifing a knight to open the h-file and to exert more pressure on f6 square.
18.hg5 Rc8
19.Bf4 Rc2
20.Bb7 Nb7
21.Kg2 Qc8
Position after 21. ... Qc8
22.Re4!
Black resign. Stopping annoying Qc6 and preparing the decisive 23. Rah1
Next Stop
Thessaloniki 1984
Annuar Bin Zainal (note spelling) was a judge who came along for the ride. I think he contributed to the team expenses for this privilege. he is not a chess player and kept to himself, hardly speaking to any of us. Once we arrived in Lucerne he completely disappeared.
ReplyDeleteEach member rested once to allow Quah Seng Sun to play some games.
I had a completely won last game but tiredness caused me to lose and it cost Malaysia few placing.
Hi Jimmy,
ReplyDeleteWow! That is a very interesting info from inside!
MCF should not allowed that since it put Malaysian Team playing with only 5 players for a very prestiguos (and taxing)Chess Olympiad.
Notice that in 1984 Thessaloniki this bad trend continue.
The tournament is 14 round Swiss and very tiring to play so many games. Even 13 games is a lot.
ReplyDeleteQuah Seng Sun actually is the team captain and manager. In that respect he helped the team a lot , got us to Lucerne in one piece and took care of the non-chess stuff. On return trip he arranged a stop over in London for a few days and we crashed with a friend of his there.