Malaysia has a list of outstanding chess players who do not have an international rating.
I WAS asked a trivia question last week: Who was the last Malaysian national champion never to have obtained an international rating?
Off-hand, I could not answer him. After all, the national closed chess championship had been held since 1974 and there were quite a number of people who had won the title through the years.
Alia Anin Bakri, 15, is the 2008 national closed women’s champion.
In fact, the Malaysian Chess Federation records showed that there are at least 24 former national champions. There are also eight former national women’s champions. A few of them had won the title more than once but those were the exceptions.
But coming back to the question, Ng Ek Leong was the last national champion never to have an international rating. Ng won the national closed championship way back in 1990. He won the event at a time when there were very few rated players in Malaysia, and the opportunities to earn rating points were even rarer.
But not having an international rating doesn’t mean that a champion is less strong – I wouldn’t want to say “weaker” – than a champion with a rating. No, I would have graded him as up there together with his peers, an equal with the rest of them. Only difference was that he just didn’t have the opportunity to gain his rating.
Today, it’s a completely different scenario. The opportunities to play in internationally rated tournaments have increased. This year alone, we already have the Selangor open. Coming up next will be this year’s national closed chess championship that starts tomorrow.
In fact, we are in the midst of the chess league at the Datuk Arthur Tan Chess Centre in Kuala Lumpur. That itself should be an internationally rated tournament despite it being played on a weekly basis, because of the time control it employs.
Unfortunately, we’ll be missing out on the Commonwealth chess championship that was initially planned for July but, come August, we should be able to look forward again to the Malaysian Chess Festival.
I’m sure that, between now and then, there may be other surprises. All things considered, I have to say that there are more opportunities for our local players to obtain their international ratings without having to go abroad.
Starting with Kamal Ariffin Wahiduddin in 1991, we have had a long string of internationally rated national champions. Presently, the highest rated among them is Mas Hafizulhelmi, national champion in 1994 and 1995. He’s still chasing after this grandmaster norms; he is now in the Philippines, taking part in several tournaments.
We also have Wong Zijing, the next highest rated player in the country after Mas Hafizul. He was the national champion in 2002. The next two highest rated national champions are Nicholas Chan and Lim Yee Weng. Chan won the title in 2003 and 2004, while Lim took the title in 1996 and 1997.
Then there’s Peter Long who was the champion in 1986. As I go down the international rating list, I am struck by the fact that Ooi Chern Ee is the strongest Malaysian player never to have won the national closed championship. He was Mas Hafizul’s contemporary but perhaps his chess achievements were overshadowed by the young chess talent from Kelantan.
Then there are Mok Tze Meng (champion in 1992), Jimmy Liew (1994), Ronnie Lim (2001) and Ng Tze Han (2000).
If you are interested in this year’s national closed championship, you should make a beeline for the Datuk Arthur Tan Chess Centre on the fourth floor of the Wilayah Complex along Jalan Munshi Abdullah, Kuala Lumpur, from tomorrow until next Wednesday. There will be two rounds in the morning and afternoon daily except on the last day of the competition.