It’s All In The Planning!

From Thursday’s edition of The Straits Times, it’s reported that researchers in Singapore have confirmed that taking the illegal sex-enhancement drug Power 1 Walnut can cause severe brain damage, after studying the brains of eight men who took it.Scientists from the National Neuroscience Institute (NNI) used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to find lesions and plaque build-up in parts of the eight men’s brains that control short-term memory and the part that links the right brain to the left.

The damages were caused by severe low blood sugar, a result of the illegal drug that had been contaminated by glibenclamide, which is used to treat high sugar in diabetic patients, the paper said. Severe low blood sugar can lead to coma and death, if left untreated.

Of the eight patients in the study, seven were found to have damages in the forebrain that controls short-term memory and spatial navigation and three had unusual damage in one side of the brain.

The findings is published in this month’s Radiology, a peer review journal and represents one of the largest series of hypoglycaemic brain damage in the world. Hypoglycaemic brain damage or brain damage resulting from severely low blood sugar is a rare condition.

Power 1 Walnut and other similar illegal sex enhancement pills have already killed 10 men in Singapore, aged between 35 and 84, in the past seven months.They were comatose when they died from complications such as infections and major organ failure.

I DON’T know which is the greater frustration, the inability to get a fast connection to the official website of the Dresden chess Olympiad or learning that our Malaysian team had not much success against the better teams at this event.

As I was writing this week’s story, five rounds of the chess Olympiad have passed by. It was almost reaching the halfway stage of the event with only six more rounds to play.

In these five rounds, the Malaysian team – comprising Mas Hafizulhelmi, Lim Yee Weng, Mok Tze Meng, Jimmy Liew and Edward Lee – won three matches and lost two. Some of you may think that, hey, that’s not too bad a result.

Of course, if you look at it this way, we’re still in plus territory: scoring a 3½-½ result against lowly Libya in the first round, a 2½-1½ result against Jersey in the second round and another 2½-1½ result in the fifth round against the Dominican Republic. These teams were seeded below the Malaysians.

However, the crunch matches were Germany One in the third round and Slovakia in the fourth. These were two highly rated teams, especially Germany One (their first team in the event) and I was hoping that we could get reasonable scores.

Unfortunately, our team was over-run. In both matches, our team went down by similar ½-3½ scores. I know that our players tried their hardest against them but their players showed ours the difference between a grandmaster-class player and an international or Fide master.

A world of a difference, in fact. They saw deeper than our players, they played faster, and it didn’t take them long to counter our players’ strategies and tactics.

So it was very frustrating to see our players lose. The only silver lining in these two matches was that Germany One and Slovakia could not take the full points from our side. Thank goodness for Yee Weng’s solid play that earned us the two draws. He had the better game against his German grandmaster opponent and missed an opportunity to gain a big advantage – possibly a win, even – when the game was agreed drawn. Here is the game:

White: Lim Yee Weng
Black: Jan Gustafsson

1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 Nf6 3. d3 Bc5 4. Nc3 c6 5. Nf3 d6 6. h3 Nbd7 7. O-O Bb6 8. a4 h6 9. d4 O-O 10. Re1 Re8 11. dxe5 dxe5 12. Nh4 Nf8 13. Qf3 Ne6 14. Ne2 Ng5 15. Bxg5 hxg5 16. Red1 Qe7 17. Nf5 Bxf5 18. Qxf5 Rad8 19. Ng3 Rxd1+ 20. Rxd1 Rd8 21. Rd3 Rxd3 22. cxd3 Nd7 23. Qg4 Nf8 24. Nf5 Qf6 25. Qf3 Kh7 26. Qh5+ Kg8 (see diagram) 27. Qf3 Kh7 28. Qh5+ Kg8 (½-½)

Instead of 27. Qf3, White could have played 27. Qxf7+. Black is then forced to exchange queens with 27. … Qxf7 28. Ne7+ Kh7 29. Bxf7 and White will emerge with an extra pawn and command of the white and black squares. Also, Black would be hard-pressed to defend all his pawn weaknesses, especially with White’s immediate threat of 30. Nd6.

It’s to be noted that after 27. Qxf7+, Black cannot play 27. … Kh8 because of 28. Qg8 mate. Neither is 27. … Kh7 an option because of 28. Qh5+ Qh6 (forced) 29. Nxh6 gxh6 30. Qf7+ with checkmate to follow.

I greatly suspect that Gustafsson did see 27. Qxf7+ and the consequences that would follow, and so he offered Yee Weng the draw which was accepted almost immediately to the German’s relief.

Nobody could fault Yee Weng for accepting the draw as he could see around him that Jimmy had already resigned his game and both Mas Hafizul and Mok were losing but with the draw offer already been made, if our player had taken more time to study the position it would be likely that he would have rejected it.

But uppermost on his mind was to grab the draw and prevent the team from being whitewashed by the Germans. I would like to confirm it with him when he gets home. A player’s innermost thoughts can be a very valuable lesson.

Maybe this is just one instance of the gulf that separates a grandmaster from a Fide master. The rating difference between Gustafsson and Yee Weng was almost 240 points. At the end of the game, the grandmaster may have noticed the danger quicker and faster but for most of the game, the grandmaster looked rather ordinary.

According to the official website of the chess Olympiad, all the games in each round can be viewed live at http://schachlive.dresden2008.de/live.team.games.m.eng.html but even on a non-playing day like last Tuesday, the site can be agonisingly slow and you will need a lot of patience.

Alternatively, if you are just interested in the results, http://chess-results.info will be your best bet for the information.

From the Hongkong Standard yesterday (14 Nov 2008):

The lawyer of Feng Shui master Tony Chan Chun-chuen spoke of the intimate relations between Chan and late Chinachem Group chairwoman Nina Wang Kung Yu-sum this morning outside the High Court.

“They knew each other affectionately for some 14 to 15 years, Nina Wang would have been very upset to have this very private matter between her and Mr Chan read in public. It’s never Mr Chan’s intention to have this very private relationship read in public,” Chan’s lawyer Jonathan Midgley said.

Chinachem Charitable Foundation Limited and Chan agreed the will Wang made in 2006 will be sent to the United Kingdom for experts to verify its authenticity.

The trial is scheduled to begin on April 27, 2009.

International chess events continue to come at us fast and furious.

WHO says chess moves along at a slow pace? No sooner did the world chess championship end than another event has started. This time, it is the biennial Chess Olympiad.

This year’s Olympiad is being played in Dresden, Germany. The second round is being played today. The 11-round event started yesterday and will go on until Nov 25.

The Malaysian Chess Federation has not submitted any team for the women’s Chess Olympiad but we have a men’s team participating in the open Olympiad (previously called the men’s Chess Olympiad).

Two of our international masters are on the Malaysian team: Mas Hafizulhelmi and Jimmy Liew. the most senior of our five players.

The “baby” in the team is Edward Lee, this year’s national champion. This trip may be his reward for coming out tops in the national closed championship but I hope he acquits himself well in Dresden. He’ll be the reserve player though, so most of the responsibilities will fall on the shoulders of the others.

This will be a good opportunity for Mas Hafizulhelmi to continue his search for a grandmaster title norm. Dresden will also provide good opportunities for Mok Tze Meng and Lim Yee Weng to go after their international master title norms, too. If the team line-up is based on the players’ international ratings, which is usually the case, then Liew will be playing on the fourth board. This man has an immense playing experience and even though he may not be playing as strongly as before, he should still be the stabilising force in the team.

So how do you think our team will fare this year? First, we have to set our expectations straight. We are by no means a top seeded team. Indeed, based on the team seedings, we just made it into the top half of the table. This year, with 156 participating teams, we are seeded 74th. So if our team plays according to the expectation, they shall be expected to finish somewhere between 70th and 80th positions. I would say anything above 70th position will be a big bonus to the players.

Curiously, the Malaysian team is seeded higher than the Singaporean team in this Chess Olympiad. According to the official statistics, we are seeded 74th because the average rating of the Malaysian players is 2362. The Singapore team is at 2346 and seeded four rungs below.

But don’t pay too much attention to the seeding. What will matter are the performances and ultimately, how the teams sort themselves out after the final round.

It’s very early days at the Chess Olympiad. No results to report yet but there are a few interesting statistics. First, there are 152 countries registered for the Chess Olympiad, seven more than in Turin two years ago. Second, the open Olympiad has 156 teams and the women’s Olympiad, 119 teams. Third, this translates to more than 1,300 players and the number does not include the officials and delegates who are in Dresden for the other chess activities.

In both the open and women’s Olympiads, Russia remains the top seed and the firm favourite to win again. Other countries to watch include the Ukraine, China, Azerbaijan, Hungary, Bulgaria, France, Israel, Armenia, the United States and India.

The official website is Dresdon2008.com and results can be viewed from chess-results.info. Take note: the sites are slow and you’ll need lots of patience.

KL open

We are exactly a month away from the start of the Kuala Lumpur open chess tournament. The Kuala Lumpur Chess Association is pulling out all the stops to turn it into a huge success, with a prize fund of RM45,000.

From this, RM10,000 shall go to the winner of the main event in the KL open. Second prize is RM5,000 and the third prize, RM3,000. Even the 20th prize is worth RM500 to the lucky winner.

But there’s more. There are also a Challengers event, a visually impaired tournament and a separate blitz tournament with many prizes to be won. Each winner will go home with RM1,000.

With such prizes at stake, perhaps it’s only logical that the organisers, the KLCA and Masterskill University College Of Health Sciences, will want to make this into a titled Fide event with opportunities to earn title norms.

Of course, this type of opportunity does not come cheap. Unless you are a grandmaster, international master, woman grandmaster, woman international master or a player with a rating higher than 2400 (they play for free), the entry fee can be quite substantial. But the good news is that Malaysians are given great discounts and you’ll be getting a good playing experience in the process.

For instance, players rated 2000 to 2199 will be charged US$100 but Malaysians pay RM200 only, while players rated 2200 to 2299 are charged US$75 but it’ll only be RM150 for Malaysians. Finally, the rate for Fide masters, woman Fide masters and players rated 2300 to 2399 is US$50 and cost Malaysians only RM100.

The entry fee for the Challengers and Blitz tournaments is RM50, while there is no fee for any visually impaired player taking part.

Nine rounds are scheduled between Dec 15 and Dec 21, and time control shall be 90 minutes for a game with 30-second increments for every move played. For details, contact Peter Long (% 013-392 0920, email: peter@aseanchess.com).

This is the new home for the Penang branch of Rockwills Corporation Sdn Bhd, located just a stone’s throw from the Queensbay Mall. Wisma Rockwills Penang was declared open by Dato Seri Goh Eng Toon on 10 Nov 2008. Present at the occasion were Johari Low and Saw Leong Aun.

Some updates here regarding the legal battle over the inheritance of Nina Wang’s billion-dollar estate:

According to reports from Hong Kong, it has been suggested that she had signed over her vast fortune to a feng shui master after he promised her eternal life.

At Monday’s hearing in Hong Kong’s High Court, barrister Geoffrey Vos accused Tony Chan of using his influence to deceive Wang into leaving him her fortune. “We say (Tony Chan) lied to the deceased by telling her that performing certain feng shui practices - including putting his name in her will - would ensure that she would live forever, or at least a very long time.”

Justice Johnson Lam, hearing the case, said he would not have his court turned into a “court of feng shui”, but Vos assured the judge that any feng shui references would be aimed at showing whether Chan’s advice was legitimate or merely an attempt to gain control of Wang’s money. An eight-week hearing is expected to start after Easter next year.

In return, Chan’s barrister accused the family company Chinachem of withholding medical evidence that would shed light on Wang’s state of mind before she died. Also at issue is whether a lawyer and a senior Chinachem executive had each signed a copy of a will that Chan claimed gave him legal title to her estate.

Nina Wang Kung Yu-Sum, formerly Asia’s richest woman, died of cancer in April last year and the existence of two conflicting wills is complicating the inheritance of her estate estimated at more than $12 billion.Tony Chan, a businessman and feng shui enthusiast, claims to be the sole beneficiary of Wang’s estate based on her last will, drafted in 2006 as she lay dying. But Wang’s family lays claim to an earlier 2002 will which would share her fortune between charities and family members.

With no children of her own, Wang wrote a new will in 2006, two years after her ovarian cancer was diagnosed, making 48-year-old Chan her sole beneficiary. She died shortly after winning an eight-year legal battle over the fortune of her husband, Teddy, which she inherited after he was kidnapped in 1990 and later declared dead when no trace of him was ever found. She had built his company, Chinachem, into a multi-billion-dollar business empire but initially lost a probate battle with her elderly father-in-law.

In a 2002 hearing, the High Court heard claims that Nina Wang had an affair in the 1960s that led Teddy to write her out of his will, though they remained married. Appeals court judges initially ruled she had probably forged the will of her late husband and, after the ruling, police charged Nina Wang with forgery.

The charges were dropped later after Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal overturned the probate decision and ruled there was no evidence to support the claim that Wang had forged the will. Despite her enormous wealth, Wang, who had her hair in pigtails and wore mini-skirts well into her 60s, was notoriously frugal, once claiming she needed only around $400 a month to live.

A draw in the 11th game at the world championships last Wednesday was enough for Viswanathan Anand to retain his title.

SO IT came to pass that Viswanathan Anand did not require a 12th game to retain his world chess championship crown. After the loss in the 10th game, both he and Vladimir Kramnik played just one more to end the match.

  Indian chess world champion Viswanathan Anand.

Though this game was drawn, it was not without some exciting skirmishes. For the first and only time in the match, Anand deviated from the d4 opening and played his usual e4 game.

However, Kramnik was ready with his reply, a rare choice of the Sicilian Defence which soon developed into the Richter Rauzer line of a Najdorf variation. The Richter Rauzer can lead to some of the most violent games of chess, with both players jostling for the initiative, the attack and the counter-attack.

This game was no different. By the 13th move, followers of the game were already on the edge of their seats. Nine moves later, the queens were forced off the board.

Another two moves, Kramnik stretched out his hand to offer a draw and then began shaking Anand’s hand profusely. I couldn’t be more impressed by the sincerity of his action.

Last week, I was writing about how Anand could be coping with the psychological pressures at the half-way stage of the match. If you were him, what would you do when you have taken a commanding three-point lead?

Coast to victory with easy draws? Fight for more wins? Would his opponent throw caution to the wind and start taking risks in his games? How would he then react if he were to lose a game?

In a post-match interview with the Indian newspaper DNA, Anand’s wife Aruna revealed the extent of the psychological pressure and preparations.

“After he lost his 10th game I went back stage and Anand looked very calm. The only thing he said was that he should nail (the match) in the next game. The team (Anand’s team) also just decided to forget the game. They had expected one game at least where Kramnik would get in his novelty and the move Re1 was very difficult to solve on the board.”

So the loss of one game was anticipated by Anand’s team. They were prepared for it psychologically but they just couldn’t predict when it would happen.

In a separate interview with the same newspaper, Anand admitted that the loss drained him and the waiting period between this loss and the next game drained him.

“The last three days have been very intense. I could have finished the game three days earlier. In fact, the last half point took me as much effort as the first six points. I had to think of the defeat one whole day. It was a slow boil. It was a huge relief when Kramnik offered me the draw today.”

That’s the mind of Anand the chess player for you. This week, I’m taking a look at the final game of the match.

White: Viswanathan Anand (2783)
Black: Vladimir Kramnik (2772)

1. e4 c5

This was one of the few surprises of the match: Kramnik’s response to the e4 opening. Would he use his normal, solid Petroff Defence? If he did, I think a win in the game would be even further away. So seeing him choose the Sicilian meant that he was ready to fight and risk all in this game.

2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bg5 e6 7. f4 Qc7 8. Bxf6 gxf6 9. f5 Qc5 10. Qd3 Nc6 11. Nb3

Up to this point, it seems that there’s still nothing new. Those commentators who could rely on chess databases said that there was a documented game in this line as long ago as 1982. But were the players on stage aware of it? Anyway, Kramnik made the first deviation.

11. … Qe5 12. 0-0-0 exf5

An anti-positional move which wins Black a pawn but breaks up his pawn formation. It’s double-edged because there are holes and outposts in his position and he still hasn’t castled his king to safety. Indeed, where can Black castle? Queen-side is debatable and king-side looks difficult too. Maybe, Black made the best choice to delay castling and keep the king in the centre for the moment.

13. Qe3

I like this move. White could have chosen many others but he chose this. The queen steps aside and clears the path for the rook, bishop and knight.

13. … Bg7 14. Rd5 Qe7 15. Qg3 Rg8 16. Qf4 fxe4 17. Nxe4 f5 18. Nxd6+ Kf8 19. Nxc8 Rxc8 20. Kb1 Qe1+ 21. Nc1 Ne7 22. Qd2

White didn’t have to play this. In fact, 22. Qd6 is stronger but it’s understandable that White wants to exchange off the queens. Anand was looking at the dynamics of the whole match and not just a single game. A draw would have suited him fine. No need to go all out for a win when a draw could achieve the same results, that is, keeping the chess crown.

22. … Qxd2 23. Rxd2 Bh6 24. Rf2 Be3 (½-½)

And that’s it. The game has ended and with it, so has the match.

It’s been reported in the papers today that Hong Leong Bank has been holding a nationwide roadshow since end of last month to brief their customers about the impact of the global financial crisis on their daily lives.

Vigilance is the new name of the game and the bank is reminding both their customers and staff members on the need to be pro-active and how to deal with the tight economic situation.

“We have also stepped up programmes to address the disruptions in business or personal finance,” the bank’s group managing director Yvonne Chia said in a statement. “Businesses must be vigilant of the changes in the financial market as well as the risks faced in both domestic and international trade flows.”

I haven’t been writing about Power 1 Walnut in the past few months because there’s hardly any development reported around the world, so this latest report from Singapore comes in very handy.

According to Channel News Asia, another six men have died in Singapore in the last five months because of illegal sex drugs. The death toll in the country this year is now 10 with the oldest being an 84-year-old man.

Power 1 Walnut is just one of many such illegal sex drugs that can be bought under the counter. Others that are available include fake Cialis, Santi Niubian (or Santi Bovine Penis Erecting Capsule) and Zhonghua Niubian, and they all contain dangerous levels of the drug glibenclamide, which is used to treat patients with diabetes. Consuming the fatal drugs can lead to developing hypoglycaemia or low blood sugar, which in turn can result in serious reactions such as seizures and coma.

In the last 10 months, Singapore’s Health Sciences Authority (HSA) seized over 500,000 units of illegal pills with an estimated street value of S$1 million. To date, the HSA has received 209 reported cases of severe reactions to the drugs. Out of these, 61 were confirmed cases and 148 suspected cases.

HSA pharmacovigilance branch director Chan Cheng Leng said: “Patients come in with fits and seizures. Some of them lose consciousness and many of them die. For those who live, they have permanent neurological impairment. They can’t communicate with their family members and they can’t feed themselves.”

Vladimir Kramnik scores his first win of the world chess championship in the 10th game against Viswanathan Anand.

WHEN I was writing this story a few days back, I was hoping for a decision in Bonn, Germany, where Viswanathan Anand and Kramnik were playing this year’s match.

Not that I was rooting for Anand to win or for Kramnik to lose. But all I wanted was a decisive result so that I don’t have to wait another week when the excitement over the match had waned.

No such luck. The 10th game on Monday was won by Kramnik and he lived to fight at least another round. Despite losing this game, Anand was still leading the Russian by a two-point margin – a 6-4 result which was just half-point short of being declared the winner.

By original standards, a 12-game match is rather short. When the World Chess Federation took over the running of the world chess championship after World War II, the standard 24-game format was adopted in 1951 when Mikhail Botvinnik made the first defence of his title against David Bronstein.

However, this 24-game sequence ended in 1978 when Anatoly Karpov played Viktor Korchnoi. The first person to win six games would be the winner and the match stretched to 32 games. The height of this absurdity was in 1984 when Karpov and Gary Kasparov played 48 games without the former being able to score the last, decisive sixth victory. The match was then declared abandoned.

So you see, a 12-game match is nothing when compared to the excesses of the past. But it doesn’t mean that a shorter match would take less toll on the players. On the contrary, I would believe that the pressure and the mental toll would be just as great.

Can you imagine, at the half-way stage of this match, Anand was holding a very commanding lead with three wins and three draws. Kramnik was really reeling in a very desperate position.

If you are Anand, what would you do in such a commanding position? And if you are Kramnik, what would you do in such dire straits? It’s impossible to know for sure the players’ innermost thoughts but I can tell you that they can never be easy. Not even for Anand.

You know why? Despite the commanding three-point lead, he would be faced with some critical decisions to make. Even insecurity. How to continue the second half of the match? Coast to victory with easy draws? Fight for more wins? What would his opponent do with his back to the wall? Would he throw caution to the win and start risking his games? Multitudes of questions and no easy answer.

Even for Kramnik, there would be questions. For him, he would also have to keep his emotions under wraps. A crisis in confidence. A psychological disadvantage. Why was it that he could do nothing right? How to play against someone who is on the verge of winning the match?

Kramnik hunkered down and decided that the best defence was to come out fighting. The next three games were drawn. Maybe this gave his confidence a boost too because it slowed down Anand. Perhaps the emotional and mental strain on the Indian was greater than on the Russian. There was no killer blow. Anand could not land any killer blow and for the first time in the match, in the ninth game, Kramnik actually enjoyed more chances in the game.

Then came the 10th game. Anand misplayed and misjudged, and it was a swift punishment for him. Kramnik had scored his first win of the match. Here it is:

White: Vladimir Kramnik (2772)

Black: Viswanathan Anand (2783)

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. Nf3 c5 5. g3 cxd4 6. Nxd4 O-O 7. Bg2 d5 8. cxd5 Nxd5 9. Qb3 Qa5 10. Bd2 Nc6 11. Nxc6 bxc6 12. O-O Bxc3 13. bxc3 Ba6 14. Rfd1 Qc5 15. e4 Bc4 16. Qa4 Nb6 17. Qb4 Qh5 18. Re1

This is supposed to be the novelty move in this game. What this means is that it’s a new move that’s never been played before in professional chess. Can you imagine that all this while, for the first 17 moves, both players were still playing a theoretical line that has been analysed and re-analysed through the years and only on the 18th move did something new pop up? That is the depth of preparation of players today. Previously, only 18. Bf4 and 18. Be3 had ever been played.

The idea behind 18. Re1 is to prevent Black from playing …Be2 and then …Bf3 to exchange off the bishops. Deep move? Perhaps, because it set off a very long think from Anand. For the first time in the match, Anand was starting to feel uncomfortable.

18. … c5 19. Qa5 Rfc8 20. Be3 Be2

When I was watching this game on the Internet Chess Server, someone commented that Black was still intent on the manoeuvre to exchange off the black-squared bishops but there was also an additional possibility of …Nc4.

21. Bf4 (see diagram) e5 22. Be3

What was the reason for White’s bishop to move from e3 to f4 and then back again to e3? There must be a purpose but after the game, all that Kramnik would say was that the position was difficult to understand, even for top players.

22. … Bg4

Kramnik claimed this to be a mistake because it took Black’s bishop away from the white squares on the queenside. He could now begin to mobilise his a-pawn and once this pawn started rolling, Black’s knight would be in trouble.

23. Qa6 f6 24. a4 Qf7 25. Bf1 Be6 26. Rab1 c4 27. a5

This dislodges the knight and it enables White’s rook to penetrate deep into Black’s position. The position looked bad for Anand already. There was nothing much he could do. With each move, Kramnik was stamping more of his authority over the whole game.

27. … Na4 28. Rb7 Qe8 29. Qd6 (1-0)

Anand resigned at this stage. Kramnik was threatening both 30. Re7 and 30. Qb4, and with Anand fast running out of time on his clock, decided to end this fight and look towards the 11th game when he would again have the white pieces.

The Malaysian players should be returning today after taking part in the world youth chess championship in Vung Tao, Vietnam. This event, with almost 900 participants from 73 countries is widely regarded as a big organisational success for Vietnamese chess. Of course, their players had also been making waves in the championship especially in the main under-18 event where they were dominating.

Of the Malaysians, I only have the results until the ninth round at press time but I do know that among the boys, Justin Ong (under-16) had 3½ points, Azhar (under-14) had 2½ points, Elgin Lee (under-12) had five points, Aron The (under-10) had 4½ points and Yeoh Li Tian (under-10) had 5½ points.

Among our girls, Alia Anin (under-14) obtained 5½ points, Nur Nabila (under-12) and Nur Najiha (under-10) had 4½ points each, Camila (under-10) had four points and Puteri Rifqah (under-8) had five points.