TALE OF THE TAPE- MALAYSIA VS SAN MARINO

First, let’s measure/ compare in size

Country Size
Malaysia 329,845 km2
San Marino 61 km2

Population
Malaysia 28,000,000
San Marino 30,000

Maybe the figure above is too one sided, to make it simple, in term of size 14 San Marinos equal to our one Perlis. For population, 8 San Marinos equal to our one Perlis.

Too make it even simpler, all they have is the population of Maybank’s staff.

OK forgive me. Maybe above comparison is not accurate, our Singapore neighbour might disagree if we want to measure strength with size or population. So let’s measure in pure chess power


Fide’s world rank
Malaysia 77
San Marino 128

Olympiad seeding
Malaysia 86
San Marino 118

Fide’s number of active players
Malaysia 163
San Marino 1

Fide’s number of inactive players
Malaysia 269
San Marino 7

Guess from above, there is no need for me to go for the overkill and compare the numbers of titled players each country possessed (though from the list of their players I suspect San Marino got more CMs compared to Malaysian two CMs) 

Third, let’s measure in chess duels history

In Moscow 1994 we met San Marino and we won 4-0
In Elista 1998 we met San Marino and won 4-0 again
We always met San Marino when Olympiad is played in Russia but the big question here is whether we can always achieve the 4-0 result.

The only advantage San Marino has against us is they have 5 playing players while so far we only have 4 playing players.

MALAYSIAN CHESS OLYMPIADS TRIVIA

Since everybody is now in Olympiad fever, I have decided to wake up from my blog retirement/hibernation and join in this circus and write about Malaysian chess Olympic.

Introduction
Malaysia has participate in 19 Olympiads since 1972 (Skopje). We did not participate in 1976 Haifa Olympiad and ofcourse being a regular Olympian, we have a fair share of interesting trivia. Some of it...

First draw: Chan Mun Fye on 20th September 1972 when he drew with Hasan Hasibul (Hong Kong) in Skopje. On the next day, he scored a ....

First win:Chan Mun Fye on 21st September 1972 when he won against Manuel Duroa (Portugal)

Most Outing: Mok Tze Meng, 8 Olympiads (From 1990 Mok took part in all Olympiads except for year 1994, 1998 and 2002)

Most Games: Jimmy Liew, 84 games from 7 Olympiads (Well, Mok Tze Meng, minus Kalmykia, has played a total of 74 games. Looks like this record is going to be broken soon!)

Best individual result: Ng Ek Teong, 1986 Dubai, scored 6 out of 7, Elo performance of 2510, undefeated and duly won best board prize (2nd reserve)

Best individual Elo performance: Mas Hafizul, 2000 Istanbul, Elo performance of 2527, scored 9.5 from 14 games. He played all games and lost only once!

Best games: Jimmy Liew wins against Yrjola Jouni (Dubai)

Most memorable game: Mas wins against Korchnoi.

Best placing: Dubai 1986, finished 42 out of 108 teams

Best upset: We beat Canada team in Turin 2006

Malaysia 2330 3½ : ½ 2468 Canada CAN
IM Hafizulhelmi 2412 1 - 0 2510 GM Charbonneau
FM Mok Tze Meng 2361 ½ - ½ 2531 GM Bluvshtein
FM Lim Yee Weng 2330 1 - 0 2466 IM Zugic
Chuah Jin Hai 2216 1 - 0 2364 IM Livshits

Worst placing:Moscow 1994, 96 out of 125 teams. 4 years later (Elista 1998) we 'equaled' this record by finishing 96 out of 147 teams. This makes me worry, we never played well in Russia... (Anon pointed out that in Dresden 2008, we also finished at 96, thanks anon)

We have also on 5 occasions, fielded players that eventually never move a pawn

• Laurence How (1978)
• Fang Ewe Churh (1980)
• Anwar Zainal (1982)
• Chew Soon Keong (1984)
• Hamid Majid (1998)

2010...?