This year’s calendar of chess activities looks decently full.
THE biggest story last week was the welcome news that chess, together with 10 other sports, have been reinstated into the calendar of the Malaysian Schools Sports Council (MSSM).
Well, I don’t know how long this is going to last but at least for this year, schools and the State Schools Sports Councils can continue running their annual school chess competitions. There’ll also be a national-level MSSM chess championship to look forward to.
The removal of the 11 sports from the MSSM programme was a sore point which had parents voicing their unhappiness over the matter in the newspapers as well as through the Internet.
For once though, parents’ opinions have been heard and the policy about-turn was made by Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, who is also the Education Minister. He acknowledged that many quarters had been disappointed with the MSSM decision to reduce the number of sports from its calendar.
“I have issued a directive for all the sports to be reinstated,” he said, adding that there would be an additional allocation of RM89mil under the 10th Malaysia Plan for school sports infrastructure.
Of course, the reinstatement of chess in the school calendar will not affect or derail other age group chess programmes run independently by other chess bodies.
Come March 14, the national age group chess championship will proceed as planned. This is a Malaysian Chess Federation event which has been going on many years. This time, however, the tournament will be played outside the Klang Valley. The venue has yet to be ascertained but the MCF and the Penang Chess Association are joint organisers.
The MCF is holding a national scholastics age group championship from May 28 to 30, while the national rapid age group tournament has been scheduled for Sept 5.
Talking about the MCF calendar, I see that this year’s calendar of chess activities looks decently full. Chess enthusiasts shouldn’t have any grounds to complain.
The calendar kicks off with a two-day chess event during Chinese New Year week: the resumption of the annual Malaysia-Singapore match. The last time this event was held was in 2008. Now it’s MCF’s turn to play host to our Singapore friends from Feb 16 to 17.
This double round chess match will be played over 40 boards and will take place at Cititel Express in Kuala Lumpur. On Tuesday, the players shall fight over two games played with long time controls while on Wednesday, there’ll be two games with rapid time controls.
If our top players can take some time off from their Chinese New Year celebrations, this will be a very keenly contested match. And if you can spare some time off from your own celebration, come and support the Malaysian team in action.
Also slated for this month is the Malaysian Women’s Master tournament from Feb 26, with 16 playing in knock-out matches.
April will see two big local events. At the beginning of the month, from April 6 to 12, the Kuala Lumpur Chess Association will hold its KL Open event. Then from April 29 to May 2, it will be the turn of the Chess Association of Selangor to organise the Selangor Open.
June’s events include the Penang Open from June 10 to 14, the national closed championship and the national women’s closed championship from June 16 to 20. In July, expect the second Malaysian Masters tournament to take place.
Traditionally, August is the month of the Malaysian Chess Festival which includes the Arthur Tan Malaysian Open tournament, the AmBank Chess Challenge and the Merdeka team championship. However, for this year, both the Malaysian Open and the Chess Challenge have been pushed to Sept 1 to 8, which leaves the Merdeka team tournament as the only big item slotted for August.
As part of the Malaysian Chess Festival, there may be a new event introduced this year: the Seniors Open chess championship. This event has been discussed in private at MCF level since last year. I believe that if this tournament becomes a reality, it will generate a lot of interest among older chess players in the region.
In November, there will be the 15th GACC Chess Challenge organised by Universiti Malaya and in December, both the Malaysian inter-state team chess championship and the third national junior chess championship will take place.