2010 Chess Odyssey

FOR A CHANGE...

2012-02-06T06:09:00.000-08:00

The Audition
Few weeks ago I went to one of a local TV station to take part in audition process for one family game show. Reached there at about 10am and after finish filled the form and signed the Term and Condition...I was given number 20.

While waiting for my number to be call (they called my number at about 5pm, after waiting for 7 hours), I look around and cannot help to notice there are many similarities between participants attending the Local Game Audition and chess players entering chess tournament.

The Regular
Believe it or not there is a clique of people who make taking part in any TV shows/games as their hobby (career?!). They know each other and always talk about previous TV game show like we talk about Selangor Open or National Closed…and they know what’s going on in local TV shows , who’s who etc. Hearing them talked, you feel how ‘green’ and how ‘out prepared’ you are compared with these professionals. Must be what newbies feels when we, the chess regulars, start discussing Dragon and Marshall Attack! or whether Malaysia Olympiad 1986 is the best team...
Not sure whether they have website sharing their knowledge about this…or self promoting themselves via it!

The Opinionist.
I happened to sit next to an uncle who is very generous with ideas. They should limit the number of contestantlah…they should doing thislah…they should doing thatlah…I asked him what is his number…smiled, he told me he did not take part in the audition (just accompany his daughter).

The Secretive vs The Professor
After finished audition, contestant will be mobbed by other fella contestant who yet to be audition, asking what they asked to do inside the studio. Some refused to answer (afraid of giving his opponent an unfair advantage) while some are very generous with answers (in chess it is equivalent to reveal all one opening preparation for the sake of impressing fellow contestant)

The Rights to ‘ban’ clause.
After I have signed the Terms and Conditions and have all the time in this world waiting for my number to be call, only then I read the T&C (My boss will surely scream at me should she knew I signed first, read later…). Hmm, Ok, they have this ‘ban clause’…”…reserved the rights at its sole discretion to disqualify any individual …”:)

The Differences
Maybe the only different is on the prize money, unlike chess the first prize of winning this show is , I was told, around tens of thousands (and this game show is considered 'very small', according to The Regular) while in chess with first prize in tens of thousands, it will surely be a mega event…

Last but not least, sorry guys, cannot be specific on this posting since I have signed Confidential Agreement with them. Fully believed if this TV station say they will sue me under whatever ground, it will not going to be NATO….

THE GREATEST MALAYSIAN HEROES OF THE MOMENT!

2011-11-21T14:50:00.000-08:00

To 'Yii Ha!' Najiha and 'You Win!' Yee Weng

Don’t know how you guys did it ( winning a medal, beating the odds...) but i know one thing. You have surely makes Malaysian chess community proud! Congratulations for job well done!

Don’t know how you guys celebrate it...maybe you can do by singing below song from 80’s TV song ‘The Greatest American Hero’

Look at what's happened to me,
I can't believe it myself.
Suddenly I'm up on Games podium,
It should've been somebody else.

Believe it or not,
I'm winning a bronze.
I never thought I could be so good-.
Winning a bronze on a wing and a prayer.
Who could it be?
Believe it or not it's just me.

It's like a light of a new day-,
It came from out of the blue.
Breaking me out of the spell I was in,
Making all of my wishes come true-. (repeat)

GM KASPAROV VS ABDULLAH CHE HASSAN

2011-11-19T06:35:00.000-08:00

Intro
While going through some of the games played by Malaysian player (Read: Asian Amateur Preparation!), i came across one game, Kasparov vs Abdullah Che Hassan. Oh, it must be a game between one of those Kasparov Chess Computer vs Dollah, I thought. Wrong, Ilham. It is really GM Gary Kasparov vs Abdullah Che Hassan, played in year 2000. Thanks to internet who make all this possible.

The Game
It is a simultaneous game where Kasparov played against 30 players worldwide to mark the worldwide launched of Kasparov's chess website. What more remarkable is this game is played when Kasparov is reigning World Champion and also number one chess player with highest ever rating of 2851! Unbroken till today.

And to think that Kasparov in year 2000 is mean and brutal killing machine who take his every game (even in simul) seriously and Abdullah, who is not really bloom into Abdullah we know today, yet still last 51 move before resigning "because I need to go to school" explained Abdullah, that is really an achievement.

W:GM Kasparov
B:Abdullah Che Hassan

DAY 5 AT DATCC TEAM

2011-11-17T15:46:00.000-08:00

Intro.
Many regulars are not here tonight IM Mas, IM Jimmy, IM strength Udani, Future IM Sumant, IM (International Manager) Greg and IM Haslindah. The sole representative of IM is IM Giam.

Highlight of the night
The 1chess game between Haq and Zaidan that keep everyone glued around their table, Zaidan got slight advantage but maybe is not enough to win unless Haq make some serious mistakes. Zaidan squeezed and squeezed and squeezed the dry lemon until at one time, Nik Farouqi cannot stand it and called up the arbiter, Mr Kaber, claiming that the game should be drawn, just when Mr Kaber tried to understand the nature of matter raised by Aqie, Zaidan switch his rook bringing the game to a new phase.

Why this game is 1chess? It is played at Table 1, Board 1 and maybe ended at move 111 (who knows what the actual moves are since one score sheet is recorded by the Incredible Haq and the other one is by doctor Zaidan, we all know what the typical doctor’s writing looks like…) and ended at 11.11pm. They finally split the one point allocated to their game.

Wait a minute! Maybe there is curse of sort at table one board one…last week game (Udani vs Sumant) shared the similar patent. Draw, arbiter is call, last game to finish…hmm

Result between Renegade and Carikomputer (Yes, this week the came in their standard uniform) is 3.5 – 0.5. Ok when everyone might think based from the result, the half a point must be secured by Saprin , the usual point winner and bread winner too, of the team, well that is not the case here. Saprin lost to Jianwen. Half a point is secured by his 8 years old son who drew his game against Shamsudin Sabri aka Fireyrook.

About Saprin son, they are sort of grown up in this tournament. Early rounds saw they are beaten quite easily but now they can be count to win points here and there…and they now took up tougher resistance before they lost. They also now mixed easily with their uncles, can be seen playing blitz games etc or genuinely fixed to watch any interesting games in progress…I have to say here, like father like son.

Future King (One day King or Raja sehari) Abdullah Che Hassan is here tonight, draw with CM Fadli and therefore ended his winning streak

My Game
Draw against Ismail Ahmad while the rest of my team wins. We won 3.5 – 0.5 against PJMIM. Sorry guys.( By the way still tried to figure out what is PJMIM stands for. Any idea? )

To R
Thanks for reading my blog and your nice comment about my blog. Yes, agreed that Bill Gates is not the one who wrote DOS but No, do not agreed that Relativity Theory came from Einstein’s wife and not from Einstein. Have done my research on the subject and I stick to what I said on that night. Relativity theory came from Einstein and other than this it is all conspiracy theory. Sorry R :)

ITS NOW OR NEVER...

2011-11-13T09:06:00.000-08:00

If we want to make an impact or to make everybody notice about chess...guess this is the time. Success in SEA games means it will be reported on the sport’s column of all major newspapers, followed up with coupled TV interviews, and many nights of Malam Anugerah or maybe a plot of land to players etc. No, Datukships is not possible i guess.

Anyway, bottom line is, success in Palembang means no more only the lonely reporting in some miscellaneous column or entertainment column etc that only chess players read. It means now everybody notice chess, chess players and local chess success stories.

Since SEA Games is like once every two years and even that there is no guarantee chess will be included in it on the next edition. So i guess...it is now or never for Malaysian chess!

Aptly worded (with some minor changes) by Bon Jovi in this song titled ‘It’s my life’

This ain't a sport for the broken hearted
No silent prayer for the faith departed
And I ain't gonna be just a face in the crowd
You're gonna hear my voice when I shout it out loud...

It's SEA games
It's now or never
I ain't gonna live forever
I just wanna live while I'm alive

(It's SEA games)
My heart is like an open highway
Like Frankie said, "I did it my way"
I just wanna live while I'm alive
'Cause it's my game

This is for the ones who stood their ground
For Jimmy and friends who never backed down
Tomorrow's getting harder, make no mistake
Luck ain't even lucky, gotta make your own breaks

It's SEA Games
And it's now or never
I ain't gonna live forever
I just wanna live while I'm alive

(It's SEA Games)
My heart is like an open highway
Like Frankie said, "I did it my way"
I just wanna live while I'm alive
'Cause it's my life

You better stand tall
When they're calling you out
Don't bend, don't break
Guys, don't back down

It's SEA Games
It's now or never
'Cause I ain't gonna live forever
I just wanna live while I'm alive..(repeat)

To Malaysian Chess players who are currently competing at SEA Games, All the Best!

DAY 4 AT DATCC TEAM

2011-11-10T07:20:00.000-08:00

Intro
It is a great time last Tuesday night. Weather is good, and with most of the schools are closed... traffic is not heavy and most of the players arrived at DATCC before 7pm.

I arrived at DATCC early (6pm) and noticed Puan Zuraihah is busy checking SEA Games players clothes. Turn out that SEA games players got their clothes on this day and Haslindah...and Li Ting are busy (and excitedly) tested the shirts...ah, what to do...the sacred, unfathomable, mysterious relationship between woman and new clothes that we, man will never understand!

Their male counterpart are more reserved...i cannot see Jimmy or Mok wear the Baju Melayu with songkok! :)

So with SEA Games players (some with parents), DATCC Team players (some with wives) and Siraj and few others, it is simply a good turnout last night...though ofcourse, i know many male players are frustrated because one particular player did not turn out...i know! :)

Highlight of the night.
Game of the round will simply be a game between between Ian Udani vs Sumant. Both players shows determination to win, Udani by putting a bottle of 'oil wind' (minyak angin) on the table and Sumant, like Kasparov did when he is ready to rumble...unwrist his watch. Halfway through the game when i though black has some play on Q side, The Masters (IM Jimmy, IM Mok and NM Chin Seng) who commented about the game thought otherwise predicting black will soon be in trouble. True enough soon Udani's attacking scheme appeared but Sumant defended stubbornly and finally pieces on the board reduced to King, Queen and two pawns each. Repetition of moves happened and Sumant offered a draw to Udani, Udani declined but after that he still repeated the move. Sumant called up the arbiter, Mr Kaber, explaining that it is a draw. Some mild protest from Udani but after Sumant and Kaber shows that there is actually 3 moves repetition, Udani extended his hand accepting the draw result.

No less exciting is the 'David vs Golliath' game, the tallest player (Dr Zaidan) vs ...err, not so tall player (Li Tian), just like the epic which is decided by a tiny stones, the game also decided by the tiny pawns, which Li Tian has one extra. Result? also like the epic!

In Ahmad Saifuddin vs Jianwen, initially i thought that Jianwen blundered leaving his queen en prise but later Jianwen shows his deeper understanding of the position when his b pawn which is located at center of the board cannot be prevented from reaching queening square at a1, in process sapu a few white pieces. (Note: Jianwen informed on below comment that actually it is g pawn queening at h1-Ilham 11/11/11)

Zambri vs Kamaluddin Yusof, what a game! both side leave their king in the middle of the board and in danger of being checkmated. To have an idea about this wild position...put pieces inside a box, shake it 4 times and poured it down a few feet above the board... you'll get the picture. Zambri lost.

IM Mas vs Tun Seri Lanang, Mas won in his usual simple style, picking up pawn after pawn and gave his opponent no counterplay whatsoever. Mas make it looks very easy..though the truth is, it is not!

Dato Tan is playing (he lost the game to Razief) and after the game was over, seen wondering around sportingly looking at his team mates games in progress.

Most photographed player of the round is simply Azahari Md Noor, who make a comeback after a long... a very long break from chess hence activating his dormant 2130 ELO rating. Sitting next to Ezmi (who also make his first appearance, Ezmi won against Alex Zulkarnain ), cannot fail to notice that one got a lot of hair, while the other one....:). Jangan mare, just joking! For record he drew his game last night against Zulhairi. Welcome back, Azahari! Glad to see you playing chess again!

If i am not mistaken the first 2 games that finished last night are wins by Haslindah and Khairun nisa against their BERNAMA's opponent. A case of ladies first!

Carikomputer did not wear a uniform shirt for last night game. For record they drew with PJMIM.

Abdullah Che Hassan was not here last night, hence could not continue his winning streaks. Must be busy preparing for his big day!

Few players made their maiden appearance, Azahari, Ezmi, Fairin, Syazrin, Song Wai Cheng, Dato Tan and few others.

I did not play on this round.

TERENGGANU HIGHEST RATED PLAYER (MOHD SYAZWAN ZULKIFLI A.KA. SKY)

2011-11-05T19:13:00.000-07:00

Intro
It is kind of sad, pathetic even, when few years back, 2008 if i am not mistaken, i first got my FIDE rating of 2059 and with that magical figure, i am the highest rated Terengganu player...by virtue i am the only Terengganu player who have FIDE rating! So it is also correct to say with that rating i am the lowest rated Terengganu player.

Still even though officially i am the highest rated Terengganu player (In this case i like to see the glass half full), i still dare not say that i am the strongest player because i believed Norazmi, Ghalam and maybe Hashim, are better players than me. However it gave me nice feeling to know i am, international rating wise, is the number one Terengganu player. :)

But i know the day would come when my ‘reign’ will be over. Over time more and more Terengganu players took part in FIDE rated tournament and obtaining ratings. Among them are Hafez Hilmi, Rahim Ramli, Syazwan, Gambit and few others. Conspicuosly missing from the list is teacher of Terengganu chess, Mohamad Arshad. :)

OK to cut it short, that day came few days ago when FIDE published November 2011 list, Syazwan is rated 1994 while mine stuck at 1984 ( I consider it as a cosmic jokes since I love most things 1984, songs, movies, tv series etc and wham! there you go...a rating of 1984 for me).

Ladies and Gentlemen...please welcome.....Mohd Syazwan Zulkifli aka SKY.

Mohd Syazwan Zulkifli
1992 Fischer makes a comeback after 20 years missing in inaction, Mikhail Tal died...Syazwan born.

His chess progress is amazing...see below
13 years old started to play chess
15 years old started to take up chess seriously.
17 years old, finished second in 2009 MSSM, behind FM Anas Nazreen

2 years after MSSM, now 19 years old, he is just everywhere!
3 weeks ago he finished third at UPSI (behind Mas and Udani),
2 weeks ago he finished first (perfect 9 from 9 rounds) at Terengganu Elite Tournament beating the likes of Norazmi, Hashim, Ruzenan, Rahim, Arshad etc.
Last week off he went to JB, finishing 2nd beating IM Mok in process...and still all this he did while he is a full time student (among best student there so i heard) at Universiti Malaya.

God knows what is his achievement will be in future if he continued to progress like this... a chart like the gold price chart (up up away!) while mine is more like the chart of KL Composite Index

By the way in case you wondered why he is known as SKY among his friend...is it because of his heavenly aim, hence SKY? No, actually it is more due to earthly thing...SKY is because he is just so fascinated with Skyline car!
Well, if that the case, lucky he did not fascinate with Lamborghini cars (or else his nick name will be LAMB) or Daihatsu cars (DIE)...but then again, nobody now put a poster of Daihatsu car in his room.

To SKY, congratulation and all the best!

DAY 3 AT DATCC TEAM

2011-11-02T08:19:00.000-07:00

November Rain
I started to believe that KL's weather got its own duty rooster. A rather accurate duty rooster that is. Morning till 4.30 pm, sunny. 4.30pm to 4.45pm dark, 4.45 pm till night rain. Yesterday is no different resulting in DATCC Team's chess player needs to brave the rain and the usual traffic jam. However all players arrived on time...no walk over wins was registered.

Of interest last night
NM Kamal Ariffin vs Udani. Kamal opened the game with 1. b4 !?. Kamal lost the game.

Jax Tham vs Haq. Haq arrived 55 minutes late. Still, slowly and steadily he smiled to his opponent (who must be very frustrated by sudden appearance of the opponent ), slowly locating for his pen...wrote down details on scoresheet and finally make a move. No hurry at all. Of such peaceful and calm behavior...of no surprise produce peaceful result. Game draw.

Sumant vs Saprin. Saprin is playing his school days favourite opening, Dragon (btw have you guys noticed that everybody today plays Dragon?!) with set up similar to Mas vs Najib. Heck, even the c3 exchange sac is also similar (but again that is one the main theme or tabiya in Dragon). Result wise...not similar. Draw.

Carikomputer still maintained their uniform shirts for whole team. If there is such an award as best dressed team, my vote goes to Carikomputer dot com.

There must be something happen on the game Hakim vs Khairunnisa (also the last game to finish) when i notice arbiter re setting the player's time. But since it is already 11pm at that time, i did not check it out what happen and left DATCC shortly afterwards.

In battle of IMs (IM Giam vs IM Mas), Mas won the game picking up white's pawns one after another...in a word of Fischer..like picking up ripe apples.

Good to see Terengganu's best Unrated Player(FIDE), Hashim Jusoh, is here tonite playing against a dangerous Pinoy, Michael Angelo Palma who coupled of days ago won Goon Cup at JB collecting a cool RM1,000. Result? Hashim lost on time in a hopeless position.

To the best of my knowledge, Abdullah Che Hassan is the only player now who plays 3 times and won all the games!

Result
If on the 2nd round, there are 3 matches ended with 4-0, this round saw 3 matches ended with 3.5 - 0.5 (Kelantan vs DATCC Senior, Najib's rojak vs Carikomputer and Too less Ordinary vs Nusa Mahkota)
2 matches ended peacefully (17cc vs Seahorse and Swordfish vs Renegade)
PJMIM is the only team last night achieving perfect score beating BERNAMA 4-0.

My game
Draw with Irman Ibrahim. Owen's Opening. 13 moves draw. Some says it is a coward draw...i would like to think of it as saving the best for Asian Amateur...alasan! :)

TONITE GONNA BE A GOOD NITE!

2011-10-29T21:08:00.000-07:00

Malaysia ‘Tiger’ vs Russia ‘Bear’... It is not something new that Malaysia faced the mighty red machine in chess...though it is always in a first round and Russia always fielded their reserve (and still won heavily)

But tonite is different. Russian could not afford to take Malaysian player lightly. I have a feeling that tonite is going to be a good hunting night for Malaysian tigers

Here

Thanks for the suggestion Jimmy but maybe the kids, sorry tigers i mean, need something more aggressive.

For tigers, song for you.

I gotta feeling (Black Eyed Peas)

I gotta feeling that today’s gonna be a good day
That today’s gonna be a good day
That today’s gonna be a good good day (x3)

Today’s the day
Let’s live it up!
Under 16 Olympiad!
Lets win the tourney
Look out and smash it
Like Oh My God
Jump off that board
Keep watchin’ checkmate!

I’ll know that I’ll have a ball
If I get down
And go out
And just loose it all
I feel
stressed out
wanna let it go
Lets go way out spaced out
And loosing all control

Check! Check! Check!Check!

Fill up my scorsheet
Brilliant move!
Look at his sweat
Just take it off
Lets paint Istanbul
We’ll shut it down
Let’s burn the roof
And then I’ll do it again

I gotta feeling that tonight’s gonna be a good night
That tonight’s gonna be a good night
That tonight’s gonna be a good good night (x2)
Tonight’s the night
Let’s live it up
We got our moves
Lets played it up

Go out and smash it
Like Oh My God
Jump off that board
Lets get get OFF
Fill up my scoresheet
Brilliant moves
Look at his sweat
Just take it off
Lets paint Istanbul
We’ll shut it down
Lets burn the roof
And then we’ll do it again

Lets do it (x3)
Let’s live it up
Here we come
Here we go
We gotta rock
Easy come
Easy go
Now we on top
Feel the shot
Body rock
Rock it don’t stop
Round and round
Up and down
Around the clock
Monday, Tuesday,
Wednesday, Thursday,
Friday, Saturday,
Saturday and Sunday
Get get get get get
With us you know what we say
Party everyday p-p-p-party
Party everyday
I gotta feeling that today’s gonna be a good day
That today’s gonna be a good day
That today's gonna be a good good day(x2)

All the best Malaysian Tigers!

CONVERSATION WITH 'HOME MINISTER'

2011-10-27T13:38:00.000-07:00

The Conversation
Me :I think maybe it is a good idea to go for a family vacation at Penang during this school holiday.
HM :Yeah, agreed! Maybe we should go during Awal Muharram’s holiday. Long weekend!
Me :Err...that day cannot...i have chess tournament during that time.
HM :Chess tournament? How come you never inform me about it before?
Me :I did, maybe you did not listened...Never mind... How about on 10th December?
HM :Hmm...OK also...but where to stay?
Me :You decide!
HM :(Smile) How about...........

So that is how i obtained my permit and visa to take part in Asian Amateur from my ‘Home Minister’...a typical conversation or modus operandi that i believe also happen in other chess players house...when we pay for our guilty feeling being away from family to take part in chess tournament...

The conversation will happen again in the future, no doubt about it...because we just so in love with the game...and so in love with our family too.

DAY 2 AT DATCC TEAM

2011-10-25T13:38:00.000-07:00

Before
A simple mathematic equation, afternoon rain...plus afternoon before Depavali...plus DATCC is located just a stone throw away from Masjid India are equal to traffic jam...so it is no surprise that when the game begin at 7pm, almost half of the players are yet to arrive. However by 7.30pm, most of the players are here already.

Results
Cannot blame if result wise, one thought that this is a first round...just so many 4-0 results!
Too less ordinary produce an extraordinary result beating DATCC Sr 4-0.
Carikomputer turn to ‘Carimangsa’ behaviour by defeating BERNAMA 4-0.
And 17 chess club joining the 4-0 clubs above by winning against renegade 4-0

Other result
Nusa Mahkota drowning Seahorse 3-1
Swordfish hide their sword to peacefully draw 2-2 with PJMIM. (resultwiselah peacefully, game wise brutal)
Kelantan failed to eat Najib’s Rojak Team. Draw 2-2

Games
Of interest are Udani vs Jimmy (Jimmy lost), Haq vs Izz (Izz won in an exciting rooks ending, also the last game to finish) . Andrew , a pawn up, blundered a piece when allowing his opponent, Syed of 17 CC, a nice combination. Thanks Andrew :) .

My Game (Ladies Night)
Played against Haslindah. I was lucky to win. Honestly i was thinking of resigning the game on move 11. Yeap, move 11!

See below position. I am having a black pieces.

My black lady has ventured alone, shopping for a cheap c4 pawn, at my lady opponent’s territory. Ofcourse, after e4!, she’s dead and i can safely resigned and can go home to be with my lady and two girls and maybe watching some girlie TV show ( I am always out vetoed) ... Anyway, she played e3? Phew!!

Guess ladyluck is smiling to me...:)

Below is the full game.
W:Haslindah
B:Ilham

Others
Yes, no 10pm disco beat...replaced with 12am firecrackers!

At least 3 players (maybe more) have a perfect score
1. Abdullah Che Hassan
2. Saprin
3. Zambri

Wan Shahrina (BERNAMA) is not here tonite.

TO MALAYSIA YOUNG WARRIORS...ALL THE BEST!

2011-10-24T02:08:00.000-07:00

1. In few hour time, five our young warriors… tigers all… will start to unhide and using their sharp claws and fangs, display swift killing manouevre, show off awesome fighting power and roars mightily at World Under 16 Chess Olympiad. Don’t believe me they are all tigers?…I dare you to do the stupid thing like challenging anyone of them in chess game… in a word of Spassky when asked about Fischer, it is not whether you will win, it is whether you will survived!

2. 'They' above are refers (under no particular orders) to Yeap Eng Chiam, Roshan, Li Tian, Jianwen and Elgin Lee. Our junior but we all know, are all veteran in collecting success after success (and prize money too…) in chess.

Pss, Jianwen..i take take you will not play when our teams meet tomorrow, right? :)

Natural Born Killer...Malaysian Junior. Go and get them, boys!
Pic from Jeffrey Wong

3. They are seeded 10th. Have I told you somewhere in my earlier unrelated posting that 10 is a nice number? The perfect ten, good striker wear ten, and NM LZR when he won this year national Closed, he was seeded number 10 etc ?...Well, now Malaysian Junior is seeded number 10th, ahead of Georgia and England, definitely a good sign!

4. Maybe Malaysia should be seeded higher, after all Li Tian and Jianwen did beat their opponent (Haslindah and Sumant respectively at FIDE rated DATCC Team Event) a day before their departure to Turkey so basically their ‘live rating’ is higher. Seriously consider informing the organizer about this so Malaysia can be seeded higher…maybe 8 (even nicer number)…but when I read about other countries junior achievement, like India’s Sahaj Grover who finished 5th at recently concluded Hoogeveen Open …with 2574 performance…well, maybe it is wiser if I keep silent on this.

5. To all Malaysia young, ruthless, warriors…good luck and all the best! Most importantly..have fun!

Earthquake
Turkey was hit by 7.2 Richter earthquake that killed hundreds. Our prayers are with the victim of this earthquake.
To all, i guess... not to worry so much about this. Distance between earthquake location and Istanbul is like 1200 kms…that is far…something like KL to Bangkok. Location wise also, it is close neighbour to Iran… that far.
Distance wise KL and Sumatera, which is of more active earthquake spot, are like 400 kms…we are in fact 3 times nearer to earthquake spot than them!

DAY 1 AT DATCC TEAM EVENT

2011-10-22T10:22:00.000-07:00

Intro
Today marks the beginning of the 4th DATCC Team event. All in all there are 12 teams taking part and based from the list, i would say it is a balance list. We have junior players (and some are very junior players), senior players (and very senior players too), females etc

At 9.30 am we have a players meeting. Among matters raised/highlighted are
• Change of last round. From the scheduled 24 December 2011 to 17 December 2011.
• On weekdays, game will begin at 7pm instead of 6.30pm.
• No switching of players allowed.
• Waiting time is one hour.
• Draws can only be offered after 10 moves.
• Appeals Committee. Najib suggested each team nominate one candidate via e-mail. List to be finalized/confirmed on 25th October 2011.
• Handphone. Cannot ring but can vibrate. Najib spend quite sometime on this, no doubt tried his best to make it flexible... but to make it simple...just off the damn thing!
• Pairings/ results will be e-mailed to team captain.
• Players can consult captain on draw offers

On lighter note, Najib informed that now DATCC no longer have 10 pm onwards free disco beat...(shall check it out this Tuesday), there is special mentioned, followed with well deserved round of applause on Saprin’s team (Carikomputer dot com) that consist of Saprin Sr and his 3 Saprin Jrs! Ok, now maybe today his team name is Carikomputer Dot Com..named after Saprin 2 or maybe 3 very successful computer shops...i have this feelings in 2 years time (maybe earlier) the team will develop to be a ruthless Carigaduh Dot com...takut! :)

Seeding
1. Najib's Rojak Team
2. Kelantan Chess Team
3. DATCC Seniors Team
4. Too Less Ordinary
5. Nusa Mahkota Chess Club
6. Seahorse PETRONAS
7. 17 Chess Club
8. Carikomputer Dot Com
9. Swordfish PETRONAS
10. BERNAMA Chess Team
11. PJMIM Team
12. Scratched Team

First Round
Among some interesting games/results are Jianwen beat Sumant and well...I drew with Mashafizul. :)

Below is my game.
W:Ilham
B:Mas

Back home i did some analysis on this game. To my surprise from the final position, i am actually winning!

Below is some of the possible line.
1. hg6 fg6
2. Rh6 Kh6
3. Qf7 mating

During analysis Zambri spotted similar idea on slightly different position but it never occurred to me that it exist on the very position when the game draw!

For record 17 Chess Club lost 1.5 – 2.5 (i draw, Zambri won against Haq, Ariez lost to Abdullah Che Hassan, Max lost to Farouqi)

GUESS IT IS TIME FOR ME TO SAY GOODBYE...

2011-10-15T22:44:00.000-07:00

Guess it is time for me to say goodbye to you, my dearest chess companion.

One who always loyally accompany me, come rain or shine, to my many chess tournaments.

One who always silently listening to my many private boasting on tournaments win …that I guess not many …or my ranting and suffering and cursing too... on disaster tournaments… that’s for sure is a lot.

One, whenever we are together, who always, in your own mysterious way, gave me many inspiration on what to write on this very blog.

You for sure are never a trophy companion but for a guy like me, you are a Ferrari. I accept you as what you are the way you accept me as who I am… but then again age is catching up, you become tired easily… and difficulty in waking you up in the morning, cold morning especially ...and that day, when you suddenly sleep in the middle of the busy Semantan road!

I bet you understand…

It is time for me to say goodbye to you, my ol’ Yamaha sports kapchai.

Tomorrow’s ride will be the last one you will serve me. After that I have to return you back to the place where I bought you and they will groomed you again I am sure and not long you will have a new master.

Serve him well, buddy…the way you always served me and please do not forget to give me that friendly honk or maybe that blink, blink of your front eye…should our path do ever cross again.

All the best!

MEMO FROM MASTER BLASTER

2011-10-11T08:05:00.000-07:00

The Tournament
All together there are only 30 players took part, maybe this is because there are two other tournaments (at Shah Alam -Insofar and Malacca) held on the same day. 15 rounds, begin at about 10.30am and finished at about 3.30pm with solid one hour lunch.

Very efficiently conducted by young Mr Kaber. in fact, most of the time Kaber is just standing there watching games in progress. He jot down the report there and then. In fact, if your game happen to be the last game to finish in that round, shortly after the game finished and after you have cursed your bad luck or blessed your lucky star... and started to reconstruct back the pieces...tup!,next round pairing is up again!...That efficient and any pairing faster than that I predict could only be achieved by Nostradamus.

Mas vs Najib
In the first round, and on the first board the encounter is IM Mas vs Najib Wahab...:)...and gosh, what an encounter! Najib played like player possessed and keep on sacrificing piece after piece after piece!...and winning! Totally have no respect to his IM opponent.

After the fireworks show by Najib is over, the position is...Najib is a piece down but 5 healthy pawns up! The Dragon pawn some more. Mas also readily admitted after the game that Najib is winning but unfortunately he played few inaccurate moves beginning from move 32...and Mas escaped with a win.

They say blitz game got no value...but when Najib nearly brilliantly beat Mas with the disadvantage black pieces, of course there is value to it. Below is the game.

Fasten your seat belt....

W:Mas
B:Najib

Mas Hafizulhelmi
After that first round scare...the tournament is all Mas. He just keep on winning game after game after game...the general feeling among the rest of us is...who is next we are going to feed to hungry Mas? Ofcourse, undeniably in some game (especially against Dr Zaidan) Mas is losing but he is very resourceful in creating unbalanced position in which it is easy for his opponent to make mistakes. Mas finally beat the soft spoken Doc even though at one time Mas is two pawns down.

And in Jax vs Mas game...We, (myself and NM Kamal Ariffin) watched the game from the beginning...Kamal after he beat his opponent in 4 or 5 moves, me because i got bye :( in that round... silky smooth performance by Mas. It is a Sicilian game in which Jax, castled queenside, advance all his king side pawns where Mas king's castle...Mas just tap the position here and there and a bit at the middle, advance his queenside pawns...and its all over. Mas make it looks so easy. Both Kamal and me just shake our head in silence... he understand the position like cab driver understand roads of KL. Every lorongs, short cuts, holes, traffic jam, complete where to get best food etc of the position is inside his head. Literally.

I have the opportunity of chit chatting with him during this tournament. He is kind enough to provide few tips to excel in chess like the needs to master (master, not a mere 'know') the endgame etc. The tricky knight bishop checkmate...rook vs queen pawnless endgame...ok, all this normal until later, unknown to Mas, one player informed me that Mas is teaching him how to checkmate (knight, bishop vs lone king) blindfolded!

Ofcourse Mas is very humble about his knowledge. Talking to him, he lowered himself to 'kito' or we...'kito nie, hok asah nie pong tok pahe lagi...' etc ' we sometimes do not even understand the basic...' but i know Mas is not 'we', the patzer. Mas is in different league...

My performance.
Don't ask! Did i told you i got bye in round 9 or is round 10...go figure it out how i performed!

The Winner
1. 'The IM' Mas
2. 'The CM' Fadli
3. 'The Doc' Zaidan
4. 'The Sifu' Jax Tham
5. 'The Tricky' Abdul Shukor
6. 'The Agdestein' Ezmi
7. 'The NM' Kamal Ariffin
8. 'The Smiley Assasin' Najib

WORLD (PART 2)

2011-10-10T00:50:00.000-07:00

Italy

Libya (Sirte)

Germany...and Thailand too!

Greece vs Debt

Usain Bolt

THE 4TH DATCC TEAM EVENT IS ON!

2011-10-07T08:35:00.000-07:00

1. The 4th DATCC KL Open Team Event with RM400 entrance fee, will start on 22 (2+2) October 2011 (2+0+1+1). Each match will be played over 4 boards and the venue is ofcourse at DATCC Centre, 4th floor Kompleks Wilayah.

So many 4s and Chinese normally did not like it because the pronounciation rhyme with death (si). Chinese are not alone in disliking of number 4, most of the Malay ladies are also don't like number 4 though most Malay men will naturally loved number 4...follow the foot step of the Prophet! come the fast, exciting reply...normally complete with the smiling face.

2. I have been taking part in 3 previous DATCC Team and i do not intent to miss this one. I informed Najib of my intention to take part and since i do not have any teams, have asked him to put my name on the 'available players pool'. Two weeks ago Max called me asking whether i am available to play for 17 Chess Club. Immediately i said yes and shortly afterward informed Najib to drop my name from the pool.

3. I just love this type of tournament... Sort of like to unwind after the hectic office hour...a game a week...with friends that shared similar interest...and the analysis after the game...and maybe a round of teh tarik after the game (even better if we could have one during the game!-hint!-)...and the sonic boom sound from disco nearby...Man, just love the environment! Sort of like sanctuary for chess lovers.

3A. My personal aim on this tournament is of course to win as much points as i can for my team but i will be fairly satisfied if i am not losing any rating points here and i hope that 17 Chess Club will finish among the prize winner. See you there!

FAQs

2011-09-29T15:32:00.000-07:00

I like articles here. Can i re-publish it on my blog?
Thank you and yes, you can. No, problem and do not required my prior permission but any reproduced article must be credited to 2010 Chess Odyssey. Give me credit sikitlah.

Your writing...comments on shoutbox...wonder do you eyeing any of the MCF’s (or other association) position?
NO! Plaese don't torture me. I am a chess player who enjoys playing chess and also enjoying writing about it but position in MCF...? That is a definite no, no for me. Ok lets me rephrase it. That is definitely NO NO NO for me.

I am just not the ‘berpersatuan’ type. Let put it this way, I love playing chess, love writing about it, but to be involve in any chess association is something that is so not me. The meetings, meets people, planning, meeting again, cannot freely air your views because it may represent the association’s views....thanks but no, thanks!

Congratulations! You got number 2 in recent SM Mini Blitz tournament.
Here
No, Ilham that got second place there is not me. It is another Ilham. (I am enjoying myself at Cherating on 24 September 2011) After all i am not the only chess player with ‘Ilham’ name...

To clear the air once and for all, maybe CM Fadli could be kind enough to publish the picture of all the winners if you guys still do not believe that the second winner there is not me. CM Fadli?

'KEDAI AZIZ'

2011-09-26T09:44:00.000-07:00

1. 'Kedai Aziz' or roughly translate as ‘Aziz’s Shop’ is not really a shop/restaurant. It is a stall, typical Terengganu’s thousand of stalls that dotted the landscape that served World’s finest Nasi Dagang or Nasi Minyak , Nescafe Peng etc.

Kedai Aziz is a wooden stall, cement floor and roof from zinc and nicely place under the large ‘Ara’ tree. It has about 6 or 7 tables and it can be divided to 3 parts. Proper stall, chess corner and checker corner. No, no toilet here though many regulars unashamedly act as if Kedai Aziz got one... Openly.

2. Kedai Aziz closed on Friday and operating hour for Kedai Aziz is from 7.30 in the morning till 6.30 in the afternoon with the exception on Thursday (or the ‘Hari Khamis Malam Jumaat’), somehow on 'hari Khamis Malam Jumaat', Aziz, the owner can be seen closing it early by half an hour. Wan Mamat, the contractor and one of the regular can always heard teasing Aziz “Asa ari Khamih Ma’lang Juma’ak...ba’lek awa” or roughly translate as whenever Thursday’s night you come home early!

When Wan Mamat not around on Thursday i blurly said to Aziz the some words uttered by Wan Mamat though not really understand the significant of the night. :)

3. From late 80’s up to late 90’s, Kedai Aziz is the unofficial centre of Terengganu chess. (Before it was ‘Jalan Kamaruddin, belakang Wisma Armon’ and now that honour went to Dungun). Ghalam, Abdullah Yunus, Arshad, Azli, Adnan, Hashim, Lim Sim Leong, Ghani, Cikgu Mat, Bak, Awie, Zailan, Gambit, Ustaz Ali, Aik Kiat, yours truly are the regulars here. Norazmi, Rahim somehow dislike the place.

4. Whenever PCNT got some cash flow problems, Aziz is the ready banker to advance his money first. Once the association got its cash from Majlis Sukan, Aziz will be immediately reimbursed. Aziz luckily did not charge us any interest for this uncollateral loan!

5. ‘Kedai Aziz’ is definitely not Cafe de la Regence that could attract artist (Voltaire, Rosseau) or VIPs such as Napolean but still on and off you can meet the late Aziz Afkar here (Aziz Afkar is the writer of ‘Hartini). Aziz is the chess lover and proudly said he learned chess from Chessmaster programme. On and off local politicians will drop by here for a lunch or maybe a game of checker. If i am not mistaken, NM Kamal Abdullah used to play chess here.

6. Time did not move slowly here, time crawl. It is common to set the time to meet at Kedai Aziz as ‘ we meet there in the morning...’ It means anytime between 7am to 11.30 am! Or maybe if you want to be specific ‘we meet after Asar’...anytime between 4 to 6.30pm! far cry from today Corporate meeting...meeting start at 4.05pm sharp.

...Damn, i missed the place...I don’t know about others but i definitely feel closer to Kedai Aziz, a sense of belonging/acceptance among adults. I am always happy here, playing chess from morning till afternoon, no cares about world...Kedai Aziz (and its regulars Ghalam, Arshad, Cikgu Mad) are one of the major reason why i chose chess over writing. Yup, I was once among the best Malaysia junior writer (poetry, short story etc) with ready invitation to write for compilation etc, dumped that careers and play chess where i am totally nobody... but maybe that is story for another day.

7. Talked about art and languages...we, the citizen of Kedai Aziz, talked our own chess language here. Chess Opening is 'lagu', bishop queen battery is 'buah dagu', Alekhine Defense is 'lagu kuda sesat' etc...yes, still used that classic 'sah' for check or 'mat' for mate!

8. Later in mid 90’s, under the name of development , kedai Aziz’s site has been earmarked for a building and he shifted his stall some 100 metres forward, behind the new Kuala Terengganu bus station. Chess/checkers hippies (read:me!) followed suit and rebuilt the ‘markas’ there but somehow it cannot restore its old glory. The magic has gone. For the record Aziz closed his iconic stall in late 90’s and now successfully went into sand transportation business.

MOK TZE MENG

2011-09-18T14:48:00.000-07:00

Jack of all trades, master of all.
If there such a title as Malaysia Most Complete Chess Personality, Mok Tze Meng …sorry, I mean IM Mok Tze Meng, would surely win it hands down.
As a chess player, he holds theIM title, peak strength of ELo2416, once nominated as candidate for Perlis Sportsman of the year etc.
As a chess coach, NM Lim Zhuo Ren and NM Edward Lee are among his student . Enough said though he actually also involved in coaching for schools, clubs etc.
As a chess entrepreneur, via Intelligent Minds Academy , you can always count on him to quote a competitive price for chess equipment (books, clocks, etc).
As a chess tournament organiser, his 2011 Hillcrest Open is arguably among the best local tournament this year.
As for involvement in chess association, he is vice president of CAS and committee member of MCF
As a chess blogger…well, err, hmm…ok, I think if he puts more time and efforts on it, it will surely be one of the top chess blogger in Malaysia.

Mok Tze Meng actually are more than above. He is now into arbitership (second in his class), father to a chess player, captain to Malaysia chess team on various outtings etc. He is also perhaps the only Malaysian player who got opening name after him (Mokdern Defense).
In banking there is this term ‘financial supermarket’ to financial institutions that could offered variety of services to variety of customer, not wrong to say Mok is our chess supermarket.

Early days
I first heard about Mok via newspaper articles in late 80’s, most probably on Chessmate, about one Sarawakian player who shuttle/fly regularly to take part in chess tourney at KL…and this is time before ‘now anyone can fly’ era!

He later settled down at Kuala Lumpur.

He won his first National Closed in 1990, a feat which he repeated in 1992, same goes with Selangor Open, God knows how many times he won.

I first know him personally in early 90’s as the unofficial banker to encash the cash cheque. Still remember whenever I won a few hundred bucks in tournament and it is in the form of cash cheque, Mok is the ready banker to cash it, normally half via buying his chess books and other half cash.Of course at that time outside of the chess world he was a banker in trade finance department.

One good thing in buying books from Mok is you will get advice or summary about the books. Oh, not recommend this book for you or Hey, this book is for you! Etc. You have the feeling that he knows his stuff, he knows his customer.

Later when I settled down at Kuala Lumpur in late 90s, we sometimes met at Royal Selangor Club and Agus’ house and various chess tournaments.

Chess style.
His style of playing is simple, positional and with strong endgame technique. He is not into wild swashbuckling attacking ala Tal or Shirov but rather crystal clear strategic play ala Fischer or Capablanca.

Maybe, just maybe that his Achilles Heels is on his opening repertoire. His choice of opening is however rather limited (Ruy Lopez Exchange and Modern Defense) and in the era of internet, databases…he maybe needs to widen his openings. Anyway don’t be surprised, before his love affair with Modern Defense, Mok used to play double edge opening such as Dragon and even Alekhine!

Below is sample of his endgame mastery at best. He is one pawn down in rook ending against an active GM...and playing at GM's own 'stadium'...where local considered Utut as national hero...it can be intimidating.

W:GM Utut Adianto
B: Mok Tze Meng
1993 Jakarta Interzonal

1. ... Rc7
2 Kd2 Kf7
3 Rc1 Rc1
4 Kc1 a5
5 a4 ba4
6 Kb1 a3
7 b3

now the excitement begin

7 ... f5!!
sacrificing a pawn. Mok has seen deep into this endgame.
8.ef5 Rg8!!
now when he is a pawn down...and just created pass pawn to his opponent, he offered to exchange rook? Rook actually cannot be taken. Black's passed pawn (s) are faster.

9.Re4
Only move to draw. Other move lost for white!

9. ..... Rg2
10. Re5 Rb2
11. Ka1 Rb3
12. Ra5 Rd3
13.Ka2

Draw

Chess Progress.
Mok’s progress as a player can best be described in steady 10 years leap. Roughly in early 80’s(or maybe late 70’s) he started playing the game, in 1990 National Master (NM), in 2000 FIDE Master (FM) and in 2009 International Master (IM)…based on that steady progress, who are we to say in future he will not obtained that elusive GM title once he set his target on it?

Next month he will be taking part in Yangoon GM chess tourney…2010 Chess Odyssey wished him all the best.

FINDING THE TRUTH

2011-09-16T08:13:00.000-07:00

Hari Raya
Hari Raya…in between lemangs, nasi himpit, rendangs and other normal Aidil Fitri routines (and chaos too…after all Aidil Fitri is always about controlling domestic chaos affair…and queeing to take shower… and quarrelling on where is butang baju melayu…and taking pictures…and asking for forgiveness…), I picked up Seirawan’s Winning Chess Brilliancies (published in 1995) and went through Seirawan’s comments on 1991 Ivanchuk vs Yusupov FIDE semifinals candidate match. Game played in Brussels yet at Moscow, there was a political coup to oust Gorbachev. Both players are worried about the fate of their family back home.

The Game
Below is the full game.
W:Ivanchuk
B:Yusupov

Black won the game.

The position
The interesting part of the game reached after black’s played 24. … Qh4.

Which side is better?

White is a piece up and controlling the center while black ( a piece down) got the attack against white’s king.

Seirawan is the eyewitness to this game and he together with his friend (Larry Christiansen, William Watson and John Nunn no less) analysing the position and they just unable to determine which side is better though Seirawan believed that white should be winning.
Some line discussed
25. Nce7 Kh8
26. Nf5 Qh2
27. Kf1 Be5!!
28. Be5 Re5
29.de5 Rg8 threatening a queen sac 30... Qh1 31. Bh1 Nh2 32. Ke1 Rg1 checkmate!

The position haunted Seirawan and he visit and re-visit the position several times before finally he found a defense for white.
25. Nce7 Kh8
26. Nf5 Qh2
27. Kf1 Be5!!
28. de5 Rg8
29. Nde3 fe3
30. e6!

All in all Seirawan devoted 4 pages analysing above position.

Still I wondered, is his analysis accurate? Is white really winning in this game?

Now the position haunted me.

Revisit
Two weeks after Hari Raya …still in between lemangs, nasi himpit, rendangs of open houses and somewhat less chaotic environment, I consulted my ELO 3000 professor…Mr Fritz agreed that from above position white is winning (eval of 6.3) and gave below convincing line

25. Nce7 Re7
26. Ne7 Kh8
27. Nf4 Qh2
28. Kf1 Rg8
29. Ne3 Bd4
30. Rd4 Ne3
31. Ke1 safe! What a convincing line.

Case closed! Haunt me no more! What Seirawan achieved in few days, i achieved it in few minutes.

The Contemplation
Makes me think how lucky I am today. I have with me, Mr Chess Engine, arguably stronger than even Super GM, that is always ready 24/7 to give me advices , access to millions of games , access to live games, access to thousands and thousands of players all over the world for a quick game between human or some discussion about Caissa, access to maybe million hours of chess videos and training materials, access to tablebase …bet Kasparov and Karpov of early 80's is willing to pay million dollar (or maybe million Ruble) to enjoy what i am enjoying now... what a waste if i did not fully utilized it.

MAS IN CRISIS?

2011-09-08T21:59:00.000-07:00

1. No, i am not referring to Malaysian Airline System in crisis, though it is not wrong to say so (with MAS shares is now at only RM1.53, not so good financial results, many senior management resignation etc). I am referring to our IM Mas, who seems to be in crisis of sort, scoring only a point from 6 games.

2. If my memory served me right, the last time Mas was in crisis is at 2009 Bangkok Open when he just losing game after game to opponents not really of his strength, trying extremely hard to win even when the position did not warrant it...legend has it that GM Ian Rogers, his coach, then advice Mas via e-mail saying that result in chess, other than win or lost, there is a draw (or something to that effect). Mas got the message, regrouped and starts winning again.

3.Maybe we demand too much from Mas. We are not used to see Mas at his current state. Over the last 20 years, we are just being pampered with Mas' fine tournament result (beating Korchnoi, Ulibin, drawing Michael Adam etc) till we always unreasonably demand Mas to perform excellently, all the time and at all the place. We questioned his human error in letting his phone rang in the middle of the game, questioned his decision to take a draw against super GM, questioned his fighting spirit, questioned his decision this...questioned his decision that And this maybe, just maybe put unnecessary pressure on him.

4.Mas honestly did not need all this crap from us. What he needs is support from all of us. Continued support in his best of times and worst of times...

5. We forgot that how much sacrificed (money, time, other opportunity, etc...) Mas has done on his mission to put Malaysia on chess map. Without Mas, Malaysia can easily ranked number 100 in Chess Country Ranking, without Mas we may not even have such a strong junior line up (who find inspiration from him or strength by sparring with him). We forgot even Ivanchuk or Shirov also sometimes performed below their true strength. We take Mas for granted...

6.Then again who am i to give my comment on Mas. One blogger recently questioned whether a 2200 player qualified to comment a game of someone rated 2400. Now i am 1900 something player, let alone comment, that put me not even in the position to whisper about his performance. So i guess i better stop now.

7. To IM Mas. A poem...Don't Quit!

CHESS INSTINCT

2011-09-02T12:12:00.000-07:00

Instinct…

We, human, came to this world pre install with this ability. Though unfortunately it came without any instruction or manual on how to use it. Somehow, we just know when danger is around the corner …and instinctively position ourselves either to fight or flight.

We, chess player too, came to any chess games also pre install with this ability. We know when our opponent tried to crush us positionally… We know when we should shelter our king from danger… we know when we should rush our pawns and king in endgame. We hardly think…we just ‘know’ what to do. It is as if some mysterious forces guide us what to do.

But the big question is how accurate and reliable is our chess instinct? To what extent we can trust this basic instinct of ours (I am referring here to chess basic instinct, not Sharon Stone’s Basic Instinct)? Which one is stronger, our mysterious, hard to explain instinct or brute force logic a.k.a calculation?

Honestly, I don’t know…

The Study
Anyway I do know that for below study compose by F. Sackmann 1912, to solve it you cannot rely on your normal instinct. Hope you enjoyed (and understand) this study as much as I do.

White, one pawn down in pawn ending (normally is a death sentence), is to play and win.

Solution
1. Kf5!! Kb6
2. Kf6 Kb7
3. Kf7 Kb8
4. Ke6 Ka7
5. Ke7 Ka6
6. Kd8! Kb7
7. Kd7 Kb6
8. Kc8 and white wins.

What I like about this study is the fact that to win both black’s c pawns, first thing that white needs to do is move AWAY from it. Immediate 1.Kd6 Kb6 draw or 1.Ke6 Ka6 also draw. To explain this beautiful concept to those who don’t know how to play chess…it is equivalent to inform that first step in getting a degree, first brilliant thing to do is NOT to enter university. Or to explain this to our hamsap (Casanova, Don Juan, Romeo whatever) non chess player friend, key to win a girl's heart is by avoiding her! Confusing!

Note
Of course to any chess master , above concept is nothing strange. It is called Distant Opposition. A battle between two kings to conquer key square,that happen at least 3 files (or ranks) between them. Some distant opposition battle even happen 5 files away!

In Malaysian political kingdom, maybe there are one or two opposition, but in political kingdom of chess (and in the state of pawn ending alone) there exist at least 4 oppositions (normal opposition, distant opposition, diagonal opposition and virtual opposition). Who said chess is dull?

Opps!, guess i have already strayed away from 'CHESS INSTINCT' topic...instinctively i know i have to stop now.

FIELD OF DREAMS...DATMO 2011 EDITION

2011-08-22T13:55:00.000-07:00

Intro
In 1989 film Field of Dream, starring Kevin Coastner, there is this dialogue between John Kinsella and Ray Kinsella...

John Kinsella: Is this heaven?
Ray Kinsella: It's Iowa.
John Kinsella: Iowa? I could have sworn this was heaven.
[John starts to walk away]
Ray Kinsella: Is there a heaven?
John Kinsella: Oh yeah. It's the place where dreams come true.
[Ray looks around, seeing his wife playing with their daughter on the porch]
Ray Kinsella: Maybe this is heaven...

DATMO 2011 Edition
Well, for me this year DATMO is simply a heaven. It got something for everyone.

For politician (and we are all politician in our own little way), possible to see Nelson M and Suharto discussing their strategy to defeat their opponent...under the watchful eye of Najib of course.

And since we are all definitely a chess player,at DATMO 2011 this is the only place, one place in this universe, where Nakamura could play a game of chess with Fischer to decide who is a better player among them...

Or how about seeing Darwin discussing about evolution theory of this mating game...

For businessman, there are many GMs here (though maybe they are not interested in your novel business idea...they are only interested in your chess novelty-should you have one because GM here is not General Manager...:) )

Don’t believe? Just go to 2011 DATMO! You could see above and maybe more...

Again, a quote taken from Field of Dreams.

The Voice: If you build it, he will come.

DATMO is our ‘field’ and if we continue to built it...they (interesting chess player, our brother and sister all) will come.

HOLDING OUT FOR A GM

2011-08-14T03:42:00.000-07:00

Malaysia for sure really don't lack it in junior talent's department...

Some of the success (...and where their rivals are now)

1992 World Junior under 14.

	ONCE UPON A TIME	NOW
	Name	Title	Rating
1	Tihonov Jurij	GM	2460
2	Benoit lepelletier	IM	2445
3	Tzoumbas Anastasios	FM	2338
4	Peter Leko	GM	2717
5	Ooi Chern Ee	FM	2349
6	Vescovi Giovanni	GM	2644
7	Dao Thien Hai	GM	2492
8	Avrukh Boris	GM	2600
9	Baklan Vladimir	GM	2620
10	Leitao Rafael	GM	2622

Asian Junior 1999

	ONCE UPON A TIME		NOW
	Name		Title	Rating
1	IM Krishnan Sasikiran	2536	GM	2681
2	Laylo Darwin	2502	GM	2528
3	IM Mas Hafizulhelmi	2426	IM	2416
4	IM Tejas Bakre	2361	GM	2522
5	IM Chong Liang	2412	GM	2497
6	FM Ehsan Ghaem Maghami	2373	GM	2588
7	IM Aziz Ahmad	2327	Na	na
8	Thai Binh Nguyen	2295	-	2273
9	FM Enamul Hossain	2325	GM	2481
10	FM Irwin Irnandi	2235	FM	2240

Legend has it that Mas and Sasikiran are both leading the tournament (with Mas having a better tie break) but Mas overpressed in his last game against Ghaem, position is draw, while Sasi won his and the rest is history.

But still, all is not bleak and dim since we now actually have a junior who is ahead of his peers

World under 8

	ONCE UPON A TIME	NOW
	Name	Title	Rating
1	Konstantin Savenkov		2019
2	Qasimov Chingiz		1732
3	Maxim Sinyanskiy		1810
4	Yeoh Li Tian		2121
5	Zajic Milan		2074
6	Jonathan Chiang		2000

Sorry guys, i am now in musical mood...:)

..

Where have all the good players gone
And where are all the talents?
Where's the street-wise chess players
To fight the rising odds?
Isn't there a white knight shining in junior tourney?
Late at night I toss and turn and dream
of what I need

[Chorus]

I need a GM
I'm holding out for a GM 'til the end of the time
He's gotta be strong
And he's gotta be fast
And he's gotta be fresh from the fight
I need a GM
I'm holding out for a GM 'til the end of the time
He's gotta be sure
And it's gotta be soon
And he's gotta be larger than life...

THE YOUNG ONES (DEDICATED TO THE FIGHTING ZHUO REN)

2011-08-12T02:52:00.000-07:00

Based From: The Young Ones (Cliff Richard)

The young ones,
Zhuo Ren you're the young ones,
And young ones shouldn't be afraid.

To play, win
While the flame is strong,
for you may not be the young ones very long.

Tomorrow,
why wait till tomorrow,
Tomorrow sometimes never comes.
Check, mate,
there's a game to be won
And the best time is to win it while you're young.

Once in every lifetime
comes a tourney like this.
Malaysia need you and you need Malaysia.
Oh Lim Zhuo Ren can't you see.

Young dreams
Should be dreamed together,
Young hearts shouldn't be afraid.
And some day when the years have flown
Zhuo Ren, you will teach the young ones of Malaysian.

CHESS PROPHECIES

2011-08-10T18:39:00.000-07:00

Dear beloved reader,

1. In future it is illegal to offer a draw. FIDE finally ashamedly realized that chess is the only sports in this whole wide universe (and maybe in other parallel universe too) in which players have a luxury to mutually split point (during the battle) to suit their own sweet agenda...normally due to afraid of losing.

2. In future it is no longer required to write a chess move for game played on electronic chess board. Result will be transmitted online to Arbiter. Pairing will be done automatically after last result submitted and when players went home after the tournament, he/she will find the tournament bulletin already being sent to his/her e-mail. Very fast, very efficient but still, i see,...tournament still normally begin half an hour late from schedule.

How to monitor 50 move rules without annotation? Electronic Board is intelligent enough to detect illegal moves, 3 moves repetition or 50 moves rules. After all chess player's job is to play chess, not to count moves.

3. FIDE recognized and awarded Super Grand Master (SGM) title to those rated 2700 and above. No longer SGM title can be used freely and in unregulated manners.

4. But then again there will be just so many players with SGM title, FIDE then introduce Elite Grand Master (or EGM, not to be confused with Extraordinary General Meeting), a very exclusive and elite club, only open to world champion and its challenger (past and present) and player rated 2800 above. Of course all EGM is millionaire. EGM is a US Dollar Millionaire Club...No, perhaps I should change it to A Yuan Millionaire Club (In future US Dollar is no longer a major currency.)

5. Adjusting pieces are allowed only 2 times during a game. No longer can player distract other player’s thinking by keep adjusting already well placed pieces.

6. ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) allowed/assigned FIDE to introduced and monitored prefix for official chess organisations, federations or companies. ‘.chs’. No longer chess federation official site is on, say... blogspot or wordpress. By the way, how about www.2010chessodyssey.chs hmm! :)

7. ELO 3000’s mark finally will be breached by human before year 2025. Inside our computer, Houdini, Fritz and gang laughed at this ‘ordinary’ human achievement, (something they have achieved decades earlier), the way we human laughed at their ancestral (Sargon and Kaissa etc) playing abilities in early 80’s. By the way programmes at that time are looking to breached ELO 3500.

8. Only at Super GM tournaments or World Chess Championship, advance camera technology is being used to support the enforcement of ‘touch move’ chess. No more guessing or ‘not aware my hand leaving the piece’ case etc.

9. Someone being caught cheating by receiving moves from his/her watch or eye glasses. Hopefully not from Malaysia.

10. ‘Tag team chess’ will become popular. 2 players in a team and each player make their moves alternately. Cannot discuss during the game.

11. Sahovki Informator will only be published online.

12. Finally in 2018 Malaysia finally got its own GM ( Well, don’t know whether this is a good or bad news)

So in conclusion, my reader, take this gift from your author Ilhamdamus, who hopes you will understand each prophecy in every quatrain herein. May God grant you a long life of good and prosperous happiness.

Malaysia, 11 August 2011

NF6 MASTER- FINAL REPORT

2011-08-05T16:12:00.000-07:00

My game against Kaushal
I won against Kaushal (a walkover won actually). Lucky me because if I were to play Kaushal, frankly I feel that he a much stronger player than me.

My game against Kenneth
OK, maybe on my game against Kaushal, I expected to lose but get a point but in my game against Kenneth, I actually expected to win, but I lost badly.
Opening
Kenneth came prepared and ‘ambushed’ my Alekhine. His c5! Is something new to me and suddenly I am just running out of oxygen. I sacrifice a rook hoping to gain control of center and maybe trap his knight…however it is just illusion. An illusion that turn to a 'knight'mare to me...
Middlegame
No middlegame. Game lasted 25 moves though honestly I could resigned some 10 moves earlier. (Maybe I should switch back to 1….e5) Congratulation to Kenneth who actually has ‘grown up' to be a strong player as the tournament progressed. For the record Kenneth just bulldozed his last 3 or 4 opponents. I expect we will hear more about Kenneth in the future.
Full game. Here.

Nf6 tournament.
A friendly FIDE rated tournament organized by Aziz Shukor and Syazrin. Arbiter is Mr Najib Wahab. Played over 3 months , though to Nik Farouqi it ended one month earlier, players chose their own weekend to do the battle and for that….thanks Najib!

Many bantering were exchange on the cyberspace (read:e-mail) and YCS actually produced a new word “Seduted” (past tense, an act of sucking/ siphoning someone else elo points). Not to be outdone, Najib produced a mystery numbers (5, 7, 12).

For me, not really a good outing. Surely will lost some points but hopefully it will still be above 2000. Maybe I should follow Najib’s advice…Bring along my daughters! On the day I bring along my two angels (hopefully Heaven still did not realise two angels are missing from Heaven) I scored 1.5 out of two! Nearly make it 2 out of 2!

Yeoh Li Tian
Last but not least, about the champ, Yeoh Li Tian (YLT), a deserving winner, a quiet player with occasional smile, a killer smile. He played confidently, never shows his emotion or get excited whether he is winning or losing. But then again, hardly saw him in losing position. (psst. ok , maybe a bit in his game against me :) )

Recently there is question raise whether YLT is really a strong junior player. Well, for me, maybe, rating wise, he is not the strongest (Edward Lee and LZR are ahead of him)but still he is the most talented, our best hope for GM title.

In my earlier (second posting in fact after my blog intro) Odyssey’s article here, I mentioned about how Malaysia is blessed with chess talents, one in every 10 years, 70s is Jimmy Liew (yes, Jimmy is also once a talented Junior), 80s is Rosazman Rosley, 90s is MasHafizul Helmi, 2000 is Anas Nazreen and 2010 is Yeoh Li Tian. and after 121 postings, believed it is still true, this decade will be YLT's decade.

While other Malaysia junior’s yardstick is well… Malaysia. YLT is world. YLT is once world number 4 (under 8). Some might say “Ahh, after few years, the juniors that placed below YLT will sure potong him one. Just wait and see”

Well, I am sorry I have to disappoint you. YLT’s rating is better than even the winner of that W-U8. (Konstantin Savenkov, 2019 against YLT’s 2121) and this year he is basically inactive, I am sure if his father let him take part in more FIDE tourneys, he will be rated at least 2180. Even with his ‘humble’ 2121 (we, chess player know YLT’s strength is more than 2121), FIDE has listed YLT as world number 15 in the world under 12 list.

Take note ladies and gentlemen. WORLD.

BATTLE OF HONG LEONG BANK/ A DRAW AGAINST YLT

2011-07-31T14:53:00.000-07:00

These are actually last week’s games Nf6 Master Event. Should post it a week earlier but blame the delay due to Najib’s recent great posting ( A Malaysian chess record for number of comments in one single posting. Marathon 42 comments!) on and off I check the development there and at other websites. Just cannot updating my own blog!…well, actually the results of the game are also the contributing factors!

Game vs Aziz
Enough about it now and lets talk about the game. This is what I called it as a Battle of Hong Leong Bank. Both me and Aziz are ex EON Banker and now we are a staff of Hong Leong Bank. (Hong Leong Bank had acquired EON Bank) Previously my record against Aziz is one draw and one lost. Both of us are extra determined to win this game to avoid from being the ‘first from behind’.

Opening
Albin Counter Gambit. A wild game in which I start attacking (unsound ofcourse) from beginning. I reached below position and thought I am going to win soon, very soon.

I am threatening Nd3 mate. White can't take the knight because of Bb4, Bb4, Qb4 and Qd1 mating! Both white's knight are on the rim...yet i am still lost the game.

Middlegeme
Aziz somehow survive the attack and now controlling the center. Even offered to sacrifice an exchange.

Endgame
Aziz, with much more superior forces, consolidate his position to score a win.
For a complete game. Here

Game vs Yeoh Li Tian
Before the game I showed my game against Aziz to Greg Lau. He did not seems impressed with my bombastic opening yet bombard me with something like I could not go far if I continue to play chess ‘randomly’ like the one against Aziz. Quietly I determine in my game against YLT I will play more ‘sober’ type of chess...to no avail. :)

Opening
Caro Kann. Yet once again very early in the opening I sacrifice (sorry, Greg!) a pawn to transpose the game into Blackmar Diemer Gambit. Just cannot help it! :) YLT look at me suspiciously and think for a few minutes before declining the sacrifice.

Middlegame.
YLT is always the one who got the advantage and keeps on improving his position.

Endgame.
Somehow I was two pawns up in the knight – rook ending and started thinking of well, this could be my lucky day!

Yet YLT remains calm and started to play aggressively. I started losing pawns, one pawn…two pawn and now the material is equal. I tried my luck and offered him a draw in which he accepted! Phew, lucky me. Cannot imagine how an ending in which I am two pawns up and lost?!

For a complete game. Here

THE UNSUNG MALAYSIAN HEROES AT CHESSCUBE

2011-07-21T12:45:00.000-07:00

Glad to see a few Malaysian gather among themselves at www.chesscube.com, formed a team and competing with another countries and so far they are doing remarkably well!

Malaysian team that consist of herotojan, fxqie, fadzilnayan and norula (Well, i think i know few of them...) so far has drew with USA (!) and Greece and now in semi final and this weekend will face a strong Indian team. Not everyday Malaysian chess team can draw with US chess team!

Should you need more details, you can just go to chesscube (Well, you need to register first), clicked room, scrolled down and entered room Malaysia (normally there are about 20 to 30 people here at any time) and if you notice the lovely Intandayana is around, just asked her any questions related to Malaysian chess team, she will be more than willing to answer it. Asked her out for date and she will quickly ignore your present! No, i have never done that but just observing others who have tried pushing their luck...to no avail ofcourse :)

To me, this Malaysian chesscube team, they are proved, even without MCF assistance, without big name sponsors and without publicity, but driven purely out of love of the game, they can still performed well. Very well indeed!

To all the unsung hero of chesscube Malaysia team, all the best in your match against India this weekend!

BOOK REVIEW: JON SPEELMAN'S BEST GAMES

2011-07-17T01:39:00.000-07:00

This book I bought from Rizal (Rizal Chess Trading) at maybe RM60 (not sure) during this year National Closed. Malaysia chess book market is just blessed with many layers, depth, of chess market. For primary market there is book shop like MPH, Kinokuniya or maybe direct order from publisher. For secondary OTC (good books with affordable price) market there is the like of Rizal, Arshad, Mok Tze Meng, Naserov and others. For third market (photocopy), you know who the players are in this market!

The book is not the latest, hot from press book. It was published in 1997 but still in good condition and I think for sixty buck it just worth every ringgit...and for ELO 2000 player who love a good chess story, a good chess game, book that he can read in toilet or while waiting for his fried rice ready or his car wash ...it is just Godsend from Heaven!

Honesty
What drawn me to the book is the honesty that Speelman’s put into this book. If he don’t know he said he don’t know and if he used Fritz, he said so and in below position (Levitt vs Speelman 1982) which he thought he is ok, if not winning, he made a ‘…the psychological, if not technical mistake of turning on Fritz. It turn out White can inflict grievous damage with 28. f4!...’

Not many players will admit that they are actually , all this while, is in fool's paradise!

Stories
When annotating his game (against opponent who always made a draw offers), Speelman mentioned an incident in a game between ELO 1700 and a GM (not him, at that time still an IM). Poor 1700 player opened the game with 1. f4 and said ‘ would you like a draw?’. The reply? 1. …e5 ‘F*** off!’

…and a story about player, a fine player who sealed ‘Resign’ inside the adjournment’s envelope.

…and a story about a player, a couple of queens down and facing a mate in two, reached the adjournment and adjourn his next move. Next day, in a cold Icelandic morning, the adjournment sessions duly started, minus the player who adjourn the game, who sealed ‘Good morning, asshole.’

And many other interesting stories scattered across the book.

Endgame
Since Speelman is a player who has wrote many books on chess endgames like Endgame Preparation, Analysing the Endgame and Batsfords Chess Ending, you can expect a great emphasis on the endgames in this book. An example is from below position between Speelman and Sosonko.

Sosonko played 31. …Ra2 ?? and Speelman spend five pages analysing 31. …a4! and some variations run deep into move 64!

This book is definitely a treat for someone who wants to improve his/her endgame.

New words
I discovered many new English words such as prelate, ‘reginicide’, precipice etc, and even a new Latin word ‘reductio ad absurdum’.

First hand story.
Almost all games are from his owned experience and Speelman generously shared with readers what happen during the game. Eg. Kasparov vs Speelman Linares 1992 From below position.

“…Behind on the clock and with White starting to get organised, I started to feel very nervous, particularly given my atrocious tournament position as outlined in the introduction. Then I suddenly spotted a move to change the course of the game. I made no claim for its soundness, but just after eight minutes, before I could talk myself out of it, I bashed out:

21 … Be3 !?!

Kasparov returned to the board. If 8 … a5 and 10 … a3 had caused something of a reaction, this was altogether in a different league. His eyebrows arched and he sank into deep thought.”

38 minutes to be exact! For the record the game was eventually draw.

Next book.

Next book I hope to read and give a review here is 2010 Chess Book of the Year. Seirawan’s Chess Duels. My games with the World Champion. This book is just full of great games (all Seirawan’s games against world champion), great stories and great behind the scene stories

Can’t wait to get myself this book. Anyone know where I can buy this book?

MY GAME AGAINST KAMALUDIN YUSOF

2011-07-10T08:36:00.000-07:00

Before the game
Normally I do not care much about my weekend appearance (and maybe my weekdays appearance too) Today is the exception. I am extra careful about my appearance or rather what I wear for today’s game against Kamaludin Yusof. This red shirt?…cannot, Patriot. Yellow shirt?…definitely a no. Bersih. After all it is only 17 hours after the demonstration. Play it safe I grab my white T Shirt…

Traffic at KL is eerily calm. Very few cars on the road and here and there I can see the presence of policemen/ police cars. Surprise! There is just no trace of the demonstration held yesterday. Alam Flora staff must be working overtime last night.

The Game
Opening
A lot of ‘shadow boxing’. Both me and Kamaludin played very carefully and took considerable amount of time tried to steer the game into our favourite line (and not to fall to opponent's favourite). Once we have reached a standard Svesnikov tabiya, we just blitzed our moves.

Middlegame
I advance my b pawn to b5 with the idea of fixing my opponent pawns at b6 and d6. Not sure whether this is a good idea (normally white's strategy is queenside pawn push). Shortly after that I sacrificed an exchange for some initiative and hopefully some dark squared play…a big mistake from me, Kamaludin played all the Rybka recommendation moves and soon he is the one with initiative and superior forces.

Endgame
Never really reach the endgame. I resigned when I count the pieces and realised that I am 3 pawns down and also an exchange down... realised the probability of me swindling my opponent is equal to me correctly predicting the 6/58 jackpot…one in 29 billion...Congratulation to Kamaludin for the victory.

W:Ilham
B:Kamaludin Yusof

MY EARLY CHESS LESSONS/TIPS

2011-07-03T02:38:00.000-07:00

Below are some the early chess lessons that I gathered during my salad day. As I am getting older (and hopefully…wiser) I know I am better off without getting this free chess ‘lessons’.

Rules
Check needs to be announced.
It is illegal to check opponent’s king without mentioning ‘check’ . Opponent can ignore your soundless check and you cannot capture his/her king.

Castling needs to be announced.
Same as above. If you did not mentioned ‘castling’, then you cannot castle. Simple.

When your opponent has only king, you need to checkmate him/her within 20 moves.
If you are unable to do it in 20 moves, game draw. Explain why I never bother to learn how to checkmate by using knight and bishop, very good chances it is going to be draw.

You can only promote your pawn with pieces that is off the board.
In simple word, if your queen is still on the board, you cannot promote your pawn to a queen. ‘Kahwin dua’ or having two queens is not allowed.

En passant’s pawn must be captured
Happen to me during my first tournament, 1986 Malay Open (Novice). I play this kid (about 14 or 15 years old) and in the middle game he advance his pawn two square, I played maybe some bishop or knight move when he suddenly said…
Him: en pass see yon! (with heavy French accent, still remember that!)
Me: What’s that?
Him: en pass see yon…you need to capture my pawn…like this (he shows me a capture as if his pawn only move one square)
Me: Are you sure?
Him:If you don’t believe me, you can ask my dad (as if on cue, there appeared his father and explain to me about the en passant rule and I HAVE to capture the pawn!)

Me, still not satisfied…called up the arbiter. Arbiter came and before I could say anything, both father and son busy explaining to the arbiter that I don’t know about En passant’s move.

Arbiter: Adik, this move is called en passant. It exist…
Me: …ok

So that is it. I captured the pawn, compromise my position and resigned a few moves later. The ‘knowledge’ about en passant and it needs to be captured stuck with me for a few years.

If only i asked that arbiter whether is it compulsory to capture an en passant pawn....

Tips
Study your opponent’s game…if he likes to play his knight, immediately captured his knight with your bishop!
Wonder how you can determine your opponent's liking of chess pieces!

If you want to know what your opponent think…look at his/her eyes!
Well, maybe I should practice/test this tip when i meet GM Tania…maybe there is some truth in it!..but when ah....?

Castle if you must…if not then don’t castle, you risked putting your king trapped at the corner with fewer square to moves/ escapes.King is safer at center.
Maybe this tips still somehow stuck at my subconscious mind...

Summary
With all these rules and tips that I gathered during my critical foundation years…no wonder why I am stuck at where I am today.

MY GAME AGAINST RAZALI NG6/ NOTE FROM NF6

2011-06-30T06:16:00.000-07:00

Competitor Analysis
Not easy to play against Mr Razali.
First, his style of solid play (i hate solid play!) in which if overreach, can simply exploded in front of your face.
Second, his misleading rating. Razali's strength is way, way above his current rating.
Third, he just drew with NM Yeoh Chin Seng...

“Just play 1.h3” advice one of my colleague when he know i will be playing against Razali Ng6 and continued giving his reasons. While i was about to buy into his suggestion of playing waiting first move (though what i really intent to play is 1.a3, and hopefully end up playing any of my black’s opening a tempo up...) suddenly he advise me of NOT playing 1.e4 “...because he will played Alekhine and he know the opening well.”

Alekhine?!

At that instance i know i have to play 1.e4! Reason is because as white, against Alekhine, I normally played a rare and dubious Chase Gambit Variation in which for a pawn sacrifice, white has tremendous initiative.

Below is the game.

The Game
W:Nor Ilhamuddin
B:Razali Hamzah

Note from Nf6
Maybe this is still too early to say but what i think the favourite now to win this tournament is Dr Kaushal. He is currently studying medicine at UK and according to him, he occasionally played chess there. He did not play spectacular chess opening (he played a quiet positional chess, double fianchettos, hedgehog structure and stuff like that) but from middlegame onwards he slowly and surely collecting advantages...squeezing his opponent like a hungry anaconda...wonder is he secretly study chess there at UK ...?!

Good to see how Yeoh Chin Seng and Yeoh Li Tian really battled it out on their game last Saturday. No early draw (or even ‘early lost’ for that matter) that one sometimes could expect whenever there is immediate family member chess encounter. Very serious, very professional.

If memory serve me right, the last time i saw a serious game between sibling is some 17 or 18 years ago at PWTC (National Closed) when Khairunnisha played against Nurul Huda. The game was adjourned and at one corner Khairunnisha is busy analysing and at other corner, her sister is busy analysing....

Many thanks to Mr Najib Wahab who is very patience in handling the re-schedule and re-re-schedule of the tournament...and also for the efficiency in sending out tournament ‘bulletin’ FOC to contestant.

A QUIET SATURDAY...OR SO I THOUGHT

2011-06-25T18:29:00.000-07:00

The Call
10 am. Setiawangsa.

It should be a quiet Saturday. I was about to have my 1000 calories nasi lemak with rendang, cockles, telur goreng etc...type of stuff that they banned at school canteen. In front of me is The Star...old habit...having breakfast and reading newspaper.

Suddenly my phone rang. “Ilham, aku nie..Farouqi. Kita ada gamelah...” It turned out that i have games (Nf6 tournament). Panick...i mumbled something like oklah, a walkover win for you, Qie...but a gentleman farouqi said that he is willing to wait for me (and will not enforce a waiting time rule. Ofcourse he absolutely got the rights to claim a walkover win).

Should i go or should i stay?
Should i forfeit my nasi lemak breakfast or should i forfeit the game?
Decision...decision...

Damn! Only on my recent posting (Dear Raymond) at my blog I preached about each player should play their role by entering tournament/ playing game they promise earlier on but it seems now within 24 hours i am about to be what i preached other of not to be...

Sadly forfeiting my nasi lemak, i informed my daughters to quickly pack their books. ‘Just grab whatever books you can. ’...they need to follow me to chess tournament. Hopefully i am not double forfeiting today.

Driving my SLK (Small Little Kancil, not that Mercedes SLK) to the limit, i arrived 17 minutes before i ran out of my 90 minutes time.

The Game
W:Farouqie
B:Ilham

I drew the game though i think i have the advantage in the final position.

Apology
My apology to my opponents (both Aqie and Ng6) and the rest of competitor for any (and i think a lot...) of disturbance caused by my daughters.

Next posting
My game against Ng6

DEAR RAYMOND

2011-06-23T11:35:00.000-07:00

Thank you very much for interest you show on my below posting (If Chess Is Business). Agreed with some of your points and disagreed with some others.

Chess is an amazing tool to building future businessmen as well as a GM if we include competitor analysis.
Absolutely! Chess with its rich lesson on time management, decision making under stress, trading of pieces to your advantage, setting trap as well as well as avoiding trap, minimize losses, maximize limited resources (and like what you mentioned, competitor analysis too) is a good tool for future businessmen and GM.

Competitor Analysis (CA) is essential for business and chess.
From my experience, CA has been taught to business student, indirectly, via various methods/ studies. SWOT Analysis, Analysis of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War and even on the nasty Machiavelli’s works. OK, we basically have an agreement that CA is essential in both business and chess but I think we have a different view on the ‘weightage’ of CA (especially in chess)

In June 3rd, 2011 you posted an article with heading “CA is 60% of the game” (In this article you equate CA with ‘right opening line’as well as various postings also relate CA with opening preparation.)

In my opinion, CA should be more than just analysis on the opening line. It should also cover type of position (complex/simple), type of play (aggressive/gambit/positional), type of endgame (knight/rook/Queen/bishop etc) that competitor like/dislike). In good old days they even analysis the smoking behavior of opponent!

Since you mentioned that CA is 60% of the game, it just put other aspect of the game, the technical know-how of the game at mere 40% the most.

Well, in my opinion. CA is only 10% of the game. Technical is 80% and maybe10%, others (luck, good night sleep, state of opponents etc). Consider below 2 extreme examples.

100% CA vs 0% Technical knowledge.
Armed with all info about our competitors opening but zero technical knowledge of our own, we cannot win the game. We all know that normally to beat a decent, competitive player we need to beat our opponent 3 times. First, in the opening, second in the middlegame and third in the endgame. Most likely in this hypothesis those arms with CA will only ‘win’ in the opening but not the game.

0% CA vs 100% technical knowledge…aka Rybka4.
Say we played against someone/something that know nothing about us but possessed 100% technical skills (e.g Rybka) while we know all that we need to know about our opponent yet we possessed a low technical skill, guess who will win?

In simple word, technical skill will beat CA anytime, any day hence the importance of technical should be higher than CA.

Code of Conduct
Not really agree that we have Code of Conduct to ‘govern’ our chess activities. ‘So that rogue associations, organizers etc etc is given proper guidelines to code of conduct’ so you mentioned. The idea is no doubt noble, utopian even, but I personally feel that having Code of Conduct will just complicate matters. It will create red tape and confusion. Ownership (who owned this Code of Conduct book?), how to review it (yearly basis, committee, proposals ?), the definition ?, coverage? Dealing with grey areas/ dispute? etc. I think having one FIDE Handbook as a guideline is quite sufficient.

I do not think Code of Conduct is what we need. I think what we need is for everybody to plays their part and deliver what they promise (“My word is my bond”). Player who agreed to play really come up to play, organizer who agreed to organize chess tournament did not cancel the tournament last minute and office bearer who promised to issue letter or return call, really do so….I think this is what we need.

As a banker I worked in highly regulated environment. Bank Negara Guidelines, Securities Commission Guidelines, bank’s endless manuals, policies and Standard Procedures, several Malaysia’s Acts that we need to know, a few international Regulations that Malaysia has signed that we need to comply..and yes, Code of Ethics too. In banking sector we need all these since we are dealing with other people money and the action or inaction could affect economy/country but for chess, I do not want this in my beloved chess kingdom. I would rather have it less regulated. I want to enjoy chess and not legalese chess.

In General
Unlike this posting (which to me, is quite serious), below posting is generally my a tongue in cheek posting that should be read casually and if at the end the posting, it elicit a smile on the face of the reader, I am happy. If reader puts comment for immortality feedback, I am very happy and of course if reader shows the appreciation of the article by clicking on the colourful nuffnang advertisement, I will be very, very happy. :)

Anyway, thanks again Raymond for your feedback and additional input on my posting.

IF CHESS IS BUSINESS...

2011-06-18T08:46:00.000-07:00

Introduction
Chess has long been associated with business. Most of the corporation used chess pieces on the company ads to indicate strategic thinking, long term planning, good move etc. Kasparov has also on many occasion relate chess with business e.g. study your opponents, never relax at the top etc. Mark Dvoretsky on his latest posting at www.chesscafe.com also advise readers to treat every exchange of pieces as business transaction (try getting most profit out of it).

Those above makes me think…if chess is equal to business then…

The Equation
Blitz chess is derivative trading
Fast, lots of actions and just not for beginner.

Classical chess is stock/share trading
Every player is into this and every player/punter think they are better than what their performance indicator is.

Postal chess is bond trading.
Well, some bond takes 30 years to mature…yawn!

2 steps checkmate is winning lottery
You are damn lucky and odd is heavily against you

Setting up 4 steps checkmate is setting up a Ponzi scheme
You are taking risk on the stupidity of your opponent for your own quick gains.

Getting a GM title is getting listed on main board, KLSE.
Required hardwork and dedication. Once achieved will be very visible and will open doors to lots of opportunity.

MCF is SC (Securities Commission)
Supervising , monitoring and got lots of power.

Discovered a theoretical novelty is discovered oils..
Very valuable.

Chessbase is Bloomberg
Oracle. Place to go to seek information/ knowledge.

Dato Tan Chin Nam is Warren Buffett
Rich, powerful, lots of connections and who people always see when needs help.

Yeoh Li Tian is Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook founder)
Very young, very successful and lots of promises.

MasHafizulhelmi is Robert Kuok
Top of the game. Number one in the list

Hmm, if Mas is number one then me, ranked number 56 in Malaysia is equal to….damn! Malaysia Business/ Forbes listed only of top 40 richest Malaysian. I always miss the cut. Anyway, ranked number 56 should still put me of having estimated assets of about RM100 million…how nice!

If only chess is business...

MY HALF YEARLY REVIEW

2011-06-15T20:44:00.000-07:00

December last year i posted an article about my 2011 chess resolutions. Now we are at the middle of the year, let’s do a brutally honest half yearly review on my resolution (KPI !?) and my performance so far....

To Study Endgame
Out of 10 full marks, i gave myself 2. Books ready, board ready, coffee ready but then i could study just for about 10 minutes before distraction came (or my own lack of focus...maybe i should used the word ‘other commitment’ to replace ‘lack of focus’ :) Correct wording is ofcourse very important when doing KPI review.

Entered 2 FIDE rated tournament
Gave myself 7.5! Entered National Closed and currently entering the Nf6 tournament. Going to achieve this!

Pushed my FIDE rating to 2050
Gave myself 2. Over the last 6 months I gained 1 point. 6 months...one point. At this rate it is going to take me 19 years to have a rating of 2050. Or about 350 years to be a 2700 player!

Entered 10 local tournaments and finished better than my seeding.
4 points for me. Entered about 2 or 3 tournament and all, finished better than my seeding. Plan to enter more tournaments after Hari Raya.

To buy original Rybka 4
Zero. Not going to happen. Why fork up few hundred bucks to buy a second best product when you can get the best product for free?

52 postings
Perfect 10. In fact this posting is my 53rd postings for this year.

All in all. An average achievement. Something like...not going to be sack but not going to get promotion either. Stood at the middle of the bell curve.

AGAIN, SAME OLD STORY...

2011-06-11T23:57:00.000-07:00

Same old story for me in this Nf6 tournament...

Again, I am the schedule changer. Change my game in which I was supposed to play yesterday to today. Sorry guys.

Again, I face ex-NM.

Again, I lost

Below is the game. The short game.

The Game
W:NM Kamal Ariffin
B:Ilham

If Kamal Ariffin is Mohamad Ali the boxer, did not blame him if he told me outright in front of my face "I'm so fast that last night I turned off the light switch in my hotel room and was in bed before the room was dark." Mohamad Ali he is not (lucky me!) so Kamal Arifin just say he got lucky.

My Excuses
1. Sleep late last night, celebrating Terengganu wins against arch rival Kelantan in FA Cup. How do you know about this, Najib? :)
2. I make a wrong decision choosing chess some 25 years ago.

Well, actually there should be no excuses. Kamal played very well (95% of his move is what chess programme would play) and as he shows after the game, he knew Slav (main line, Meran and some offbeat wild lines) very well.

Others
Farouqi, who maybe sense that i am the 'sayur' of the tournament (or maybe being a Kelantanese simply want to beat anything Terengganu today), quickly asked me whether i am in for a game with him in the afternoon. Sorry, Aqie, not today...your turn to beat me will come but just not today...

Both Fairin and Saprin bring their kids to DATCC today. Maybe to inspect and sight seeing a place in which they will become King and Queen in few years time.

Sumant (arrived in sleek green kawasaki bike wearing full face helmet!), Datuk Tan, Kamaluddin, Encik Mat Zaki and few others are also here in DATCC this morning.

THE MAGICAL MALAYSIA OPEN

2011-06-09T15:21:00.000-07:00

Magical Place
There are some places or acts in this world that possessed that magical chess power that somehow, once entered, once done, could improve chess power tremendously within short span of time. Could boost our rating by perhaps 50, 100 or beyond within a year... no kidding!

In USA, that place used to be Jack Colin’s apartment. (He died in 2001) His students are among others William Lombardy, Donald Byrne and young Robert Fischer. You could not get any better than having Fischer as your student! It was once said that once you stepped into his apartment and getting out few days later, you should be stronger by 100 points.

In Russia, ofcourse it Mark Dvoretsky’s apartment. Check in, check out, stronger by at least 200 points. From Wikipedia

“For personal reasons he opted not to remain an active player and instead followed his urge to become a chess trainer. This was something he had tried out and enjoyed while studying at Moscow University and he quickly gained a reputation for transforming serious, hard-working 2200 (Elo) players into grandmasters. Similarly, it was said that established grandmasters could become champions under his tutelage and his student register began to read like a 'who's who' of chess greats. Kasparov, Anand, Topalov, Bareev, Lautier and Van Wely were just a few of the players who benefited from his coaching. Four of his students went on to become Junior World Champions.”

In Malaysia, closest place that could magically improved your rating within short time is ...no, reading blog could not improve your chess and no, no apartment, to the best of my knowledge, that possessed that power. (OK, in Malaysia maybe it is not apartment but mansion since i think, Malaysian chess players are mostly rich millionaire that could spend million for chess, few million here, few million there, but again...’could’). My apology if i am wrong or if income tax people is after you guys!

That magical place is at Cititel, spent few days in end August and enter Malaysia Open, lift the Malaysian Open trophy and within short time after that, your rating just went skyrocket! But ofcourse you need to legitimately be a champion first to do that.

A simple study of past 7 Malaysia Open champs shows that all champs (with the exception of GM Dao in 2006) have their rating up by quantum leap after lifting Malaysia Open trophy. Ni Hua, Li Chao, Negi etc all benefit tremendously from these. Some already breaking the heavenly 2700 barrier and some are already knocking at that pearly gate. I would love to think this is due to their previous Magical Malaysia Open factor!

So how about you, Ilham? Will you take part in this tournament?
Ok, let see. My date of birth is 8th January 1974. The 8th edition of Malaysia Open, played in 8 month of 2011 and if in entered open section, most likely based from my very ‘humble’ rating i will be seeded number 88 or maybe lower and due to current circumstances, need to give 8 reasons to my boss why i need to take leave and another 8 reasons to my wife why i take leave to enter chess tourney (and did not take leave during our anniversary... she did! :) )....i think i will not join in the fun.

To those who will take part...all the best and have a jolly good time!

NF6 TOURNAMENT AND MY GAME AGAINST YCS

2011-05-28T22:48:00.000-07:00

Few months ago, Syazrin asked me whether I am interested to enter one round robin tournament (10 players, FIDE rated, played over 2 or 3 months duration with average player ratings of 2100). Immediately I said yes. I have never in my life played a round robin tournament (those 3 minutes 5 rounds at Chesscube with entrance fee of 50 cubics doesn’t count) so…yeah, why not!

Then, many things happen. More responsibility at office, merger between EON Bank and Hong Leong Bank as well as classes and exams, I almost feel like withdrawing but since I have agreed earlier (and I know it is difficult to find last minute replacement) I soldiered on. Que sera sera, whatever will be will be…

My game against NM Yeoh Chin Seng
The ‘battle’ begin a few weeks ago, a psychological battle that is, when we (YCS, Najib and me) exchanging few e-mails on adjourning the game to 28th May 2011.

For this game, before the game, I followed Kasparov’s footstep in his match against Karpov. Come 5 minutes late! Though due to different reasons (Kasparov must be on last minute preparation while for me… never mind I keep it to myself) and my similarity with Kasparov’s ends there.

As soon as I entered DATCC, I saw Najib and YCS busy playing blitz in which Najib is controlling the game! Good sign or is it another trick from NM YCS to inflate my confident…

So the game started at about 9.45 am after we had a gentleman agreement that it is ok to on our handphone. Facing YCS, I realised he meant business, wearing that tiger yellow National jersey with 2 bottles (yes, two!) of mineral water ready at his back and I know, I am in for a tough time.

The Game
I opened with 1.e4 and he countered with Nc6 (Tony Miles speciality) 2.d4 d5. I think for quite sometimes here . Should I played a space grabbing 3.e5? which I believed my opponent has prepared beforehand and in which I know nothing about, or should I go for my favourite Blackmar Diemer Gambit by transposition 3.Be3 de4 4.Nc3 Nf6 5. f3 !?

I chose the third option. Albin Counter Gambit reverse. If its good with black it should be better with white or so I thought. I sacrifice a pawn for initiative but later realised the subtle different of black’s c pawn at c7 instead of c5 make a lot of different. Here is the continuation 3.ed5 Qd5 4. Nc3 ?! Qd4 5.Be3 Qd1 6.Rd1 Bd7. Black’s hang on to that extra pawn till the end of game.

Below is the game in full.

The Great Defender.
Somehow during the game and seeing how YCS manoeuvre back and forth on the last rank a’la Petrosian, on my mind I keep on hearing The Platter’s The Great Pretender…but ofcourse I hear it as defender and not pretender.

Oh-oh, yes I'm the great defender
defending my one pawn up
My need is such I defend too much...

Thanks
Many thanks for Najib and YCS for willingness to come on Saturday morning to make this game possible.

UNUSUAL VOLUME

2011-05-24T06:32:00.000-07:00

Volume for my humble blog is about 30 visitors per day or if there is a new posting, maybe 70, 80 with max is 140...until few days ago.

2 months ago i wrote an article about Dominique Strauss Kahn (DSK) and how he love to play chess (pronounce this word carefully please!), how he is France's President material etc and suddenly that hotel incident (and we know what happen to him afterwards). Somehow there is this website under name Marginal Revolution linked its website with my article on DSK.

Result? 3000 plus visitors visited my blog on 21st May.

Never thought more than three thousand visitors visited my blog in a day. If chess odyssey is a listed company at BSKL, for sure i will be queried by Bursa or SC for 'unusual market activities'. :)

Hmm, maybe, just maybe, i should write an article abourt Obama...

DREAM COMBINATION...

2011-05-13T17:25:00.000-07:00

I have been playing chess for at least 25 years...way back when apple is still just a fruit (and nobody line up overnight to get one), when you can still smoke, make short draws (and not feel guilty about it), let your hand phone ringing (should you have one) when playing chess...that long.

I can even claimed that i started playing chess years before Magnus Carlsen born...so i know for sure that i had once, in time line, maybe around early 90's, play chess better than him! (Shut up!...Yeah, you laugh...i know)

Along this wonderful journey i have played many combinations (as well as and on most of the times, at the receiving ends of the combinations), from 2 steps checkmate to 4 steps checkmate, from B h7/h2 to smothered mate. But still, Caissa has never blessed me with opportunity to play this chess combinations...my dream combinations

From below position, white to play and win.

Let's evaluate this position, all check's point is guarded by black at least once while black is threatening Qe4 followed by checkmate, yet there is hidden win somewhere...

Solutions

1. R c8 Rxc8
2. Q a7 Kxa7

3. bxc8 = N winning!

Brilliant! for the first two moves, white ‘sacrifices’, or maybe ‘invest’ his only pieces yet in one move, underpromotion no less, white sapu all black pieces and emerge a piece up! ...and on his way to bring both player's scoresheets to the arbiter.

Name of this combination? I don’t know the name of this combination. Ah who cares! A rose by any other names would still smells as sweet- Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)

Still remember how in early 90's i showed this position to my fellow Terengganu chess player...suddenly and uninvited, NM Peter Long came and shows the solution. :)

38th SELANGOR OPEN...AS I SEE IT

2011-05-03T09:42:00.000-07:00

38th Selangor Open Chess Championship...at a glance...

Champion... Nicholas Chan
1st seeded... Nicholas Chan
Last year champ... Nicholas Chan
Last 2 years champ... Nicholas Chan

Yawn!

Cannot blame if we to compare his achievement in Selangor Open is almost like Nadal at Monaco Open or Lee Chong Wei at Malaysian Open...total dominance. But is it all a walk in the park for Nicholas Chan?

Afraid not, unlike last year in which he left his opponent eating dust a full one lap behind, this year trophy is won in photo finish manner. Going into the last round, Jimmy Liew is leading the tournament and needed only a draw to become Selangor Open champion again for...god knows how many times (hard to keep track since Jimmy has been collecting Sel Open title since last century) but poor Jimmy stumble at the finishing line and zoom!..Nicholas and Udani are all smile when they together passed Jimmy to cross the finishing line together gether.

So who is first? Who is the champ? Too close to call...
Point ? Equal!
Personal Encounter ? Equal!
Tie Break 1 ? Nico!
Tie Break 2? Nico!
Tie break 3? Nico!

So ladies and gentlemen, winner of 38th Selangor Open with unanimous decision...NICHOLAS “THE SUPERSONIC” CHANNNNNNNNNNN.......

Trivias
1. Statistic.81 players from 4 countries took part. White won 145 times, black won 144 times and 62 games draw.
2. Best upset. Mat Zaki Yeop won against Kamaluddin (379 elo points difference)
3. Best escape.LZR in game, IM Srinath vs LZR. In a position in which i thought Rybka is about to announce white checkmate black in x moves. LZR put up a very resourceful defence to finally win the game.
4. Miscalculation. In round 9, Jax Tham...a pawn up, offered Irman a draw in which Irman immediately accept. Jax (6 points) finished at unlucky number 13, Irman (6 points) finished at number 6.
5. Poster boy for chess spirit. Syazrin playing chess..with fully inai fingers!
6. Resurgence of ‘relatively 'young’ Terengganu players. Rahim Ramli, Ruzenan and Fairul Yusof . Very realistic chances for all of them to finish top 10 but at the end, only Fairul Yusof manage to finish top ten.
7. Heart broken. Rahim needed only half a point from his last two games to finish top ten. He lost both his last 2 games...
8. Wander?. All this noise, all this excitement, all this fun...Where in the world is Abdullah Che Hassan?
9. Comeback (and disappeared again) kid. Mohan Raj
10. Reasons to play chess. One player told me, when playing his last round game, suddenly he remembered his old analysis of the opening...another player told me, he took part in this tournament to forget about all his problems...Well, remind me of lyric in The Eagle’s Hotel California

“Some dance to remember, some dance to forget...”

AN EVENING IN RESTORAN WARISAN

2011-04-24T09:56:00.000-07:00

I arrived at Dataran Merdeka today at about 5pm, park my car in front of KL Children library to (hopefully) witness the fifth round of Sea Games Selection. On the way to Restoran Warisan, I walk past an old building between KL Library and Restoran Warisan. Ah, this building sure looks familiar, this is where it all begin to me...25 years ago, i took part in my very first chess tournament here (Malay Open). Still remember how i watched in awe at then chess prodigies (Rosazman Rosley, Yus Jefrey and Azita Man making their chess moves....Wonder where are they now?).... Guess that is story for another day.

So I finally arrived at the tournament hall... No luck, the last game has ended few minutes ago. So i spent few minutes, together with Greg, inspecting the building. It is an old Colonial building with a wood flooring, multiple halls, Moorish themes everywhere...”This building got soul. I could feel it... I love this place” Greg said. Well for me... wandering through that empty halls, i half expected to see Gurkha soldier with bayonet rifle to emerge and asked us not to venture too far away...lucky none appear.

Above is the building of Restoran Warisan taken from Kementerian Penerangan website. I was thinking of capturing the image from my handphone's camera but since the megapixel of my hp is two, or is it one? and will not do justice for this work of art building, i abandon the plan.

So...after 2 plates of Mihun (yes, there is refreshment served here for chess players and i assumed, for a chess blogger too :)), tea without milk (thanks Greg), we (Greg, Haslinda, Zuraihah Wazir and me) sat down at the corridor and exchanging old chess stories...Agus Salim, Fikrul, some love stories among chess players in 90s etc...reminiscence of good old days

SEA GAMES SELECTION
Halfway, Jimmy and Mas are leading the tournament. Upset is Mok lost to Fong Yit San and among interesting position is Kamal Ariffin vs Jimmy Liew. In a rook ending Kamal Ariffin is two pawns up (f and h) but Jimmy defends correctly to secure the draw. (Jimmy informed the actual position is a and c pawns. See comments below)

So far from what i heard, Jimmy is the player with the most fighting spirit (thanks that he do not have any brother or student taking part). My personal feeling is 4 IMs are going to make it but i do hope that they do not become ‘Russian in 60s’. Draw with each other and all out against the rest.

So how tough is this tournament? Mas sum it up by saying “...tournament in which anybody can beat anybody”

IS ARBITER DECISION CORRECT? PART 3

2011-04-16T19:09:00.000-07:00

Yesterday afternoon, on my way to gym (in which is my first session with my personal trainer, vomit half way but continue and still manage to finish the torturous drilling...Yes!) I was informed about a recent game incident at Unisza Open between Nabila and Ahmad Rizal Othman.

What happened?
I did not witness what really happen. This is my understanding of what happen. Ahmad Rizal Othman checkmated (Take note. checkmated, not about to checkmate) Nabila but he has overstepped his time limit. Arbiter award the game to Nabila because Rizal has overstepped the time limit.

OK, I will do a little research on this since this is quite interesting. Both side got valid points.

The Research
Lets begin the research by consulting FIDE Law of Chess.

Article 5: The completion of the game

5.1 a.The game is won by the player who has checkmated his opponent’s king. This immediately ends the game, provided that the move producing the checkmate position was a legal move.

b.The game is won by the player whose opponent declares he resigns. This immediately ends the game.

Meaning, the game is complete (over) when player has checkmated his opponent king or one player has resigned, silent on overstep the time limit.

Of course we need to consult same clause at article 6 (Clock) as well to get clearer picture.

6.9 Except where one of the Articles: 5.1.a, 5.1.b, 5.2.a, 5.2.b, 5.2.c applies, if a player does not complete the prescribed number of moves in the allotted time, the game is lost by the player. However, the game is drawn, if the position is such that the opponent cannot checkmate the player’s king by any possible series of legal moves.

My understanding of this article is if player did not checkmate his opponent, or opponent did not resign or both player did not agree to a draw only then the game will be decide by the clock.

The Verdict
Based on above, i think arbiter has make a mistake. Ahmad Rizal should be declared as a winner of that game and not Nabila.

Similar Posting
Few years ago Hairulov posted a similar article http://www.hairulovchessmaniac.com/2007/12/checkmate-or-lost-on-time.html

Based from his game against Julian Navaratnam, Hairul is one move from checkmating his opponent, overstepped his time limit but still arbiter award the point to Hairulov even though he practically has 'lost' on time. (Though i have different view on Hairul's case -he about to checkmate, not yet checkmated so basically i think Julian should be the winner when hairul overstepped...sorry Rul :) )

"Checkmate ends the game , so subsequent flag claim is irrelevant" Chee Meng...(Jimmy Liew?)

ONE NIGHT IN BANGKOK

2011-04-06T12:27:00.000-07:00

The 80s
I love 80s. The movies (ET, Empire Strikes Back, The Untouchables, Poltergeist etc), the TV shows (Mac Gyver, V, A Team, Airwolf, Knight Rider etc) and so this night i naturally immersed myself with 80s songs, Belinda Carlisle, Peabo Bryson, WHAM, Duran Duran, Madonna etc. Then suddenly i remembered about this funny song titled 'One Night in Bangkok' by Murray Head.

I typed the titled, clicked to play it and was pleasantly surprise when i heard and saw the video clips...it just full of chess!

Wow! Since i first and last time heard this song was light years ago before i know how to play chess, never thought there exist in this world a song in which in lyric as well as in the video clip...contain chess theme, and not just that, this song also topped the charts in many countries!

The Song

The Lyric
[THE AMERICAN]
Bangkok, Oriental setting
And the city don't know that the city is getting
The creme de la creme of the chess world in a
Show with everything but Yul Brynner

Time flies -- doesn't seem a minute
Since the Tirolean spa had the chess boys in it
All change -- don't you know that when you
Play at this level there's no ordinary venue

It's Iceland -- or the Philippines -- or Hastings -- or --
or this place!

[COMPANY]
One night in Bangkok and the world's your oyster
The bars are temples but the pearls ain't free
You'll find a god in every golden cloister
And if you're lucky then the god's a she
I can feel an angel sliding up to me

[THE AMERICAN]
One town's very like another
When your head's down over your pieces, brother

[COMPANY]
It's a drag, it's a bore, it's really such a pity
To be looking at the board, not looking at the city

[THE AMERICAN]
Whaddya mean? Ya seen one crowded, polluted, stinking town --

[COMPANY]
Tea, girls, warm, sweet
Some are set up in the Somerset Maugham suite

[THE AMERICAN]
Get Thai'd! You're talking to a tourist
Whose every move's among the purest
I get my kicks above the waistline, sunshine

[COMPANY]
One night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble
Not much between despair and ecstasy
One night in Bangkok and the tough guys tumble
Can't be too careful with your company
I can feel the devil walking next to me

[THE AMERICAN]
Siam's gonna be the witness
To the ultimate test of cerebral fitness
This grips me more than would a
Muddy old river or reclining Buddha

And thank God I'm only watching the game -- controlling it --

I don't see you guys rating
The kind of mate I'm contemplating
I'd let you watch, I would invite you
But the queens we use would not excite you

So you better go back to your bars, your temples, your massage
parlours --

[COMPANY]
One night in Bangkok and the world's your oyster
The bars are temples but the pearls ain't free
You'll find a god in every golden cloister
A little flesh, a little history
I can feel an angel sliding up to me

One night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble
Not much between despair and ecstasy
One night in Bangkok and the tough guys tumble
Can't be too careful with your company
I can feel the devil walking next to me

The Best Part
I especially likes the lyric "One town's very like another When your head's down over your pieces, brother"

Remind me about my past posting of National Closed "... After all once the game started, you no longer care about your surrounding"

4 Steps Checkmate
Watch the video clips from 2.22 till 2.37, white player used the primitive 4 steps checkmate...and black player fell to it!... :)

After that scene, singer sang "Siam's gonna be the witness to the ultimate test of cerebral fitness"

Well, you don't used 4 steps checkmate as a " ultimate test of cerebral fitness" :)

The Puzzle
Frankly, even after hearing this song for so many times tonight, still did not really understand it...Why chess in Bangkok? Why "The creme de la creme of the chess world in a
Show with everything but Yul Brynner"? I just don't get it...(though i suspect this song is just laden with double meanings word). I don't know...

Ahh but I guess work of art, like this song, like classic painting, like Ferrari is meant to be enjoyed...not meant to be understand.

Laaeo phohp gan mai (Thai words for See You Later)

ROSLINA VS HAQ...THE GAME

2011-04-04T07:08:00.000-07:00

Below game was e-mailed to me by Mohd Arshad

W:Roslina Marmono
B:Abdul Haq
Malay Masters...long, long time ago.

Well, the ending of the game and perhaps the beginning of a relationship. :)

Haq lost the game but won the queen! Hmm...no wonder they called this opening Queen's Gambit!

May both players lived happily ever after.

A BIZARRE DRAW

2011-04-01T21:08:00.000-07:00

This short game is from recently concluded National Closed 2011. A bizarre draw because we need to repeat the position nine (or is it ten?) times. This is due to tournament regulation that disallow draw below 20 moves.

The game followed a well known Sax-Seirawan 1988 game but of course their game ended on move 12.

Below is the game.
W: ILHAM
B : ONG THIAN LOON

Well, not really a game that we proud of.

Half a point for a draw.

Zero point for lack of fighting spirit or perhaps I should use the word of the month...ducking.

DOMINIQUE STRAUSS-KAHN

2011-03-30T09:39:00.000-07:00

Just read this article about Strauss-Kahn from March 2011 Bloomberg Markets magazine.

Strauss-Kahn?
61 years old, France Finance Minister (1997-1999) and currently International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director. He shone brightly during the gloom 2008 economic crisis and now busy handling PIGS crisis (Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain).

Strauss Kahn is now a very popular name in France and according to the article if the France Election were held today, he will easily beat current President Nicolas Sarkozy.

His interests, other than economic and politics, is chess! Whenever he got bored on the plane, he would say "OK. This is boring. Let's play a little chess'-without any chessboard."...blindfold chess!

On most evenings, Strauss Kahn hones his skills by playing anonymously on his computer with opponents around the world. "On the internet, you can find yourself up against a Korean or a guy from Greenland," he says "It's not just a way of relaxing: It's also a way of measuring my stress levels. When i am tired, i'm no good."

Very true, Mr President!

Chess tip
My chess tips to the future President of France?
Always play French Defense!

MR LIM CHONG, THE ONE AND ONLY.

2011-03-25T20:09:00.000-07:00

Friday 26 November 2010.
In US and Canada, Black Friday shopping season begin...

In Tennesse, a package containing radio active material has been reported lost...

In London, Black Friday for Malaysian Chess. We, chess citizen of Malaysian chess, lost our one and only Lim Chong.

Lim Chong
Lim Chong needs no introduction (though in his life, he never fails to introduce to us the beauty of chess). We all know him and in a time before Wikipedia, Al Jazeera, Chessresult.com, Gilachess and Hairulov, Lim Chong is all above combined. If Lim Chong did not write it, it did not happen. Simple.

We chess players treasured what he write (especially if our name or picture, or even better our game!, is mentioned on his article!), we physically (and literally!) cut and paste his article, entered tournament he mentioned and improve our game by playing/ studying via chess games he published. And not only that, to me, via his writings, I learned English language. Whenever I discovered new words in his article, I will look for the meaning in dictionary and write it down on my little '555' notebook (paper notebook, not battery powered notebook) of my new English word.

I remember how in late 80s and early 90s. I was still schooling at Dungun Terengganu...first thing to do on Saturday morning is to look for Malay Mail (Lim Chong’s column appeared on Friday, afternoon but Terengganu will normally received it a day after). It is once a week compulsory date with Lim Chong. Forget about breakfast...and on Saturday morning we will normally have the best breakfast in the form of Nasi Dagang, still a date with Lim Chong is what I valued more!

For someone who played such a central role in Malaysian chess (equivalent to the e4, d4 square), Lim Chong as a person always quiet and humble and chose to be a quiet a2 pawn but we chess player know without the very quiet a2 pawn, the equilibrium of the position collapse! And furthermore there is no need for Lim Chong to do that (to be very vocal, highlighting his contributions, plans, for chess from the central e4 or d4 square) because in chess kingdom and among us, he actually stood at e1 square!

Lim Chong is now no longer with us (though his writings shall forever be part of Malaysian chess history) We cannot say how thankful we are to him but the least we can do to pay our respect to the King of local chess columnist is perhaps by entering Lim Chong Memorial Chess Tournament tomorrow.

See you there!

PLAY CHESS IN PARADISE

2011-03-23T15:33:00.000-07:00

Dear reader,

If you are, like me, hopelessly addicted to above

...and love to spend few days here, paradise on earth.

...and perhaps, with luck and skills, winning some RM.

Then, quick! Register your name to take part in Kejohanan Catur Terbuka Parlimen Dungun. Details of this tournament
http://caturterengganu.blogspot.com/
http://trgchess.blogspot.com
Sorry, I am still don't know how to make a fancy link like here, here, here.

Some info of this tournament
1. First prize RM800 Good and even better is second prize is RM600 and 10th prize is RM100. Unlike some tournaments that ‘con’ player with the prize structure of 1st RM1,000 2nd RM300
2. Entrance Fee RM30 Standard
3. Time Control 30 minutes with 15 seconds increment. Very good. I love increment.
4. Limited to 100 entrants. Better register now!
5. Only Malaysian and Singaporean citizen can enter. Strange !? Why don’t open to all chess citizen of planet earth (minus emotionless chess citizen that run on battery ofcourse) ? This ruling mean Indonesian, Philippine , Uzbekistan etc are not eligible to play. Strange.
6.Date: 6th and 7th May 2011. Ok, two days event with one day fall on the weekend. For west coast player.

Picture Credit
http://www.chessmaniac.com
http://blog.lillypulitzer.com
http://mynewshub.my

NC2011...IN A NUTSHELL

2011-03-22T15:47:00.000-07:00

Noise and Crowd Control
I think before every round, Najib informed players and parent not to make noise and emptied the hall after the game (though later this has been relaxed to ok to watch the game but be quiet) but funny thing is i encountered below 2 scenarios.

The first one is one unsatisfied player because according to him, arbiter did not do their best to control the noise.

The second one is one unsatisfied spectator because according to him, arbiter is too strict.

Well, you cannot please everybody!

To me, arbiters in this tournament did an excellent job balancing between strict and controlled ‘openness’. It is never easy to control kids in the candy shops and of course we all are kids in candy shop when surrounded by all thing chess.

Venue
On the last day, Najib is all apologetic about the venue and he hoped that future National Closed could be conducted at better place. This inferior feeling must be felt no doubt because few days prior to NC, NAG was conducted at ‘world class hall’ at UTP and now NC is conducted at ‘run down’ place, as what one blogger called it. I totally disagreed at such chose of degrading word there.

To me the venue is ok. What’s wrong with DATCC that is spacious, fully air condition, near to many eating places, highly accessible, got its own toilet etc ? After all once the game started, you no longer care about your surrounding.

But anyway, should you want to play chess in paradise...wait for my next posting, i will tell you where and when!

Players (Top 5)
Seeded
1.IM Jimmy Liew
2.Edward Lee
3.Tan Khai Boon
4.Loo Swee Leong
5.Yeap Eng Chiam

Finisher
1.Lim Zhuo Ren
2.Sumant Subramaniam
3.IM Jimmy Liew
4.Fong Yit Ho
5.Yeap Eng Chiam

ELO Gainers
1.Eu Wen 68
2.Lim Zhuo Ren 48
3.Tan Jung Feng 47
4.Elgin Lee 38
5.Teh De Juan 38

ELO Losers
1.Johan Jamil -64
2.Abdul Aziz Abdul Shukor -40
3.Eddy Fong -37
4.Tan Khai Boon -29
5.Khair Wahidudin -29
6.Ong Thian Loon -29
7. Lim Kian Hwa -29

Surprise!
There is a cash prize for top 3 winners!

Best Upset
Eu Wen (FIDE 1774) drew with Jimmy (FIDE 2302). Rating difference? 528!

Best Finding
Eu Wen, draw with Jimmy, beat Eddy Fong, Rizal Ahmad Kamal and Lim Kian Hwa. From what i heard, he is still under 12 (or is it under 10?) schooling overseas (at China or India if i am not mistaken, not sure) and got his own chess teacher to teach him chess.

Blitz event
People seems surprised that Jimmy won this event ahead of 2Ms (Mas and Mok, not Mahathir-Musa of 80s). To me no surprise here. I have watch how well Jimmy played bullet chess at chesscube and if you can drive Ferrari well, Kancil should not be a problem!

To improve
I just wished if there is a corner for chess player to analyzed the game but then again i understand on the space constraint.

FINALLY...NM LIM ZHUO REN!

2011-03-20T11:36:00.000-07:00

Being associated with ten normally is a good thing in life. In football, the most dangerous striker will normally wearing shirt number 10. In gymnastic, we got this phrase ‘perfect ten’ for the perfect performance just like what Nadia Commenici did in 1976 Olympic. Ofcourse, Bo Derek is also being called perfect ten but that is different story, a totally different story.

A story today is Lim Zhuo Ren (His name carried 10 characters) and seeded number 10, managed to beat 10 opponents (9 are his fellow competitors plus one is his nervous self, all he beat or tame convincingly) to be crown as a new chess champion of Malaysia, our new NM!

In arguably the strongest Malaysia National Closed for this new millineum with 1 IM, 3 NMs, 24 above Fide 2000 and 91 Fide rated players, LZR just run faster, fight stronger and defends tougher compare with the rest. He started with perfect 7 wins and this is when he face his two strictest examiners (the youngest master, Yeoh Li Tian, and the oldest master, IM Jimmy Liew), he passed the exam by safely drew both games.

When at the other part of the world, UN coalition bombing Libya with their precise and smart bomb. Here is Malaysia, LZR just bombing his opponents to pieces with his precise and smart chess move.

However, no doubt, the memory of National Closed 2009 (in which he lead the tournament but stumbled at the finishing line) keep haunting him in this year National Closed edition. According to LZR, it nearly killed his chess spirit but just like Phoenix, he rise from that experience and come back stronger.

Lim Zhuo Ren always used the initial of his name (LZR) when he shout at the shoutbox. LZR rhyme with LaZaRus. Do you know what Lazarus Syndrome/Phenomenon is? It is actually a name given to a medical miracle when heart patient suddenly come to life after almost certain death after a failed resuscitation. Spot on!

Statistically wise, it is easier to be CEO of listed company (got about 900 members) compared to be a National Master (less than 30 members, boy! NM is really one hell of exclusive club!) and to join this exclusive club at the tender age of 19 (again, 1 + 9= ten!) is absolutely amazing!.

For out of this world achievement and more, Chess Odyssey (as an out of this world blog...read: spacemanlah! :)) salute you, National Master Lim Zhuo Ren.

NOTES FROM NATIONAL CLOSED-DAY 3

2011-03-18T12:46:00.000-07:00

Arrived at the hall at exactly 9am. Najib is currently briefing all players which i guess about the usual stuff, off the hand phone, keep quiet, toilet...hmm about toilet today Najib suggested that maybe toilet inside the hall could be reserved for ladies and kids and guys could use the outside toilets. S. Balendran informed that toilets outside do not have a running water. Najib, being Najib, flashed that megawatt smile and said “I reserved my comments” that brought laughter to the floor!

Round 5
On top two board, Loo Swee Leong and LZR continued their winning streaks by beating Li Tian and Eng Chiam respectively.

Board 3 NM Edward Lee beat IM Jimmy Liew in an interesting French game.

On my game, got into terribly awful position against Dollah, later Dollah blundered and i managed to equal the game, offered him a draw which he refused. Later he blundered in a tricky position (see below)

1. ..... Ra1?
2. Re6 winning a bishop. He resigned.

But what is the outcome should he played the correct move 1. ...e3!...I think with the best play it should still be a draw though black is the who got the advantage. Below is what my Fritz suggest as a best play for both side
1....e3
2.Ke1 Bd5
3.Rh6 Ra7
4.Rh4 Kg5
5.Ra4 Rh7
6.Bf3 Bb3
7.Rb4 with equal position.

Round 6
The big news is ofcourse when LZR beat LSL to solely lead the field by one point gap. Now it is interesting to see whether LZR will continued his winning streak or will he collapse during the last few rounds ala Nat Closed 2009? Only LZR can answer this question.

The small news is i drew with crown prince of chess. :)

Cameo appearance
NM Kamal Ariffin, IM Giam, IM Situru, Ian Udani, Ismail Ahmad, Hairulov etc.

Trivia.
Q:Named undefeated player(s) in the Open section?
A:LZR (6 wins), Edward Lee (4 wins, 2 draws) and Khair (1 win and 5 (!) draws)

NOTES FROM NATIONAL CLOSED-DAY 2

2011-03-17T07:19:00.000-07:00

Tournament proper began at 9.25am when Najib made several announcements requesting player who has finished their game to leave the hall, shut off the handphone etc, well you know, the usual drill.

Najib also took the opportunity to advise those lepak outside of the hall to be careful since the car driven at the car park sometimes could qualify them for FI race!

Oh by the way need to mentioned there is this rule that photo can be taken during the first five minutes after the round begin...love this five minutes photo ...only time when i feel as if i am on the red carpet!

Round 3
Interesting to see Jimmy played Pirc Defence against Fong Sit Yan’s 1.e4. Obviously concerned over improvement that Sit Yan;s might prepared (They played against each other on the last round of Selangor Open last year). Jimmy won.

Nabila and Najiha drew their game early (but well after move 20), probably decision reach over breakfast at home.

Upset. Tan Ken Wei beat Tan Khai Boon.

On my game against Li Tian, i am toying of playing Blackmar by open my game with 1.d4, he will replied 1. ...d5 and i will continued with 2. e4 Blackmar! but feel like it is not proper to play coffee shop opening against such world class junior...so i open with a more sober 1.e4

W:ILHAM
B:LI TIAN

1.e4 c6
2.d4 d5
3.Nc3 de4
4.f3

Old habit die hard, itchy hand (gatal tangan), still offering him a Blackmar via transposition of moves

4. ....ef3

He accept if after 5 minutes thought.

5.Nf3 Nf6
6.Bd3 Bg4
7.Be3 e6
8.0-0 Be7
9.Qe1 Bh5
10. Qh4 Bf3
11.Rf3 Nd5
12.Qg3 Ne3
13.Qg7 Rf8

14.Re3 ?

This natural move is a mistake. Better 14.Bh7 Nd5 15.Rf7 Rf7 16. Bg6 Kd7 which Li Tian shows to me after the game and in which my Fritz agreed!

14. ... Bf6
15. Re6 fe6
16. Qb7

16. ... Qd4
17.Kh1 Be5
18.Bh7 Rf6
19.Be4

Maybe 19. Ne4 is better with line such as 19. Ne4 Rh6 20.g3

19. ...Qf2

Now the rest is massacre.

20. Bc6 Nc6
21. Qc6 Kf7
22.Qb7 Kg6
23.Qe4 Qf5
24.Qe2 Rh8
25.h3 Rh3
26. gh3 Qh3
27. Kg1 Bd4

I resigned.Game result 0-1 personal encounters 0-3

Round 4
Selected results.

Top of table clash, Loo Swee Leong beat Crown Prince of Chess, Nabil.

Mark Siew won against a rusty Fariz in a tuly messy game

Abdullah Che Hassan had a quick draw against Nik Farouqi.

Fadzil Nayan drew against Tan Khai Boon.

Khair drew again. He is now scored 3 draws and one win.

Lim Zhuo Ren sacrificed a knight for a mating attack against Masrin who maybe should not castled queenside. Lim Zhuo Ren is now 4 points. All i can say to LZR...do not let memory of 2009 Nat Closed to haunt you!

Ismail Ahmad had a tough time against a stubborn Dr Paul but finally manage to win in the endgame.

Marcus and Rizal won both of their game today, slowly creeping out from disastrous first day result.

I won against Teh Wee Zhun, playing old favourite Albin Counter Gambit when he had difficulty freeing his queenside forces. I am also extra determine to win this game since half an hour before the start of the game i received a surprise call from Encik Rahim Ramli, President of Terengganu Chess Association who wished me luck. Thanks, Encik Rahim!

On and today, several chess players/personalities make cameo appearance today, Irman Ibrahim, Christy Hon, Saprin (together with his kids), Hamid Majid and several others.

Round 5
I will play against Abdullah Che Hassan. Better study the Dragon now...bye!

NOTES FROM NATIONAL CLOSED-DAY 1

2011-03-16T07:47:00.000-07:00

Players Meeting
I arrived at DATCC at about 8.45am. Familiar faces all over the place and at about 9am Najib conducted Players Meeting. Among matters informed/raised:

Waiting time is half an hour.

Toilets inside the hall is only for players use. Parents need to use outside toilets.

Draw is only allowed after 20 moves. Below that moves need to get Arbiter consent.

Phone not allowed.

Due to 5 hours different between rounds, Najib suggested that should any game finished after 2pm, players involved are allowed to start their game at 3pm. Greg suggested all afternoon game to begin at 3pm but Kian Hwa disagreed and suggested to stick to the schedule. Later it is decided that it will stick to original schedule.

Appeals Committee is chosen between players and they are
Ismail Ahmad
Jimmy Liew
Sumant
Rizal Ahmad Kamal
Marcus

Reserve (Haslinda, Dr Paul)

And ofcourse to officially lodge an appeal you need to put up RM200 deposit. No money, no talk.

First Round
Most of the seeded players dutifully defeated their opponents but still, there are upsets here and there. Among the upsets
1. Jimmy Liew drew against Eu Wen
2. Cheah Cheok Fung lost to Nuriman.
3. Eddy Fong lost to Shreyes Subramaniam
4. Marcus lost to Sri Shiva
5. Rizal lost to Muhd Hafiz.

Well, based on above list of upset, i guess i am lucky not in the appeals committee...

For me, I won against Harun Bustaman when my opponent knight’s got trapped at the middle of the board.

Round 2
The exciting one.

Jimmy showed no mercy to Ezmi. Ezmi comments after the game...”just like tsunami...”.

2 exciting games from this round are Hao Looi against Edward Lee. Though Edward is an exchange up, Hao’s king is super active and Edward’s pawns are weak. Somehow Edward managed to stop his opponent counter play to secure his second points.

Another exciting gam is Tan Khai Boon vs Mark Siew. A typical King Indian where Mark’s went for a king side attack and TBK went for queenside pawns rush. Later Mark’s manage to exchange his two rooks for TBK’s queen and with advantage position (in my opinion). But somehow result’s favour TBK.

At about 5pm MasHafizulhelmi, cradling his son, visited the tournament hall together with his wife.

Upsets? Fariz lost to Low Jun Jian, Irfan Haqqim beat Aziz Shukor, Kamaluddin lost to Roshan, Rizal lost to Teh Wee Zhun and Marcus lost to Tee Han Kang.

For me, I won against Shreyes when my two bishops and rook harmoniously create a mating attack against his king.

Round 3 pairing
1. Edward Lee vs Fadzil Nayan
2. Tan Ken Wei vs Tan Khai Boon
3. Loo Swee Leong vs Ismail Ahmad
4. Ilham vs Yeoh Li Tian
5. Lim Zhuo Ren vs Syakir Shazmeer
6. Sumant vs Irfan Haqqim

Well, my record against Li Tian is something like 2 losses :(...any tips?

NABIL, CROWN PRINCE OF CHESS.

2011-03-14T10:18:00.000-07:00

After battling it out over 3 days and 3 nights in Seri Iskandar, with each contenders fought it out over eight games each with alternate colour, Nabil Azman Hisham has today been been proclaimed a winner hence the rightful owner to be the Crown Prince of Malaysian chess.

His road to the title is not easy. For a start he is not the hot favourite to win the title (he is seeded number 3) with his main challengers are NM Timothy Capel, who once a King (National Master) of Malaysian chess, Sumant (King of the Hill), Mark Siew (The most improved youngster) but slowly and surely he overcome all the obstacles to ensure the crown is his by winning a remarkable 6 games and drawing 2.

Nabil born in a truly chess family. All members of the Azman Hisham and Zazaloma’s family not only played chess, they eat, sleep and breath chess! Very good chances if their cat, should they have one, is also able to play a fighting chess. Once, last year if i am not mistaken, they have entered one chess team tournament and fielded all their family member in a team. No import player. Result? First placelah what else...Well, a usual sight in local chess tournament...Azman Hisham’s clan will sapu most of the prizes. :)

I have the opportunity of playing against Nabil two (or is it 3) times. Nabil won all. In all the games I had the advantage white pieces, inviting Nabil for a fist fight in Smith Morra Sicilian. He politely declined the pawn in the opening and impolitely beat me to death in the endgame. Having playing against him and on many occasions, watching him played i could safely said that Nabil is one tough and tricky opponent. On many occasion he will repeat his moves and just when his opponent expect he wants a draw he make another moves avoiding repetition! Upsetting and frustrating his opponent and without doubt gaining precious seconds on the clock!

In last year National Closed (best remembered for last game battle between Farouqi and Tan Khai Boon), Nabil is actually the leader for most part of the tournament. In round 8, he faced Tan Khai Boon and around move 25 TKB got only 3 minutes left but Nabil failed to capitalize on it and lost...and the rest is history.

This year and in a few days time he will again took part in National Closed. Wearing his new and shining crown he will be a scary opponent to face across the board.

Good luck to you Nabil in this coming National Closed

CHESS ODYSSEY NOW ONE YEAR OLD!

2011-03-10T15:17:00.000-08:00

Today Chess Odyssey celebrate its one year old birthday!

How time flies! What actually begin as my plan to get additional income (didn't work..my Nuffnang is now collecting only RM2 ) and answering Jimmy's challenge (he once posted an article asking a new blogger to stop blogging if it just 'cut n paste' and did not write something original about chess...give me idea to write something different from what being commonly being blog at that time), now already one year old!

To mark its first year in the cyberworld, i have done some minor cosmetic changes

Add 5 additional blogs under my blog roll.
Add that earth moon phase gadget...space always amuse me
Change my picture :) Chess and chess blogging sometimes could be nasty and dirty...do not wish to drag my family to it...
Thinking of changing the background but it just doesn't seems right with my blog 'personality' if there is such a thing...imagine having a green Ferrari...

To all readers, thanks for the supports, both on and off the cyberworld.

May God continued to give me strength, time and idea to continue writing.

CHESS AFTER DEATH ? (MAROCZY VS KORCHNOI)

2011-03-08T10:55:00.000-08:00

The Experiment
In 1985 Victor Korchnoi played one chess game with Geza Maroczy that took 7 years to finish.
What unique about this game is Geza Maroczy, Hungarian chess player, died in 1951! Korchnoi played with ghost of Maroczy.
The game is a psychic experiment and was reported by Dr. Wolfgang Eisenbeiss and Dieter Hassler in the April 2006 issue of the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research.
Maroczy moves were written by Robert Rollans, an automatic-writing trance medium who was living in Germany. Rollans was chosen as he did not know how to play chess and was willing to participate without remuneration.
After 47 moves, Maroczy resigned and according to Korchnoi ‘During the opening phase Maróczy showed weakness,’ ‘His play is old-fashioned.'

The Believers
During game, 92 questions have been posed to Maroczy, he managed to answer all. 85 of his answers manage to be verified as correct while other 7 could not be verified.
Maroczy plays is old fashioned. Weak in opening theory but strong in endgame, rook ending. Marozcy’s trademark.
Rollans, a Romanian, do not know Hungarian language but communicate throughout the game in Hungarian language.

The Sceptics
During 7 years time, Rollans might get help from books, computers or any strong players.
Korchnoi is a known believer to paranormal science. He is not a neutral person in this experiment.
Nobody knows what are the 92 questions being asked to ‘Maroczy’.
The whole experiment is not done in controlled environment.

The Game
White:Maroczy/Robert Rollans
Black:Korchnoi

The Trivia
Before the game, Korchnoi indicate he wants to play with either Capablanca, Keres or Maroczy. Unfortunately Capablanca and Keres are uncontactable, so he played with Marozcy instead.

Medium, Rollans, died few weeks after the game finished.

The Unrelated
Below is a video showing Korchnoi playing another 'non human'.

:)

With Korchnoi the terrible,
anything is possible!

IT'S THE FINAL COUNTDOWN!

2011-03-05T18:46:00.000-08:00

We're leaving together
But still it's farewell
And maybe we'll come back
To earth, who can tell?
I guess there is no one to blame
We're leaving ground
Will things ever be the same again?

It's the final countdown
The final countdown

The Count down
10 Number of days before the start of National Closed 2011. Tick tock tick tock...time is running out!
9 Number of rounds for National Closed.
8 Number of place allocate as a Sea Games Finalist
7 Number of players above the Master rating (FIDE 2100)
6 Number of points that i am aiming for, should be enough for top ten.
5 Number of hours between round....meaning if your 9.30 am game lasted for 120 moves, ( it will be played for 5 hours) you just have enough time for toilet break and start your 2.30 pm game immediately though i believe perhaps the arbiter will allowed your game to start half an hour late or something...
4 Number of level at Kompleks Wilayah in which the battle will take place.
3 Number of former NM that take part (men category)
2 Number of groups...2 groups , you either junior or senior! You cannot remain neutral...No, just kidding, ofcourse 2 here is the groups Men and Women
1 Number of NM titled being offered
0 We have a take off!...0 is also the cash prized being offered to the winners

It's the final countdown
(The final countdown)
Ohh, it's the final countdown
Yea

WHO IS OUR COUNTRY FIRST CHESS WRITER ?

2011-03-03T14:19:00.000-08:00

The Question
Who is Malaysia first chess blogger/columnist/author?

Hairulov? Nope
Gilachess? No
Late Lim Chong?Not quite
Quah Seng Sang? Wrong
Jimmy Liew? Wrong again though Jimmy did write a book titled Chess in Malaysia in early 80s'

Ladies and gentleman. The answer is…drum roll, please…Tun Sri Lanang!

I could hear ‘Hey, never heard that Tun Sri Lanang wrote a blog!’ Ok, I am not referring to our Tun Seri Lanang, chess player but rather to Tun Seri Lanang, Bendahara of Johore and author of Sejarah Melayu (Malay Annals)...see below.

Tun Seri Lanang (TSL)
He was born in 1565 in Seluyut, Johor.

In 1612 at the request of Sultan Abdullah (later to become Sultan Abdullah Mu,ayat Shah) TSL is instructed to write Sejarah Melayu (Malay Annals) . He finished this great book in Acheh prison few years later.

In 2001, The Malay Annals was listed on UNESCO's Memory of the World Programme International Register.

Below is what TSL wrote about chess in Malacca, in one of the chapter of Sejarah Melayu.

Sekali persetua ada seorang, Tun Bahara namanya, orang Pasai, ia datang ke Melaka, Maka Tun Bahara itu pandai terlalu ia bermain catur, tiada siapa menyamai dia pada zaman itu. Maka bercaturlah Tun Bahara itu dengan orang Melaka. Lawannya itu berfikir, ia tiada fikir, pandang kiri, pandang kanan, sambil ia bersyair, dan berbait, dan bergurindam, dan serseloka. Serta sudah ia berperang, berjalan tiada dengan berfikir lagi, terlalu bangat. Maka segala orang yang tahu-tahu bercatur, semuanya alah olehnya, seorang tiada dapat melawan dia, melainkan Tun Pikrama, anak Bendahara Paduka Raja; ia juga yang dapat sedikit melawan Tun Bahara itu , tetapi jikalau lalai Tun Pikrama, digelarkan oleh Tun Bahara itu 'sayur keladi', dan jika Tun Bahara membuang sebiji bidak ujung jua pun, alah pula Tun Bahara oleh Tun Pikrama, itulah yang tahu bercatur,

Summary:
Tun Bahara, a Pasaian, came to Malacca and beat everybody there by just blitzing his moves and without a need to concentrate on his game.

The only Malaccan that able to give decent fight to him is Tun Pikrama in which Tun Bahara could not dare playing by giving pawn odd because Tun Bahara will lose

My thoughts
How I wished is TSL could record one of the Tun Bahara’s or Tun Pikrama’s game! Are they e4 or d4 player? Maybe whetever defense/opening they played, we can claim as our own discovery…Melaka Defense?

So we have chess history that span over 400 hundreds year old…wow!

400 years history...wow!
Thousands and thousands of players…wow!
Million of games played...wow!
Billion of moves made...wow!
err....zero GM...sob, sob!

BETTER SAFE THAN SORRY

2011-03-01T10:56:00.000-08:00

Above picture is taken with permission from Gilocatur’s blog. On his posting he wondered what am i thinking when watching this game...

Am i going to write a book “How to beat IM Mashafizul for dummies”?

Nah...that Hairulov’s specialty...

Well, actually i was thinking of going closer to the table to see the action clearer but i was afraid that Mas is going to give me a look, a killer look like what Kasparov did below, when one unlucky arbiter came closer to his table...and Najib might gave me that Korchnoi’s shrug...

:)

So i continued watching the game at safe distant...

Better safe than sorry.

INTERVIEW WITH IM MAS HAFIZUL HELMI

2011-02-28T12:08:00.000-08:00

Introduction
Frankly, Mas Hafizul needs no introduction. Country second IM, he is also our country biggest hope to get a GM title. In my (unofficial) Malaysian Chess of record, he held many records such as youngest IM, highest FIDE rated player (2456 in year 2001), longest chess game(131 moves in his games against Kempen, Haarlem 2009) , most FIDE rated games in one year (150 games in 2008) and so on. In a word of Mohamad Arshad, with some adjustment 'you cannot say you are a chess player in Malaysia if you did not know who is Mas Hafizulhelmi'.

He is a role model for aspiring junior. Success in academic, success in career (currently employed as an engineer with Petronas) and ofcourse success in chess. Sorry ladies, he is also happily married with a kid!

A man of few words...he treated his spoken words like his move in chess...very carefully. Though when surrounded by his closest friends, he can be quite animated! :)

If there is a single word to describe him it is NEAT. Neatly dressed, neat handwritting on the score sheet and if you are lucky enough to play chess with him...you could feel the force of his neat chess strategy at work!...some 20 years ago when we, east coast chess players stayed together to take part in National Closed (at that time was held at Park Royal)...Mas is the one who always reminded me to put back the chess pieces after finish playing/analysing...:)

OK guys, the interview...

Interview
Who teach you to play chess?
My father, he was the one introduced this beautiful game of chess to me and keep pushing me to pursue further.

When you started playing chess?
About 4 years old.

Your first chess tournament?
If i recalled correctly, when i was 6 i played in kelantan closed (open category) scored 1.5/7 . one from a walkover/bye and i drew one game :).

Your best moment in chess?
Many to choose from. But one that gave me special 'buzz' was my win vs the Great Korchnoi in Turin Olympiad 2006.
(When the pairing were out the night before the game (Msia v Swiss), i was hoping n praying that they will put the best line up or atleast they wont 'rest' Mr Korchnoi.
To play him was an honour, and during the game when the position was 'balance', i thought to draw will be super bonus. And to win the game in about 21 moves was just
'out of this world' kind of feeling :) .. Alhamdulillah!

Your best game?
If i had to choose one (beside the Korchnoi game), is the one I won vs (my future to be coach) GM Ian Rogers in Sydney QVB GM invitational tournament.
Towards the end of the game, i was just so nervous (i couldn't believe my position was winning) i keep walking away from the board.

Your favourite chess player?
Karpov ..

Do you play chess online?
Not really.

Do you read chess blog on daily basis?
I like to check on Hairulov's blog for updates etc.

How do you rate your chances to be country first GM?
InsyaAllah I will do my best to keep pushing for the elusive title, however the older you get things are not getting easier, especially
with todays technologies, databases, softwares etc. And when you are not 'chess professional', then it is an uphill task to juggle between chess and work
(not to mention families etc). Personally i do hope our younger chess generation can start pushing for the title, I will be as happy for Msia to have a GM.

If you have to chose between RM1 Million cash or Super GM chess strength.
Which one you chose?
Haha. I would choose the super GM strength, that money can not buy :)

What is more important, to have a first class chess programmes in
school or to have a first GM?
Both are important, but having 1st GM is important to show that we can do it.
(IM Jimmy was my role model and legend (1st Msian IM) , i only do it faster because i know it is doable)
Later, the chess programmes will be as important to teach chess systematically, and produce consistency.

Your most active time. day or night?
Depends how you define active. I would prefer to do my work at night when things are calm and quiet.
But of course you have to go to work during the day :) .

Strategy or tactic?
Strategy

Which one you prefer. Winning a bad, lousy game or
losing a beautiful, brilliant game?
Winning is always good, but sometimes the later is also gave a different buzz!

Your advice to young, aspiring chess player?
Chess is fun! Work hard and you will enjoy more..

Your hobby (other than chess)?
Reading

Title of last book you read?
The Element - How finding your passion changes everything.

Your favourite tv show?
House

Your favourite drink?
Nescafe ice

Your favourite song?
InsyaAllah - Maher Zain

The other side of Mas Hafizulhilmi that chess citizen don't know?
I always wander why we choose what we chose, and how did we come to that conclusion? Do we really choose?

Thanks
Thanks Mas for your time and willingness to answer above questions and all the best to you in chess.

MEMO FROM MARVELLOUS MAVERICK!

2011-02-27T10:26:00.000-08:00

1.More than 100 players took part in recently conclude marvellous Maverick chess tournament. Number wise, it could easily balloon to 150 should Najib did not requested bloggers to put up the STOP sign a few days ago (a rare request from organiser)...and should Najib aggressively promoting his event at shoutbox. He don’t.

2.Top 3 seeded are coming from 3 different countries, (Malaysian’s Mas, Uzbek’s Majidov and Pinoy’s Ian Udani) and we also have Indonesian’s Ahmad Rubel (though now he is a Malaysian PR) and Irish’s Dr Zaidan (he is currently studying medic at Ireland, he is Malaysian ofcourse) ...and Chief Arbiter is Singaporean’s IM Giam...a truly international event!

3.I am seeded number 23 and am happy with my play, time management and concentration. Anyway a bit frustrated with my 3rd round game against Cheah Cheok Fung...failed to convert a winning position...lost that game. All in all, again, not a bad outing for me

4.Glad to see Mustafa Said make a comeback! He won a best veteran. Mustafa Said? In 80’s he is a chess columnist, together with Ismail Ahmad (not that Sarjan Ismail Ahmad) for Berita Harian’s chess column ...missing are the regulars Abdullah Che Hassan, Saprin, Fairin etc...are they busy preparing for National Closed?...takut!

5. 3 games that stood out. Mas lost to Majidov in equal position (Mas blundered a piece), Kamaludin lost to Majidov (position equals but Kamaluddin got about 6 minutes and Majidov’s 30 seconds...Majidov checkmate Kamaluddin with 2 seconds left) you just need to be there to witness how calm Majidov is with 10 seconds remaining on his time... and Fong Yit San won against Udani (did not watch how the game unfold but any win against Udani in Allegro is definitely a news)

6. Final result. All top 6 finisher got 6 points (1 Majidov, Mas, Fong Yit San, Lim Zhuo Ren, Wong Zianwen and yours truly). Senior vs Junior wise...3-3. I lost the bet against Raymond but he is unable to make it to the restaurant...perhaps some other time, Raymond.

7.Next two months are just bumper to bumper pack with tournaments, tournaments and more tournaments! Terengganu Allegro (for members only), National Age Tournament at Tronoh, National Closed, Lim Choong Memorial, Percawi Team Event, UniKL Open, UM Team, Jax Tham’s FIDE rated event, Buccaneers Weekender (with name like this, Najiblah organise...who else), Insofar series...seems like everybody is busy doing ‘real work’...how about you, Ilham?

Once, someone said this to me “...I wish you all the best if you have a positive agenda to promote chess and hopefully that includes doing real work beyond making commentary.”

Ouch!

Hmm, maybe what he said is true but still...ouch!

TRADING WITH THE ENEMY ACT (PATRIOT ACT)

2011-02-25T14:13:00.000-08:00

I reread my old Chess Life magazine (old habit as a lullaby or when i am in the restroom) and in July 1988 issue mentioned about New York Open 1988 which was won by then unknown Russian IM (!) Vassily Ivanchuk (USD20,000), second prize went to Cuban GM Guillermo Garcia (USD10,000) and so on...

While Ivanchuk happily bring back USD20k back to then USSR, GM Garcia bring back USD 0 to Cuba due to this US law (Trading with the enemy Act) that prohibit ‘enemy’ from taking out money and goods from US.

‘Enemy’ according to this act is countries which US considered as enemy such as North Korea, Iran, Myanmar, Cuba, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Liberia and so on. Enemy could also be individual like Osama Laden or late Malaysian’s Nordin Mat Top

As a result GM Garcia’s USD10,000 is put into Trust Account and will only be released after US Government no longer consider Cuba as the enemy.

Fortunately, this US10k will still enjoyed interest (bet by now the amount is already double). Unfortunately, now, 23 years later US still considered Cuba as US enemy, and this fund should still remain frozen.

What does this Act mean to you and me?
After 9/11 US Government, President George Bush widen the power/scope of this law and passed amendment to this law that among others, allows (the controversial) wiretapping without court order as well as for banking industry, stricter flow of fund to the ‘enemy’.

To you and me this means we, even from Malaysia, cannot remit US Dollar to enemy of US such as to Iran, North Korea, Cuba etc...be very careful because once you do this, your money will be freeze by US and will only be returned back to you after ‘enemy’ become friend. Nobody knows when....

This GM Garcia incident reminds me of our own Norazman...Well, you are not alone and not the first... Entering a chess tournament, winning good cash prizes but went home empty handed (albeit due to different reasons)!

CHESS JOKES (PART 2)

2011-02-24T14:54:00.000-08:00

I
"I've created a chess program that mimics human play" said the computer science major.
"So it plays at Super GM level then?" asks the advising professor.
"Not really, but it does blame its loss on outside conditions!"

II
Two chess players are playing a correspondence game. White lives at the South Pole. Black lives at the North Pole. The postal service is rather slow and play proceeds at the rate of one move per year. After 15 years of play, white makes a daring queen sacrifice, the consequences of which are brilliant and spectacular...

A year later, as he sees the postman returning, he is very excited. He thinks "Will black take my queen ?", "Is the sacrifice sound ?". He tears open the reply and sees "Jadoube".

III
Q. What is the difference between a chess player and a couple on a blind date?
A. The chess player mates then chats......

Taken from Susanpolgar.blogspot

CRAZY QUEEN CHESS PUZZLE

2011-02-23T14:53:00.000-08:00

The Introduction
Previously we have saw crazy bishop puzzle in The Most Beautiful Chess Problem’s posting in which one single bishop destroyed an armada of army, a few weeks ago we saw a crazy rook puzzle (in which a single rook which could not be taken, keep on giving check no matter where black’s king hide) and now...crazy queen chess puzzle!

This puzzle was first shown to me by Ghalam Sani some 20 years ago. If i am not mistaken, Gambit (Fairul Yusof) manage to solve this puzzle.

The Puzzle

White to play and win

The Solution
1.h8 = Q a1 = Q
White could not take black’s queen due to stalemate.

2.Qg8 Qa2
Again, black’s queen is taboo.

3.Qe8 Qa4

4.Qe5 Ka8
5.Qh8 winning...white threaten to move his king to seventh rank with a fatal discovered check.

Black could no longer played 5. ...Qa1 because white could then play 6.Qa1 with a check, stalemate trap no longer there.

Trivia
A few years later, i discovered about this puzzle inside John Nunn’s Tactical Chess Ending though inside the book, the puzzle start from below diagram and with a longer solution.

Solution
1. b6+! Kb8!
2. h4 a5
3. h5 a4
4. h6 a3
5. h7 a2
6. h8=Q a1=Q
7. Qg8! Qa2
8. Qe8 Qa4
9. Qe5! Ka8
10. Qh8 winning

According to John Nunn this puzzle was composed by D, Joseph and was published inside British Chess Magazine in 1922.

Dr John Nunn called this puzzle “...one of the most famous endgame studies ever composed, but nevertheless it may be new to some people”

I have once show this puzzle to Abdullah Che Hassan...after a few minutes he managed to find the solution!

NOTES BEFORE NATIONAL CLOSED...

2011-02-21T09:52:00.000-08:00

The Introduction
In a few weeks from now we, Malaysian chess player will decide who is the champion among us and worthy carrier of a title, National Master (NM), for their whole life.

The tournament i am referring to is National Closed...the ‘Wimbledon’ of a local chess tournament.

So far 75 players have put forward their name to try their luck and skills to be a new NM

The seeded
The top ten contenders based from FIDE Rating is as below
1.Loo Swee Loong 2141
2.Saprin 2139
3.Yeoh Li Tian 2115
4.Khair Wahiduddin 2089
5.Lim Zhuo Ren 2074
6.Sumant 2065
7.Ong Thian Loon 2059
8.Nik Farouqi 2057
9.Abdul Aziz Shukor 2046
10.Nabil Azman H 2044

Ok, some would say, why used FIDE when we have our own barangan tempatan? National Rating? Oklah, here is top 10 players based from National Rating...we get quite a different picture...
1.Yeoh Li Tian 1985
2.Sumant 1980
3.Cheah Cheok Fung 1955
4.Saprin 1950
5.Lim Zhuo Ren 1925
6.Tan Ken Wei 1925
7.Loo Swee Loong 1914
8.Nik farouqi 1914
9.Ismail Ahmad 1900
10.Nabil Azman H 1893

To be fair why don’t we kahwin the list to get the average? Oklah, here is the Kahwin (FIDE + Nat rating) list...not much different and Nabil still seeded number 10.
1.Yeoh Li Tian 4100
2.Saprin 4089
3.Loo Swee Loong 4055
4.Sumant 4045
5.Lim Zhou Ren 3999
6.Khair 3977
7.Cheah Cheok Fung 3975
8.Nik Farouqi 3971
9.Tan Ken Wei 3947
10.Nabil 3937

But still, no matter how we twist... and turn...and shake...and upside down the list of the player in a tournament dubbed as Wimbledon of Malaysian Chess...the Nadal, the Federer, the Djokovic of local chess sadly still did not appear in the list...

The Pledge
Why don’t all National player, former NM for once took part in National Closed once again...take a break from never ending office work and go to a place where people know who you are...appreciate who you are...and glad to see you around...aptly worded in Cheers intro below.

WHERE EVERYBODY KNOWS YOUR NAME (CHEERS THEME)

Making your way in the world today takes everything you've got.
Taking a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot.

Wouldn't you like to get away?

Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name,
and they're always glad you came.
You wanna be where you can see,
our troubles are all the same
You wanna be where everybody knows
Your name.

You wanna go where people know,
people are all the same,
You wanna go where everybody knows
your name.

Well, even though currently none of former NM register their name and our chance to see them take part in this Nat Closed looks dim...I hope they would do a Vanessa William...Save the best for last!

Sometimes the snow comes down in June
sometimes the sun goes 'round the moon
just when I thought our chance had passed
you'd go and save the best for last
you went and saved the best for last

CHESS TWILLIGHT ZONE

2011-02-18T15:30:00.000-08:00

Story 1
Once, after manage to represent my district in chess, I attended the centralized training organized by this teacher, let’s call him Cikgu O... first thing he do was teaching us...the correct way of putting back chess pieces back to the box after playing...first count the pawns, make sure there are 8...then rooks, make sure there are 2...and so on. He never teach us any chess theory...only how to put back the pieces after playing...on second day he asked us exactly that..How to simpan buah catur correctly...yet he is the proud chess coach for our district team! Chess coach that teach only how to simpan buah catur correctly and nothing else...only in chess twillight zone

Story 2
Another story...Once, i entered one tournament that was supposed to start at 9.30 am...by 10.45 arbiter still accepting late last minute entrance...11am he realize he is way behind time...way way behind time...quickly make an announcement asking us to sit at any chair and start playing with whoever in front of us! We chose our own opponent...only in the chess twillight zone

Story 3
Once, i entered a tournament that did not have clock. Arbiter then mentioned since there is no clock, contestant are going to play for maximum half an hour and after that arbiter is going to ‘evaluate’ the position to determine who is winning (though the game is not ended yet)...fair enough i though...until i met this cheeky guy...i sacrifice a pawn (or maybe two) for huge initiative, almost winning i would say...my opponent?... he start thinking...and thinking...and thinking. Half an hour is over, arbiter came and counted the pieces...my opponent got more material and is duly declared as a winner! I realized...i could not do anything because i am in the chess twillight zone

Story 4
Every tournament love to have the strong player playing in it. Some even willing to pay for strong player e.g. national player to take part in their tournament.

Once, there is this tournament that did not allowed national players, or to be more specific national player that just finished their tour of duty, to take part in their tournament. Why?Only God knows...and could only happen...in the twillight zone

Summary
These and more...you just can never know what you are in when you have make that fateful payment and are entering... a (chess) twillight zone...

BEFORE MAVERICK...

2011-02-17T11:41:00.000-08:00

Several things to observe during next week’s Maverick.

Number of contestant.
Previous tournament (Renegade), it was a huge success, a sold out (Concert terms), a box office (film terms), a knock out (boxing term) or what stock market punter called it as ‘fully oversubscribed’. It is interesting to see whether Maverick could repeat the same success...

I personally feel there is no problem for Maverick to pull in at least 60 players due to IM Mas factor and as a warm up tournament before National Closed.

IM Mas Hafizul
It is interesting to see Mas back in action in local weekend tournament and to see whether he will have mercy against his opponent ala Ian Udani who occasionally draw his last round game when assured of 1st placing or is Mas going to be ‘Ziaur Rahman’ and will aim for perfect score, nothing less?

Also his choice of openings, will it be his usual stuff... Ruy Lopez Exchange, Standard Najdorf or Grand Prix attack or will he play something totally different as suggested by Hairulov (author of How to beat IM Mas for dummies ;) ), English Opening perhaps?

I bet, a wounded and hungry Mas will have no mercy against his opponent and will left other contestant wondering...who’s next to feed to merciless Mas. His choice of opening...well, i think he will stick to his usual arsenal.

Junior vs Senior
Someone told me, in last edition it was dominated by junior....well, result wise it was also dominated by junior with a 4-2 victory (based on top 6 main category prize winner)

Somehow i feel,this time around result wise it will be a 4-2 success for senior.

Question
January...Renegade
February...Maverick
Wonder what is next?

I think it will be Flamboyant...or will it be Swashbuckler?...hmm, maybe a Daredevil...

Whatever it is...good work Najib for adding colour to local chess scene!

CRAZY ROOK CHESS PUZZLE

2011-02-16T14:24:00.000-08:00

Introduction
Above diagram refers. Black is winning. Everybody can see it but suddenly, out of blue, white played the confusing 1.Rc6 !

White’s rook is taboo...captured it and the game is draw because of the stalemate...anywhere black king move, white rook is going to give a check. The question now is how...black to play and win after white’s 1.Rc6

Trivia
I first come across this puzzle about 20 years ago. I feed this position to the chess engine at that time (chessmaster, maybe first version of fritz...they cannot find the mate).

Even in early 2000 with mid fritz or Hiarc or Junior, chess engine could not see the mate

Now, year 2011 within second Fritz or Rybka will come up with the announcement, mate in 16!

We (Siraj and myself) once at DATCC showed this puzzle to IM Mok, after a few minute he is able to solve it!

Solution
1. Rc6 d6
2. Rd6 f6
3. Rf6 Kh7
4. Rh6 Kg8

5. Rh8 Kf7
6. Rf8 Ke6
7. Rf6 Kd7
8. Rd6 Kc8
9. Rd8 Kb7
10. Rb8 Kc6
11. Rb6 Kd7

12. Rd6 Ke8
13. Rd8 Kf7
14. Rf8 Kg6
15. Rf6 Kh7
16. Rh6 checkmate!

THE AMAZING GM SUSAN POLGAR

2011-02-14T14:30:00.000-08:00

A couple of postings ago GM Susan Polgar visited my blog and drop a few lines. I was like...wow! it is not everyday that Grandmaster visit my blog but then again i did not know much about her (unlike her youngest sis, Judith Polgar). Ahh, what the heck, she is just an ordinary GM so I thought but out of curiousity, i do some research about Susan Polgar and found below interesting info about her.

1.She won Hungary under 12 girls with perfect score (10-0)...at the age of four! Yeap no typo here F.O.U.R. Wonder whether she is still wearing diaper when executing checkmate after checkmate! :)

2.She composed (and it got published!) her first chess problems (see below) also at the age of 4. Amazing! While most of the four years old could only come up with the trick to get candies, she already could compose below chess problem which required some form of chess mastery and creativity to create it.

White to play and mate in 2 moves

1. Kd1 Kf1
2. Qe1 mate!

3.She won World Under 16 (Girls) at the age of 12.

4.She was World's highest rated player (female) at the age of 15.

5.She got her ’male’ GM title in 1991 (age 22). First female to do it.

6.She could speak 7 languages (Hungarian, English, German, Russian, Spanish, Hebrew and Esperanto). Esperanto ?! Esperanto is the language created in 1870s with the idea to foster harmony between people from different countries, races and to be world’s second language.

7.She is also world record holder for most consecutive games played (1131 games:1112 wins, 14 draws and 3 losses). This world record still unbroken until now.

8.She went undefeated at Olympiads (56 games in total:31 wins and 25 draws)

9.She once create a world record by playing simultaneously games against 326 players (309 wins, 14 draws and 3 losses). GM Kiril Georgiev later broke her record by playing against 360 opponents. GM Morteza renewed this record further by playing against 500 opponents!

Like Gary Kasparov, she is now no longer active participating in chess tournaments but very active in chess development especially in Texas.

It is of no surprise that National Geographic chose her as subject for a documentary titled My Brilliant Mind.

Well, for me... now i know for sure GM Susan Polgar is definitely not an ordinary GM as what i initially thought!

MY NATIONAL CLOSED CHECK LIST

2011-02-12T15:33:00.000-08:00

1. Verbally informed boss that I will take one week leave. Done (after impressing boss that this is for Sea Games Selection)

2. Informed colleague/relief that i will take one week leave during school holiday. Done (after reminding them that i have never take leave during school holidays over the last two years)

3. Officially applied leave. Not yet. This Monday

4. Informed my wife. Done. After promised her there will be a vacation for whole family in May/June.

5. Informed elder daughter. Done. Same modus operandi as above. Promised her there will be a vacation for whole family in May/June.

6. Informed youngest daughter. Done. Same as above plus promise of ice cream.

7. Register to take part. Done. Via e-mailed to Najib last week

8. Make a payment. Not yet. Promised Najib the payment shall be made on 27th February during Maverick.

9. Lobbied to represent Terengganu. Work On progress, though a bit difficult with reduce state quota. Looks like i need to be ‘independent’and not represent any political state...sounds like by election!

10. Service my old trusty kapchai. Not yet. Important cause i don’t want it kaput halfway before arriving at DATCC.

11. To see bomoh to enhance my chances. Not yet. Know anyone that could help? Preferably bomoh as pretty as Lisa Surihani in Jangan Pandang Belakang Congkak 2

12. Study chess. Not yet. Every time i am in front of my pc and about to open my chessbase/engines i have an urge to check all the ‘hot blogs’ to see whether there is any hot posting or hot comments appeared or any new wars errupted...how to study chess in this environment?

13. Study tie break. Not yet. Used to be ignore but now it is very important as it could determine between number one or three...don’t believe? Ask Bro Fadzil Nayan...

Wow, so many things to do...so little time. No wonder Tiger Woods got his own manager to ‘kau tim’ all above checklist.

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE CHESS PROBLEM

2011-02-11T15:29:00.000-08:00

The Introduction
I discovered this puzzle some 20 years ago. Not sure from where but i suspect it must be from one of those Chernev’s or Kmoch’s book or maybe from one of Leonard Barden’s newspaper cutting. Sorry, i could not remember the source but i still remember the puzzle, the story behind it and the solution.

Hope you enjoyed it!

The Problem

White to play and win

Napoleon (Black King at h7) is being hunted by Prussian armies (white pieces). Question is...which square is Waterloo (place where Napoleon was defeated)?

The Solution
Hint:Just continue checking with the knights. Black’s reply is forced.

1.Ng5 Kg8
2.Nh6 Kf8
3.Nh7 Ke7
4.Ng8 Kd7
5.Nf8 Kc8
6.Ne7 Kb8
7.Nd7

7. Ka7
8.Nc8 Ka6
9.Nb8 Kb5
10.Na7 Kb4
11.Na6 Ka3
12.Nb5 mate!

So Waterloo is the a3 square.

The Quote
"You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war."
– Napoleon Bonaparte

"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake."
- Napoleon Bonaparte

"I fear three newspapers more than a hundred thousand bayonets."
- Napoleon

WORLD

2011-02-09T07:08:00.000-08:00

America

South Korea vs North Korea

Ivory Coast

Egypt

Earth...2012 ?

THE LOST ODYSSEY

2011-02-08T10:18:00.000-08:00

On and off, i checked my blog's visitor, where they are coming from (and tried to guess who they are), how much time spent at my blog and stuff like that..i bet my fellow bloggers also did the same right? :)

I guess most of the visitors are regulars. For you, thanks for visiting my blog, hope you enjoyed reading it (and also hope that you occasionaly clicked on the advertisements here)

Still some of the visitors are not regular. Landed on my blog from various seach engines and from various keywords. For you too, thanks for visiting my blog.

This posting is about the first time visitor who arrived here via various search engine and via various key words and they basically can be divided to two groups.

The Odyssey
Below are some of the key word that often result in them landing at my humble blog. For these visitors hopefully 2010 Chess Odyssey fulfill your mission and you may find something of value here.

Beautiful Chess Problems / study
On 29 Mac 2010 i posted World’s most beautiful chess problems’ article and after that received many visitor hoping to find the most beautiful chess problem. Hopefully they agreed with my posting.

Blackmar Diemer Gambit
Google wise, i am not on front page but still many visitors, no doubt a BDG hardcore fan, they still visit my blog via this key word. I posted BDG article on 11 April 2010.

Chess Odyssey
Chess Odyssey is the name of my blog but it is also the name of one chess club, US based, which offers classes, training etc. Their website is here www.chessodyssey.com . Though maybe the searcher wrongly entered my blog via above words, they normally still spent a few minutes here.

The Lost Odyssey
Below are some of the key words that often result in them landing at my humble blog...well, for this group, not sure whether they find anything of value here...and normally they just quickly exit from my blog.

Most beautiful chess player
Thanks again to my World’s most beautiful chess problems’ article, indirectly lead ’manyak hamsap’ searcher to here. Sorry, no beautiful chess player pic here, you pervert!

Senior vs Junior junior wins
Few weeks back someone outside Malaysia googled above words and voila!..landed on my blog (Senior vs Junior: My Views). Google ranked my blog 3rd for above words result. I can see Raymond is smiling...:)

Malaysia Bahrain job opportunity
Sometime last year, someone from Bangladesh land on my blog via above keywords (This is due to my posting Malaysia vs Bahrain The Musical)...all i can say to you, good luck and all the best, mate!

AGUS SALIM HARAHAP

2011-02-07T06:33:00.000-08:00

Intro

Today, on my way back after taking my lunch, i heard a loud sound

Panggggg!!

One chair at one restaurant along Jalan Raja Laut incidently trip over.

That sounds triggered back my memory some 12 years ago, at the exact premise- at that time yet a restaurant but a cyber cafe, when Agus Salim is playing blitz online at yahoo.com. We (Gregory Lau and myself) are the culprit who introduce the amazing world of internet to Agus.

One night, Agus, true to his character, slapped the bulky monitor real hard because he lost on time in a winning position accusing his invisible opponent of cheating.

Celaka! Dia main tipu..alih-alih masa aku habis! Nanti kau, aku gasak kau lepas ni... Pannggg, he slapped that PC monitor one more time...

Well, his opponent is not cheating and this is due to ’lag’, common at that time due to dial up connection but of course it is pointless to reasons with angry Agus.

That panggg sound at the restaurant, Chow Kit, sudden memory of Agus....i promised myself i need to write something about Agus.

Agus Salim Harahap

.. you either genuinely like him or acting as if you like him...

1. He was born at Indonesia in 1964 (if i am not mistaken), migrate to Malaysia in early 80’s and later managed to obtain Malaysia’s permanent resident status.

2. He stayed at brutal Chow Kit area where he honed his chess skill by 'playing' at 'club' there, normally against his fellow Indonesians. Due to his unforgiving surrounding, Agus is rough by nature with strong language to boot. It is always...aku cabar kau!.or...ahh, (name of chess player), aku sudah gasak dia! Tak ada apalah dia. Watching Agus played Fikrul Saifudden...with shoutings and all... you wondered whether they will end up killing each other! They not...but almost!

3. Despite of all that rough behavior, not many know that Agus got a lovely voice. I first heard Agus sang in 1990, when he together with his fellow 'Chow Kit IM', Ahmad Rubel, Riko Sulaiman etc) took part in Terengganu Open. We stayed at hostel and after the games, with guitar in hand, Agus sang Mus Mulyadi’s keroncong (Jembatan Merah, Kemayoran etc)...his voice is superb! Norazmi once told me he heard a beautiful Azan by Agus when he took part in Malay Master.

4. Agus is also a generous host. Once I together with Mok went to Agus house at Tiong Nam. Gosh..you could see that he really glad we come to his house. He bring out almost all the foods he got, proudly showed me his chess books (only 2 if i am not mistaken, Informator and Chernev’s 1000 best short games, he don’t believe in books but more from sparring against opponent) and gladly introduce me to his fellow Indonesians. ’Ini Din, kawan catur aku dari Terengganu’ Unfriendly, hostile faces of Agus friends suddenly become friendly after the introduction.

5. Funny thing is even a few weeks after that i met again with Agus’ friends at Chow Kit during my lunch break. Agus friends immediately introduced me to other group of Indonesian, 'Ini kawan caturnya si Agus'... somehow the introduction, Chow Kit, the offer of friendship...you could feel some raw Don Corleone’s dark power at work!...lucky they did not make me any offer that i cannot refuse! :)

6. In 90's Agus won many tournaments, especially the Malay Open series as well as weekend tournaments. He is also the unofficial tourist guide to any visiting Indonesian chess player, Agus is no doubt the best person to do that.

7. Below is one of his games in which he 'gasak' his opponent in the endgame, his favourite phase of the game. Agus (white) and Lim Kok Ann (black)

8. Agus is now no longer with us. He died a few years ago due to illness. Rest in peace, my friend.

WHAT IS CHESS?

2011-02-05T15:14:00.000-08:00

Chess, catur, ajedrez, shatranj...We played it, we studied it, we are divided by it, we are united by it, we made friends from it, we made enemies from it., we loved it, we cursed it...A big question here...What is chess?

Dictionary
A board game for two players who move their 16 pieces according to specific rules; the object is to checkmate the opponent's king

Maybe...thought a bit boring.

Lets look at what did practitioner said.
Some say chess is life
“Chess is life” (Bobby Fischer)

“Chess is like life” (Boris Spassky)

“For me, Chess is life and every game is like a new life. Every
Chess player gets to live many lives in one lifetime” (Eduard Gufeld)

Though some say
“Chess is not like life... it has rules!” (Mark Pasternak)

Some say chess is a something nice
Chess, like love, like music, has the power to make man happy. - (Savielly Tartakower)

Chess, like love, is infectious at any age. - (Salo Flohr)

Though some equate chess with something...not so nice
“Chess is mental torture” (Garry Kasparov)

“Chess is war over the board. The object is to crush the opponents mind” (Bobby Fischer)

“Chess is ruthless: you've got to be prepared to kill people” (Nigel Short)

Chess is not relaxing; it's stressful even if you win. - (Jennifer Shahade)

Gosh, this is confusing...and even more confusing to know that it is still debatable when it come to categorise chess. This is important since it will determine where chess news should be...is it together with David Beckham or is it together with David Teo, is it an Olympic game or is it an Academy Award material....

“Chess is the art which expresses the science of logic” (Mikhail Botvinnik)

Chess is a sport. A violent sport. -(Marcel Duchamp)

I consider chess an art, and accept all those responsibilities which art places upon its devotees. - (Alexander Alekhine)

A sport, a struggle for results and a fight for prizes. I think that the discussion about “chess is science or chess is art” is already inappropriate. The purpose of modern chess is to reach a result. - (Alexander Morozevich)

Karpov, being Karpov, played it flexible

“Chess is everything: art, science and sport” (Anatoly Karpov)

Some condemned chess...
It is a curse upon man. There is no happiness in chess. - (H.G. Wells)

Chess is a foolish expedient for making idle people believe they are doing something very clever when they are only wasting their time. - (George Bernard Shaw)

Some praised chess...
“Chess makes man wiser and clear-sighted” (Vladimir Putin)

Chess is a cure for headaches. - (John Maynard Keynes)

Chess is beautiful enough to waste your life for. - (Hans Ree)

To sum it up
“The battle for the ultimate truth will never be won. And that's why Chess is so fascinating” (Hans Kmoch)

Better leave it at that...

GRANDMASTER...THEY ARE FROM OTHER PLANET!

2011-02-03T16:26:00.000-08:00

History
FIDE first introduce the title in 1950 and award it to top 27 players at that time. Only in 1953 there is a proper system introduce to get the title. Before 50’s it was based on MAS system. (MAS = Mana Ada Sistem). GM title was used loosely and freely without any clear standard or definition.

How to get one.
To the best of my knowledge, there are 3 ways to get GM title. This is the simple version. The complete version especially in norm calculation could make scientist sweat!
1) By Winning Tournament. Some tournament offered automatic GM title should you win it. These tournaments are World Chess Championship/ Zonal, World Junior, World Senior, Commonwealth etc. 1st prize..bingo! Call me GM please thank you.
2) By collecting norms. In simple words, if you are doing great at international tournament that offered GM norm, then you collect one norm. Collect few norms (within certain time frame) then you are a GM.
3) By award. Fide occasionally award GMship to those that played chess long enough, strong enough though not really in category 1 or 2 above.

Trivia
Number of GMs? As at end 2010, there are 1275 GMs in this world

Number of women GM? Susan Polgar is the first to achieve this in 1991. Now there are 22 female that manage to get this ‘male’ GM. I did not count Nona and Maya since they get their GMs by recognizant by FIDE, not via slug it out at male GM tournament like what Susan Polgar did.

Number of countries with GM? 74 countries with Russia is the major shareholder (202 GMs), controlling about 16% of the world’s GMs.

Number of countries without GM? 54 countries…and we acutely aware about one country in this particular sad group.

Prettiest/ Handsomest GM? Just kidding, ofcourse no such category…:) too subjective

Strongest GM? In 1999, Kasparov’s rating is 2850. No one, be it Anand, Kramnik or Carlsen come close to this rating though I suspect should Rybka 4 is allowed to have Fide rating via tournament with human (and not just ratings from games between fellow engines), Rybka will be able to easily break Kasparov’s rating.

Oldest to obtain GM? Enrico Paoli, awarded Grandmaster title at the age of 88

Youngest GM? Sergey Karjakin, awarded Grandmaster title at the age of 12.

From www.mychessblog.com I found this interesting info about GMs.

Age Group No. of GM
11 – 20 233
21 – 30 606
31 – 40 293
41 – 50 62
51 – 60 14
61 – 70 16
71 – 80 9
81 – 90 5

Last but not least, this is what GM Anand got to say about GM

“Nowadays, when you’re not a grandmaster at 14, you can forget about it.”
Viswanathan Anand

SICILIAN SMITH MORRA GAMBIT

2011-02-02T06:02:00.000-08:00

Introduction
How many times in chess… as well as in love, in job and in life…that we reach a time in which we know we should accept the challenge thrown to us, takes the bull by its horn so they said…but in the heat of the moment, we blink and back off!…we decide to play it safe, don’t want to take the risk, do not believe in our own capability and judgment…and later when the smokes has cleared and the sun shine again, the clock has stop ticking…regret that decision forever?

“Damn it! Should follow my instinct! Things will be different…” so cried our little chicken heart.

This is the game (played during the 3rd round of Renegade Weekend Tournament) which I am proud of because I am willing to take the challenge, believe in my judgment despite of 3 pawns deficit, believe in the Spartan power of my well place pieces…most importantly believe in myself.

Check this game with my chess engine and the engine agreed with all my moves...doubly proud!

This is the game.

W: Nor Ilhamuddin
B:Muhd Taufik Azman

Sicilian Smith Morra Gambit

1. e4 c5
2. Nf3 g6
3. d4 cd4
4. c3 dc3

Sacrifing a pawn

5. Nc3 Bg7
6. Bc4 Nc6
7. e5 Qa5
8. 0-0 Ne5

Sacrificing second pawn

9. Ne5 Qe5
10. Re1 Qc7

Natural move, attacking the undefended bishop. How to defend this bishop?

11. Nb5! Qc6

Bishop is taboo. 11. … Qc4 12. Nd6 winning the lady.

12. Bf4 Bb2

…and the third pawns fell

13. Rb1 Bc3
14. Re3 Ba5

White pieces (except the king) are all out at the battlefield. Time to attack!

15. Nd6 Kf8
16. Qd4 f6
17. Re7

Black resign.
1-0

It is a force mate

Ah… game like this…makes me thankful I am back playing chess after my 2 previous chess retirements. Totally agree with GM Bent Larsen below...

"Chess is a beautiful mistress to whom we keep coming back, no matter how many times she rejects us."
– Bent Larsen

REPORT FROM RENEGADE/ HAVE I BEEN TRICKED?

2011-01-31T12:49:00.000-08:00

1.Arrived at tournament at about 9.15am. Almost went back since I thought that i went wrongly to some underage tourney. Everybody seems so young with face that never been shaved before ( Sumant is the exception) but i stay on and later saw NM Kamal Ariffin and Mat Zaki Yeop...ok, i’m in the the right tournament.

2.Glad to see Ezmi ‘Agdestein’ Mahmood make a comeback. For those at the tournament hall, he is the big guy with long gold coloured hair and wearing that smiley T shirt. He used to play football representing Kelantan and nearly make it to represent Malaysia. He won the best unrated in this tournament. Ezmi is now eyeing to take part in next month Kelantan’s selection...watch out Farouqi! And Abdullah Che Hassan too!

3. I was seeded no.11 out of nearly 100 players and finished 6th. I am satisfied with my games (especially against Taufiq), satisfied with the placing, satisfied with my time management and also satisfied with my concentration (lucky no Tania around)...All in all, not a bad outing for me.

4. This tournament is well run by Mr Najib and his lovely wife,...err...Mrs Najib. Worth mentioning is Najib did really limiting number of participants for this tournament. Not many organizers are willing to do that. Someone (me!) asked what is the tie break for this tournament, Najib laughed before explaining it in his perfect English...or is it in perfect German? Bulchoz fuehrer BMW autobahn bla, bla, bla...I am not sure.
Also worth mentioning is for the first time the organisers will introduce/pay "appearance fee" for top Malaysian chess player (Mas, Mok, Nicholas) to play in weekend tourney. Good as it is a recognization to country top players, not good if you happen to be no 4th in the country and did not make the cut :)

5. Jianwen is the deserving winner of this tournament. His cute boyish face hiding his merciless killer instinct. A Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde! Chinese New Year’s angpow come early for him...Expect to see more future success by Jianwen. Also expect to see Internal Revenue Board (Income Tax) to start opening one file on Jianwen.

6. Mr Raymond Siew did introduce me to a parent who was at Asean. This parent is so full of positive vibes...it took me by surprise! I half expected that it will be full of complaints to 3 usual suspects/punching bags (1.MCF 2.MCF and 3. MCF) but it did not turn out that way.
Asean? Good outing and good opportunity to know other parents.
Expenses occurred? Supported by PIBG, understand MCF’s constraint.
Lack of training/coaching? Hired personal coach. It is parent’s responsibility.

I hope this is the ‘truth’ that Raymond eagerly wants to show it to me. A satisfied parent that is so full of positive thinking and always see kindness in others. Parent that always see glass half full...

THE SILENCE OF THE.. RATIONALITY. HAVE YOU BEEN TRICKED ILHAM?

1.Raymond Siew posted above posting on 26 January 2011 as a reply to my article dated 25th January 2011 under titled ‘THE SILENCE OF THE...RATIONALITY’. His first 2 sentences mentioning that it looks like Jimmy’s ploy has worked to some degree and i have fallen to it. (I shall not comment on the rest of the sentences of this posting as i do not have enough time to scrutinize it all, enough energy to reply it and enough grasp of English to properly convey what i want to mentioned. Most important i do not want to get 'stalemate' over this issue and i have a respect to Mr Raymond Siew)

2.I selfishly replied by putting a comment on his blog as well as mine, stating that i have read his posting, thanking him for his praise to me and that’s all. I did not comment on his first 2 sentences.

3.I am being unfair to Jimmy and would like to stated here that:
a)I wrote about Rationality. Not about Jimmy, not about parents to junior chess player, not about Asean and not about Mal/Sing.
b)Yes, as a chess player, I was influence by Jimmy. I read and re-read his book, articles, games, blog etc. I read with sadness his decision to retire from International chess in 90’s, fully believe if he continued playing at that time he will be our FGM. Studied French hoping one fine day i will be able to give him a good fight should we ever met. Never. Happy when he became active again lately.
c)But NO, when it come to my posting, I write what i want to write.I did not follow orders from anyone and i don’t think i have fallen to anyone’s ploy. I know this for sure cause i have been with myself over the last 37 years.
d)I am the master of my article, I am the captain of my blog.

INVICTUS

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

MEETING OF THE CHESS BLOGGERS ( A PARODY)

2011-01-29T15:43:00.000-08:00

Introduction
A few chess bloggers met at Mamak Restaurant discussing about Jasmine Revolution that currently sweeping Middle east.

At the restaurant
Gilachess: Heard that it began in Tunisia due to the destruction of one food stall there. The stall owner later burned himself. See,the power of the food!
FGM: You look but you don’t see. Don’t look at the surface only. Look deeper. Here. Read this. This is actually a battle between a united youngsters against the establishment. Give youngsters a few more weeks, they can topple the establishment!
Chess Ninja: Define ‘youngsters’, define ‘establishment’ . Categorising citizens like this can be extremely divisive...
Jimmy: Let’s vote. Loser needs to shut up!
John Wong: No need that, to clearly understand the problems in Middle East, do read the classic such as Bernard Lewis’ What Went Wrong: Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response or Friedman’s From Beirut to Jerusalem.You need to study these classics to understand Arab’s world. It is not easy to fathom what’s going on if you read only newspaper.
Anonymous: Agreed with John Wong. Those books are great!
FGM: Don’t just give books title. It doesn’t mean you understand anything...and you anon, I am sorry, you need to introduce yourself first before joining the discussion.
Rizal Ahmad Kamal: Ok, ok just to let you know. I have just finished compiling the analysis of what’s going on in the Middle East. You can buy it from me at RM20 each. With nice pictures, it will help you to understand Arab’s world better.
Chess Odyssey: ... or you could also watch arab’s belly dance to understand its culture or listening Arabian song’s like say...Rivers of Babylon from Boney M...
FGM: Watch Arab’s belly dance and listening to Boney M’s Rivers of Babylon to understand Arab !?...who tricked you, chess odyssey?
Gilachess:ok guys got to go now. Need to continue my work. Bye

All bloggers: Bye

Disclaimer
Above is purely a work of fiction,a parody, a satire and it doesn’t mean to hurt or degrade anyone, anyplace, dead or alive. My intention is only for fun. Don’t sue me...i am yet to win that RM28 Million Jackpot!

4 GREATEST UNSOLVED QUESTIONS IN CHESS

2011-01-28T08:49:00.000-08:00

With best play, what will be the result of the game?

Some say the game is draw, like a tic tac toe game. Some say there is a win, a force win. I said who cares...don't ever let the truth get in the way of beautiful, artistic game.

Who is the strongest player ever?
Minus God and computers and aliens, Kasparov and Fischer are two heavy favourites and off course there are the like of Capablanca, Alekhine, Steinitz etc.However, I personally feel that Morphy is the strongest player ever. Ahead of his time, he almost could find no worthy opponent to beat!

What is the best format for World Chess Championship?
Challenger challenge the champion (by putting on the table loads of cash), via strong tournament, via unlimited games (as long as 5 wins), via 24 games, 12 games, 8 games, knockout format...it just keep changing year in year out.
For me, I personally feel the best format is the 80’s candidate/zonal with 24 games final, with no adjournment ofcourse.

When will Malaysia produce its first GM?
Grandmaster trainers (Gufeld, Ziaur Rahman) come and go, local talents come and go but Malaysia still yet able to produce its own chess GM.

Maybe, just maybe I should take this matter into my own hand and tried to get the title myself. Sshhh, here is the plan.

1. Winning that RM28M Jackpot.
2. Go and study chess in Russia, preferably with Kosteniuk or with Tania at India. I promise I will become a very good and obedient student!
3. Actively compete in some obscure GM circuit at some obscure places.
4. Once I got the ultimate title, quickly claimed the hadiah from Datuk Tan and then do a Fischer! Stop playing, get tanah from state government, enjoy the limelight...
5. Maybe after that i should started eyeing myself for that Datukship title.
6. Datuk Grandmaster Nor Ilhamuddin...hmm not bad!

Dream on Ilham you’ll never won that Jackpot to begin with.

OK, Let me tell you this little secret. I have won a lottery myself some 37 years ago. Warren Buffett called it ‘Ovary Lottery’. I manage to beat billions and billions of my fellow sperm for the right to be human. If i could do it then, i could do anything now!

THE SILENCE OF THE ...RATIONALITY

2011-01-25T14:14:00.000-08:00

1. Like Dr Hannibal Lecter in thriller film, The Silence of the Lamb, people have many opinions about Rationality, some believe he* is genius and frank/analytical with his opinions...some of course believe Rationality is crazy blogger that is dangerous to society and should be keep under lock forever.

2. Who is Rationality? A fellow blogger believe he is Najib Wahab, a good friend of mine believe he is Kamal Abdullah, another blogger ( future Stanley Druckenmiller no less) believe he is Jimmy Liew, one generous soul suspects he is residing in Australia... For myself, i am pretty sure Rationality is not Nor Ilhamuddin and very good chances he is not Raymond Siew...ok, a good start there but still that left like 6.5 billion suspects minus 2.

3. Anyway who rationality is, is not important. It is his view that counts. I did not agreed with all his views and did not agree with his choice of words but still find his posting interesting, amusing, witty and well researched. I bet Rationality check and recheck all his postings and i bet most local bloggers wished they could write as well as Rationality and also wished they are not on the opposite side of Rationality's wrath!

4. To the best of my knowledge, he is the first local chess blogger that wrote in anonymous mode. In local political blogs, a very high number of them wrote anonymously (for obvious reasons). In local financial blogs also, a very high number wrote anonymously (Spin some analysis of one counter and immediately that counter move! ). Also notice that Rationality is also the first local chess blogger that disable comment on his posting and among rare few that did put any advertisement. His way of showing your opinion does not count and i did not do this for money. A rare breed indeed.

5. I only got two wishes to Rationality. First, continue writing and second (agreed with chess ninja) enable comment!, A mere opening like/dislike option is not enough!

6. His total silence, in a chaos chessic environment in which he normally excel, has been very deafening.

7. Last but not least, please continue writing Rationality.

*Rationality could also be a she also but ever since he posted that Guy Fawkes mask, lets label Rationality as a he.

REASONS NOT TO PLAY CHESS

2011-01-22T01:14:00.000-08:00

Money is not good
In order to make a decent living from chess, you need to be extremely good, not only GM, not only Super GM but basically you need to be top 20 in the world.

Local tournament wise, to be the best in Malaysia is definitely not good enough. On average, first prize RM400. Let’s compare with say...memancing! (Golf will be overkill) First prize RM20,000! And in GP Joran they even have this Hadiah Utama, a cool RM84,000 in cash for overall winner. Ofcourse,in memancing tournament they start on time.

Torturous Tournament Format
In other sports, tennis dart etc if you are not good, you will lose in the first round and you can go home, you can still bragging to lose to champion and you will never know whether you are the most unskilled player around.

In chess, they have this torturing device called SWISS System and even if you lost, the tournament director will force to keep on playing and playing and playing with your fellow chess clowns. Worst part is, you cannot hide, this SWISS System will show to the whole world (thank you, Internet) with absolute certainty whether you are the most...what word to use here...you are the most ‘need to improve’ player.

Not a popular sport
Ask any hot actress, who she wanted to go out with, a top chess player or a top footballer? Enough said.

Wait a minute, on a brighter side, ask any hot actress who she wanted her daughter’s IQ to be inherite from, a chess player or a boxer? In this area we might have a chance!

Accused to be a spy/smuggler
This happen to me some 20 years ago. I played correspondent chess with Andrew Ooi, Masros Tukiran and few others. I was at boarding school in which all letters will be open by Puan Rosniyah (she is a big fan of Ludlum’s novels). She accussed me of devising a secret plan to smuggle cigarettes inside the school when she opened one of those letters that mentioned

3. Bb5 if 3. ...a6 then my move is 4. Ba4
If 3. ...Bc5 then my move is 4.c3

But still, whatever reasons are, we all love this beautiful game!

JUNIOR VS SENIOR: MY VIEWS

2011-01-13T08:23:00.000-08:00

1. Raymond Siew, a prolific blogger mentioned about idea of a match between Senior team and Junior “for the rights to Olympiad". This idea, according to Raymond, has been put forward by a parent of National Junior durung train ride to S'pore.

2. I am all in the favor for the match between Senior and Junior to take place. It will be a great tournament, full of suspense, predictions, good games etc. I bet it will be even bigger than 2009 Malaysian Master, a tournament in which resulted in 3 local IMs to cover it in their blogs. The publicity will be good for chess, the result will be good in measuring the progress of junior against senior etc.

3. But let’s not put the rights to Olympiad at stakes. If junior wins (which honestly I don’t think it will happen against full strength senior team). Are we going to send a full junior team? Not a good idea…who is going to decide the line up, provide experience/guidance or strategy? This is no MSSM. Not to mention the effect of low ratings to the team, low seeding, low respect from other teams (suddenly every team is extra determine and extra confident to score a win against lowly rated Malaysia).

4. For Olympiad, the best line up in my humble opinion consisted of the mix of Senior and Junior. Ideally 4-2 (4 seniors, 2 juniors) or 3-3 (3 seniors, 3 juniors) though Malaysia is very much capable and always producing 3-2-1 line up (3 seniors, 2 juniors and 1 tourist)

5. While I love to see the match between Junior and Senior to take place, I doubt it will ever happen (unless someone willing to put up some serious money in this match) since there is so much for senior to lose and so little for them (senior) to gain. Say Senior won with the margin of 11-9 (Senior got lucky, junior not feeling well…), or maybe a decisive 16-4 result (Senior only strong against Junior, how come they cannot score the same result against Indonesian Team?) Senior can never win but very real chances of losing. Remind me of a joke about negotiation between America and Russia…when Russian said”what mine is mine, what yours is negotiable”. “what juniors have is juniors to keep, what seniors have is at stake and to be decided”

6. Also the way/scenario this ‘challenge’ is presented.
a. Junior just scored/contributed a lion share in Malaysia’s victory against Singapore.
b. Raymond mentioned via various postings that “the Seniors are no longer fighting”, “senior lost the fire”, “throwing game”etc
c. Hence, the challenge between senior and junior to represent Malaysia at Olympiad.

This type of challenge is not sounds like chess at all. This type of challenge is more suitable to boxing (to demoralize opponent etc) and we all know what happen to boxers after the match…

7. Raymond’s idea of junior chess training is also not realistic. Put top juniors for 3 or 5 days, no trainer required, junior’s combined knowledge will be enough. This idea works for team sport such as football, volleyball etc but for chess ?!...Chess is very much an individual and intellectual game. Knowledge you have is yours alone and not to be shared. Say if junior a discovered a flaw in Mas’ najdorf, or Mok’s modern…I don’t think he will share it with others. The knowledge is his alone. To me chess training among team mate is more to create camaraderie or team spirit, not to share secret or show weaknesses (your team mate today might exploit it tomorrow).

If I am not mistaken Kasparov once required all member of his team to sign an agreement not to reveal the novelties discovered during the training etc. All knowledge is for Kasparov alone. My point is chess training, without trainer will not work. To expect junior players to pool all their knowledge and chess secrets for the benefit of all team members is, realistically, not going to happen.

8. To sum it up. I support this type of match to take place (with no Olympiad place at stake, too hasty to be determined from one match/tourney) but disagree in the way these challenge is being presented.