Olympiad begins

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).

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2 Responses to Olympiad begins

  1. John Koh says:

    Considering both of you (& Peter Long) have been veterans amongst veterans in the Malaysian chess scene, it is certainly particularly strange to see both of you commenting on the same topic (the Malaysian National Team for the 2008 Olympiads) but with amazing contrasting views. Or were you just being diplomatic with your post above?

    I attach again Peter’s quote on the National Team selected…

    “…And there is the team that is going to the 38th Chess Olympiad in Dresden that was selected via at best an obscure process but what is worst is that it was clearly without any rationale for the future (of course assuming there was indeed a national development plan in place)….”

  2. ssquah says:

    Hi, John, Will appreciate if you can email me direct. Thanks, SS Quah

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