MALAYSIA IN OLYMPIAD (THESSALONIKI 1984) - MAN

Thessaloniki, Greece’s second largest city is the host for 1984 Chess Olympiads.

Malaysia sent a man team and for a first time, we also sent a woman team.

Malaysian Team
Malaysia was represented, according to the board order:
1. FM Jimmy Liew
2. FM Christie Hon
3. Peter Long
4. Ignatius Si
5. Gregory Vijayendran
6. Chew Soon Keong

Probably the strongest line up so far with two Fide Masters and 3 rated players (Jimmy 2375, Christie Hon 2340 and Ignatius 2225). Top two boards are veteran and the rest are all first timer.

Malaysia almost followed the tradition of 6th board not playing. Only in the last round we fielded Chew when Malaysia met Honduras. He lost while we manage to win on the other 3 boards.

As usual below are top 5 teams and neighbours placing.
1.Soviet Union (Beliavsky,Polugaevsky,Vaganian,Tukmakov,Yusupov,Sokolov) For the first time, Soviet team does not include world champion.
2.England (Miles,Nunn,Speelman,Chandler,Mestel,Short)
3.United States (Dzindzichashvili,Kavalek,Christiansen,Browne,Alburt,De Firmian)
4.Hungary (Portisch,Ribli,Adorjan,Sax,Pinter,Groszpeter)
5.Romania (Suba,Gheorghiu,Ghinda,Stoica,Ghitescu,Barbulescu)

16. The Philippines (Torre,Mascarinas,De Guzman,Andronica,Bernal,Ramos)
29. Indonesia (Ardiansyah,Gunawan,Handoko,Ginting,Sinulingga,Cerdas)
42. Singapore (Leow,Goh CH,Chia CS,Wong MK, Chan PK,Wong ML)
50. Malaysia
61.Thailand(Chaivichit,Rittiphunyawong,Kavakul,Sinprayoon,Lertmlianmit,Nainapalert)

For the first time, we are not the last team among ASEAN countries. :-)

Individual Performance
1. Jimmy Liew (8.5/13) P=2428
2. Christie Hon (7/12) P=2372
3. Peter Long (3/9) P=2109
4. Ignatius Si (4.5/11) P=1939
5. Gregory Vijayendran (4.5/10) P=Not Available
6. Chew Soon Keong (0/1) P=NA

Trivia
1. In the first round we meet the Russian. Eventhough we lost 0-4, we really gave the mighty Russian a tough time. e.g. Beliavsky took 52 moves before finslly defeating Jimmy. It has been reported " The gong of the first round sounded on the 19th November, the day when Capablanca was born. The USSR team had to fight hard against the inexperience youths of Malaysia."
2.Malaysian team went undefeated in the next 5 rounds before we are being stopped by Philipine (1-3)
3. Malaysia as a team continued to improve. We are now playing at 2257 level, bettered our previous best (Lucern 1982:2253 performance) by a mere 4 Elo points.
4. Malaysia almost continued its previous Olympiad Policy of 6th-bord-not-playing. Our 6th board, Chew Soon Keong played only on a last round. Though he lost, from his game he showed that he is capable of playing good chess.
5. Jimmy Liew's performance at 2428 is the best so far for Malaysian at Olympiads, breaking Choong Yit Chuan's record at 1982 Lucerne Olympiad (2339 performance) by 89 points. He contributed a massive 8.5 from 13.

Next stop
1984 Thessaloniki - Woman