I WILL never understand how my oft-absentminded friend ever got involved in playing. He forgets so many things in his life that it’s a wonder that he can remember his chess strategies and tactics, or even how the chess pieces move on a chessboard.
He’s so absentminded that occasionally, I have had to remind him that there are interesting or major tournaments coming up. Like, for example, the Royal Selangor open chess tournament starting at the end of this month.
If ever there is one chess tournament that is worthy of mention in the Malaysia Book of Records, it must surely be this one. The Royal Selangor open is the longest-running chess event in the country. The Chess Association of Selangor (CAS) is justifiably proud of this tradition which began in 1974.
In fact, the event is as old as the Malaysian Chess Federation itself and while the federation cannot boast of being able to hold an individual chess event every year without a break, the CAS can.
I was reminding my friend that this year’s edition of the Royal Selangor open will be the 35th in a long series. A milestone achievement for the CAS.
According to the association, the tournament officially assumed its present name in 1983 when pewter manufacturer Royal Selangor stepped in as a sponsor of the CAS’s many chess activities. Today, Royal Selangor remains committed as a major long-term sponsor of CAS events.
Foreign domination
In the years following the inception of the Selangor open, there have been several occasions where the tournament attracted foreign participation from countries like Britain, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Uzbekistan, New Zealand, Russia and many others.
Jimmy Liew has won the Royal Selangor open eight times.
It is a little known fact that the first winner of the tournament held at the Royal Selangor Club premises in Kuala Lumpur, was Woo Beng Keong. However, the next five years of the tournament – from 1975 to 1979 – saw foreign chess players winning the event with ridiculous ease.
The foreigners were flicking aside the local players almost at will. I would dare say that our chess standards were very uncompetitive during that decade, not only in Selangor but around the country.
Occasionally, one or two of the local players would play well enough to snatch a draw. But after such a Herculean feat, they would promptly fall apart in their remaining games. It was as if all their energies had been expended and the draws were the apex of their abilities.
It was not until 1980 that this foreign domination was broken by Jimmy Liew, who became the first local winner. Liew, soon to be Malaysia’s first international master, went on to win the Royal Selangor open title a further seven times between 1982 and 1999.
Another local player who had immense results at the Royal Selangor open was Mok Tze Meng, winning the event five times.
Other local winners in the 1980s and 1990s were Christi Hon, Peter Long, Nor Azmi, Mohd Kamal Abdullah and Lim Yee Weng. The pedigree of these players was very clear: all except Nor Azmi who later went on to also win the national closed chess championships at various times.
In the last few years, we have had other local winners such as Mohd Saprin Sabri, Nicholas Chan, Anas Nazreen Bakri and Ronnie Lim. Anas, then 14 years old in 2005, was the youngest ever winner in the history of the tournament.
When I spoke to the CAS secretary, Lim Tse Pin, recently about the entries for this year’s event, he was relishing the prospect that some of these local champions may return to the tournament.
Woo Beng Keong, he said, had been making a comeback of sorts in the local chess circuits while Liew could be seen occasionally at selected local tournaments. Most probably, if time permits, he might be persuaded to play this year. Mok is still such an active player that it would be inconceivable that he would not be playing.
“I’m hoping that Ronnie, our current champion, will want to defend his title before the demands of his studies and career takes him away from chess,” he said, adding: “Anas is in college but should he take time off to be here, he will add colour to this tournament.”
Chan is somewhere in Malacca but he could also sneak back to wrestle for the title a second time. And of course, there will always be the challenges from our visitors from nearby Indonesia, the Philippines or Singapore.
(This story first appeared in The Star on 18 Ap 2008)