GO HAMID GO!

A few years back, a fellow Malaysian chess player by the name of MasHafizulhelmi is all out to get that elusive ‘G’ title, Grand Master. We all supported this quest.

Now we have another Malaysian chess player, arbiter, organizer and so on by the name of Hamid Majid is all out to get that even more elusive and exclusive ‘G’ title, General Secretary of Fide that is! We will again supported this quest.

A week ago, shortly after we were being badly whitewashed by GM ZR, we had the opportunity to talk to Hamid Majid about his candidacy, he mentioned:
• Karpov has contacted him and offered him the Sec Gen seat. Hamid did not immediately say yes but instead seek the opinions/blessings of MCF, Dato Tan etc before accepting Karpov’s offer.
• Hamid expressed confident of winning. (You will Hamid especially now the octopus predict a Malaysian win again Singapore-source DATCC Blog)
• Hamid explained that Team Karpov have the backing of several big Multi National Corporations (MNCs) to develop chess programmes/activities. (Hope some of the activities will be at Malaysia)
• He count on support from every Malaysian to ensure the winning (We will support you Hamid, in every little way we can)

I could not say I know Hamid well even though I started to know him way back to early 90’s. All I could say (throughout 20 years observation) he is man of many characters (depend on the environments and audience)

He could be very funny, cracking jokes after jokes.

He could also be very strict, he once gave a future Woman World Champion and her opponent zero for agreeing a draw without making a single move. Early this year I saw Hamid tearing a scoresheet of two players who agreed a short draw.

He could also be a good listener. In my earlier posting I ‘criticized’ Hamid’s decision in one of local blitz event. Shortly after that he called me and said he read my posting …( and that time I was like, ok, I was about to get thrashing from International Arbiter, help!) and asked me to explain what’s going on during the game, I duly explained bla, bla, bla he just nodded his head and occasionally asked me to clarified further. And that’s it! No I-am-right-you-are wrong attitude, no pulling his weight, no nothing! Just a simple nodded and desire to know about my ‘version’of the event.

Most of the time, he is easy going and open minded type of guy.

No, I will not gain anything personally should Hamid win (and he will win, no doubt about that) but Malaysian chess in general will surely benefits out of his win.

This posting is not about 'bodek' Hamid (bodek!? ok maybe a bit) but more on supporting another fellow Malaysian chess citizen in his time of needs.

Go Hamid Go!

SIMULTANEOUS GAME AGAINST GM ZIAUR RAHMAN

Preparation
After I discovered that GM Ziaur played nearly all openings against e4. (he even once played 1...b6 and get away with it) I stop studying chess and continued reading Wayne Rooney:My story so far.

Before
Arrive at DATCC at about 7.40 pm. There are usual face all around, Siraj, Hamid, Samsudin Sabri, Aziz, Saprin, Farouqi and ofcourse GM Rahman together with his wife and son. Haq and Roslina are also here, busy playing chess with GM's son. Razali Ng6 came about five minute late due to office meeting that he attended earlier on.


Table order

1. Ilham
2. Samsudin
3. Saprin
4. Aziz
5. Farouqi

I refused to be at table one since in my humble opinion Saprin is the one who should manning table 1 but Siraj insist that i sit on table one. Well, we all know how persuasive Siraj is ! :)

The Game

W: Nor Ilhamuddin

B:GM Ziaur Rahman

1. e4 g6

Modern Defence. I expect Sicilian 2...e6, Nc6 or perhaps French. 2 things that immediately cross my mind is Mok Tze Meng (white) once beat GM Rahman in this defence and Andrew (black) once thrashed me in this setup.

2. d4 Bg7

3.Nc3 c6

4.f4 Qb6

5.Nf3 d5

A sharp line in which black sacrifice a pawn for active play.

6.ed5

6. e5 is better (GM Rahman said after the game)

6. ... Bg4

7.Be2 Nf6

8.0-0 cd5

9.Ne5 Be2

10.Qe2

Sacrificing a pawn that black could be taken with a check. Anyway, the d4 pawn is taboo 10. ...Qd4 11. Be3 Qb4 12. Nb5 with lots of initiative for white.

10. ... 0-0

11.Qd3 Nc6

12.Nc6 Qc6

13.f5 Rac8

14.fg6 hg6

15.Bg5 Rfe8

16.Rae1 Qd7

17.Re2 Nh7

18.Bf4 a6

19.Be5 Nf6

20.Ref2

Here Aqie whispered that the team rely on me to deliver the point.

20. ... b5

21.a3 Rc4

22.Nd1 Rf8

23.Re2 Nh5

24.Bg7 Ng7

25.Ne3 Rc6

Around here it is one to one match for us and GM duly take a seat in front of me.

26.Rf4 Nh5

27.Rh4 Nf6

28.c3 Re6

29.Nf5?

Mamak trick. Hoping for 29. ... gf5? 30.Qf5! with force mate in 14. The 'reverse gear' 29.Nf1 is necessary here. I am now got about 30 seconds left.

29. ... Re2

30.Nh6 Kg7

31.Qe2 Rh8

32.Qe3 Qf6

33.Qd2 Ne4

34.Qe3 Qf6 ??

35.g3 ??

Returning the favour. 35.Rf4! is winning for white which i saw only when i have already touch my g pawn.

35. ... Ng5

36.Kg2 Rh6

37.Rh6 Kh6

38. h4

I no longer recording the move. The game entered a queen ending with a plus pawn for black. I tried to open up the game (and hoping for perpetual check) but to no avail. later i lost on time in a losing position though black still needs to play very carefully to avoid the perpetual check.

After
We lost 0-5

Last but not least, thanks to Siraj for the invitation, GM Rahman for kind analysis after the game, to my team mate plus Mr Razali ofcourse.

NIGEL DAVIES ANALYSE JIMMY LIEW'S WIN!

Nigel Davies, surprisingly said in Chesscafe.com article ( http://www.chesscafe.com/text/davies24.pdf )that

• he write his books for money
• "none of my books are a labour of love"
• he can't stop writing because of his mortgage obligation. (sounds familiar here ;-))
• constraint he faced due to page limitation agreement with publishers, etc

He conclude that article by analysing Jimmy Liew's win against Torre in 1986 by stating "...a nice win by the Veresov by some one who didn't read my book (it hadn't been published). Jimmy Liew uses a homemade treatment of the opening, going his own way on move five. Later, he shuffles and unleashes a fierce attack"

Davies must be very down then when he wrote the article. Who didn't when one of the comments for his Guenfeld book is "Nigel Davies: Please! Stop writing opening books!..." Anyway he is brave enough to reveal all this.

Anyway, here is that game and kindly go to the original article to enjoy Davies' annotation.

I especially likes Jimmy's 23rd move f5!! sacrificing the whole knight. My engine initially condemn that move but after the continuation 24.f6! (which engine could not find), the machine agreed that white is better. A victory of intuition against calculation!

But still after all that "confessions" at the end of his article, he recommend reader to read his Veresov book (The Veresov by Nigel Davies, Everyman 2004)

MALAYSIAN IN CHESS BOOKS

Few years back when i went for a seminar in Chennai, India, I discovered that books there (chess books especially) is not only cheap, it is dirt cheap! Chess books there got dwi pricing e.g. Modern Endgame Practice by Alexander Beliavsky & Adrian Mikhalchisin, the price is GBP14.99/Rs 175.

Here is the conversion (MYR equivalent in today's rate)

GBP14.99 x 4.8 = RM71.95

Rs175 x 7.2 = RM12.60 ...RM12.60 for a chess book!

I ended up buying like half a dozen chess books there, and paid in Rupees ofcourse, thank you very much! :-)

Modern Endgame Practice

What interesting about this book (other than its cheap price) is on Chapter 18 Endgames in Super Tournament, author has include MasHafizul wins against Hernandez

W:MasHafizul

B:Hernandez

60. ... Ra1?

61. Ke7 a4?

62. Rg3 Kh7

63. e6 a3

64. Rd3! a2

65. Rd2! Kg6

66. Kd7 Kf6

67. e7 Re1

68. Rf2 Kg7

69. Ra2 Rd1

70. Ke8 Kf6

71. Kf8 Rh1

72. Ra6

1-0

On below book (No, this book i did not buy at Chennai) also mentioned about Malaysian player.

Chess:The Search for Mona Lisa

There got that famous simultaneous game in which Gufeld sacrifice his queen against Goh Yoon Wah and about that beautiful chess problems (Mok Tze Meng received the mysterious call) in which Gufeld believed is the proof that chess has been created by alien.

Well, you are right about that Gufeld, Kirsan can verified it!

MALAYSIA WOMAN IN OLYMPIAD (DUBAI 1986)

Dubai 1986. Their male counterpart basking in limelight with the finest performance ever in Olympiad. So how did our ladies performance here?

Here's how.

Malaysian woman team, according to board order (and their performance) is as below:

1. Seto Wai Ling 6/12 P=1909
2. Ong Y.M. 2.5/8 P=1797
3. Ong Hwa Liu 3/9 P=1779
4. Vimalavathy 6.5/10 P=2014

Vimalathy continued to shine in her second Olympiad outing.

Top 5 Olympiad winners and our neighbour performance is as below:

1. Soviet Union (Chiburdanidze, Akhmilovskaya, Gaprindashvili, Alexandria)
2. Hungary (Zsuzsa, Madl, Ivanka, Grosch)
3. Romania (Muresan, Nutu, Polihroniade, Stanciu-Olarasu)
4. China (Shilan, Mingqian, Yangfeng, Tianjian)
5. Yugoslavia (Markovic, Maric, Maksimovic, Nikolin)

25. Indonesia (Lindri, Tamin Darmayanti, Upi tamin, Wijaya Nanik)

30 The Philippines (Fontanilla, Geneciran, Lee, Llantada)

40 Malaysia

Let's take a look at below miniature game by best performer Malaysian player.

I like her 11.g4 move (which my engine also recommend), creating a very violent attack out of calm water.

Next stop, 1988 Thessaloniki Olympiad (men)

SELANGOR OPEN EFFECT TO FIDE RATING

When we (Zaidan, Ng6 and myself) went back to DATCC after our blitz session at Hamid's, in which Zaidan keep on beating us, i asked him whether he took part in any tourneys at Ireland.

He mentioned that there is not many FIDE tournaments at Ireland, most of the time he played at Club. Then he mentioned about my FIDE rating (2040) and how i lost quite a lot of ratings in Selangor Open.

Silently I like Wow!, never know someone memorized my rating! and know about my performance!

Quickly I went to Fide website and discovered the following:

Zaidan had gain 41.25 over the last two months and stood to be at 2039 when July 2010 list come out. He achieved this when he took part in Irish National Club Championship at Dublin. 2039...2040...Aha! :-)

I also discovered that Selangor Open's result has been submitted (and many others that yet to be submitted...) to FIDE resulting in following ELO effect:

Top 10 seeded performance

1. Nicholas Chan -0.8
2. Jimmy Liew -3.9
3. Ian Udani -15.15
4. Loo Swee Leong -9.3
5. Kamal Ariffin 25.5
6. Nik Farouqi -17.25
7. Kamaluddin Yusof -25.95
8. Abdullah Che Hassan -12
9. Gerald Soh -21.3
10. Khair Wahiduddin 8

Top 10 ELO Gainer

1. Syazwan Zulkifli 63.25
2. Fong Yit San 62.5
3. Muhammad Syakir Shazmeer 44.25
4. Fadzil Nayan 34.5
5. Tan Ken Wei 27.5
6. Kamal Ariffin 25.5
7. Yeoh Li Tian 24.45
8. Nabila Azman Hisham 12.75
9. Ismail Ahmad 10.35
10. Khair 8

TOP 10 ELO Loser

1. Nor Ilhamuddin 33.15
2. Mark Siew 29.4
3. Kamaluddin Yusoff 25.95
4. Gerald Soh 21.3
5. Sahir Sarifdin 18.75
6. Jax Tham 17.55
7. Nik Farouqi 17.25
8. Low Jun Keat 15.5
9. Ian Udani 15.15
10. Haq 9.15

FACING GM ZIAUR RAHMAN (PART 2)

Arrived at DATCC at about 5 minutes lates. As usual for KLites, I immediately blame it on the weather and traffic jam.

The Line Up
1.ILHAM
2.AZIZ
3.RUSDI
4.RAZALI
5.SIRAJ

The Time Control
GMZR got one hour while we got 30 minutes with 10 seconds increment per move for both players.

The Game
W:GMZR
B:Nor Ilhamuddin

1. e4

GMZR was about to reach for his d pawn, suddenly he stopped and after a few seconds (that seems like eternity to me) reaching for his e pawn. Yes! Open game!
Later after the game he mentioned that he do not want to play 1.d4 since he afraid that i might prepared something (in our first encounter 2 months before he opened with 1.d4)

Wow! a GM afraid of my 'preparation!' :-) Not everyday this happen to me!

1. ... e5
2. Nf3 Nc6
3. Bb5 a6
4. Ba4 Nf6
5. d3 b5
6. Bb3 Be7
7.a4 Rb8

Not a good move. Ivanchuk played 7. ... b4 against Aronian a few years back. Game draw.

8.ab5 ab5
9.Nc3 d6
10.Nd5 Nd5
11.ed5 Nb4

Around here we are being served with Teh Tarik halia. Thank you very much!

12. Qa4 d5
13.c4 Ra8
14.0-0 Ra1
15. Qa1 Nd3
16. Rd1 e4

A pawn up in better position!

17. Nd4 bc4
18. Bc4 0-0
19. Nc6 Bc6
20.dc6 Nb4
21. Qa4 d5
22. g3 Qa8 ?

Time trouble. Around here already left with 10 seconds.

23. Qa8 Ra8
24. Bd5 Nd5
25.Rd5 Bd6
26. Bf4 Bf4
27.gf4 g6
28.b4 Ra1
29.Kg2 Rb1
30. b5 Rb2
31.Kf1 h5
32.h4 Kf8
33. f5 Ke7
34. fg6 fg6
35.Rg5 Kf6


We played on and on, GMZR is always the one who tried to win while i am always defending. After sometimes Aziz, my neighbour resigned so that leave me alone battling it out with GMZR. I was thinking of offering him a draw but since i got 10 seconds whereas he got 50 minutes, furthermore i remember once Kasparov scolded his simultaneous opponent for want of a draw, i rejected that idea. I don't want to be the first being scolded by GMZR for want of a draw in simultaneous match!

Finally after manouevring right and left, up and down, he penetrate my position via Rg3-a3-a7. I resigned a few moves later.

The Analysis
After the game, Rusdi said i missed a win. What? you must be kidding! Rusdi then proceed to set up below position.



White has just played Rg3-a3, threatening Ra7-c7 winning. I played Kg4?losing. Rusdi pointed out that Rf2 should be winning for black.

But back home, i feed this position to engine and the verdict is draw.
The drawing line is as below:
1. ... Rf2
2.Ra7 e3
3.Rc7 Ke6
4.Rc8 Ke7
5.Rc7 draw

There goes my 'missed win'. :(

Below is the game in chess player format. I stopped writing on move 30 something since i was down like 5 seconds.

I would rather die fighting than die writing!



The Result
We lost 0-5. I am not really sure what happen at other board but i know Razali intend to post all game at his website. Right, Li?

The Thank
Thank you for Nusa Mahkota (for inviting me to play for the team) and Mr Siraj (which i suspect is the guy behind all this great idea) and GMZR for friendly advice after the game and others that i may not mentioned here.