The first thing that I’ve got to do this week is to admit that I was wrong with my prediction two weeks ago. Yes, I was wrong because this year, a teenager did not run away with the title of national chess champion.
Instead, the honour this year went to Tan Khai Boon. Although he’s 28 years old, not in the same age group as our national chess champions of the past few years, but he certainly is still young enough to prove to be the equal of any of them.
He is known well enough in local chess circles but if you don’t know him, let me tell you that when he is in his best form, he can be a very tough nut to crack. At the national championship, he has shown that this was indeed very true.
Now before I say anything more, I must mention here that both of this year’s national championship and national women’s championship met with an unprecedented number of entries: 94 for the national and 44 for the national women’s. These numbers brought wide smiles to the Malaysian Chess Federation as well as to the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia which co-hosted the events at their campus.
The only possible setback when a field is too large is that even with nine rounds, it can be possible for a tournament to finish with some of the top seeds playing with one another much later in the event. Sometimes, they may not even get to meet. This is a recognized trait of the Swiss pairing system. Because of this and under the right conditions, a large-player field can sometimes mean a sprint towards the finish line for some players.
Anyway, Tan entered the national championship not as the top-seeded player. He was only ranked fourth in the tournament and he lost the very first game that he played. Losing in the first round is not a very good omen for any player because for the rest of the tournament, he will have to play “catch up” with the tournament leaders.
This was precisely what happened to Tan. He picked himself up after the loss and gave chase to the leaders. For the next five rounds, he was always one step behind them. He kept pace with them but somehow because everyone was sprinting forward at the same time, he never seemed able to over-haul them. Not until the sixth round, anyway.
He was lucky. In the fifth round, the leaders began to falter as the pressure set in. Mohd Nabil Ahmad Hisham, one of them, had breezed through his first four games to lead the standings but now, he couldn’t keep up with his own blistering pace. With a draw in the fifth round, he suddenly found himself tied on equal points with Yeoh Li Tian and Mohd Tariq Amru.
In the sixth round, all these three players could do no better than to draw their games. In the meantime after Tan got over his first-round loss, he kept his cool and began winning one game after another. By the end of the sixth round, he now found himself tied with Mohd Nabil, Yeoh and Mohd Tariq as the joint tournament leaders.
It was at this point in the championship that Tan realized that maybe, just maybe, he did have a realistic chance to pull ahead of them and go on to win the tournament. But there were still three more rounds to go.
Regardless, he pushed on. Mohd Nabil kept up with him, but both Yeoh and Mohd Tariq lost their games. So by the end of the seventh round, it was down to a two-horse race.
By now, the pressure on the players had crept a notch higher. Who would be the first to capitulate? In the eighth round, the two top contenders finally played one another. Imagine, it took eight rounds of this 94-player tournament before the top two front-runners could face off. How would they fare in this game?
Unfortunately, Mohd Nabil’s form imploded and left Tan as the sole leader of the tournament. So, before the start of the final round, Tan already held a one-point lead over the rest of the field. A draw would be enough for him to clinch the title but he cruised through with his last victory. Eight straight wins in nine games had landed him with the Tun Hussein Onn challenge trophy and the title of Malaysia’s newest national master.
Over in the national women’s championship, the race to the finish was just as tense once Alia Anin Bakri faltered in the defence of her title. She got off to a breezy start but she then gave away a draw in the third round. A fifth-round loss meant that her effort to retain her title was effectively over.
So all eyes now turned to both Fong Mi Yen and Tan Li Ting who were both seeded just below Alia in this tournament.
In the fourth round, both of them met. That’s the other trait of a Swiss pairing system. When the number of participants is smaller, the chances of the leaders meeting early would increase almost proportionately. Here with only 44 players, it wasn’t a surprise that this had happened in the fourth round and there were still five more rounds to go.
Anyway in the fourth round, Mi Yen got the better of Li Ting to take sole lead of the national women’s championship. It was a lead that she held on tightly to until the end of the tournament despite losing in the sixth round to Amira Shahmina Zulkafli.
That sixth-round loss actually allowed Amira Shahmina to level up with Mi Yen as co-leaders but Amira Shahmina could not keep up the momentum and promptly dropped half a point behind by the end of the next round.
By contrast, Mi Yen kept her cool to collect two more points in the seventh and eighth rounds, and a draw in the ninth round was enough for her to be declared as the new national women’s champion. With it went the title of national woman master and the opportunity to hold the Tan Sri Sabbaruddin Chik trophy for one year.
Top six players in the national championship: Tan Khai Boon 8 points; Edward Lee and Kamal Ariffin Wahiduddin 7 points each; Yeoh Li Tian, Mohd Saprin Sabri and Nik Ahmad Farouqi 6½ points each.
Top seven players in the national women’s championship: Fong Mi Yen 7½ points; Tan Li Ting, Amira Shahmina Zulkafli and Nithyalakshmi Sivanesan 6½ points each; Alia Anin Bakri, Puteri Rifqah Fahada and Camila Johari 6 points each.