It's All In The Planning!

Tough fight expected at Malaysia Chess Festival.

THERE are just five days to go before the start of this year’s Malaysia Chess Festival. Are you ready for it? As for me, I’m preparing to make my way down to Kuala Lumpur soon.

Normally, I would spend two or three days at the festival to soak in the occasion, observe the participants and basically enjoy the fun among the people whom I’ve known for decades.

However, since last year, I have become more involved in the festival as a somewhat reluctant participant.

The heat is on: The playing hall at last year’s Malaysia Chess Festival. The organisers are confident that the venue will be equally packed for this year’s edition of the chess festival.

Yes, I’ve been roped in again to play in the second Tan Sri Lee Loy Seng seniors open tournament. I have to admit that just like last year, I am far from being comfortable. Apart from looking at chess games live on the Internet and doing some brief analysis and commentaries for this chess column, I haven’t sat down with real chess pieces and feel their weight in my hands. Not for quite some time, I haven’t!

So it is with some trepidation that I’m getting myself involved again. And I know that the competition level this year isn’t going to be any easier than the maiden event last year. I took a sneak look at the preliminary list of players and true enough, it looks tough even before the first move is pushed.

Last year’s tournament had 18 participants but so far, I’ve seen 24 names in the players’ list. I am sure that before the event starts on Aug 18, there may be more additions to this number.

One reason for the increasing number is, of course, more players are now aware of the existence of this event. Last year was just the curtain raiser; this year is the real competition.

Another reason is that the organisers have lowered the entry age from 55 to 50, thus enabling more people to make the transition from playing in open events to this senior event.

Although it’s a good idea, the organisers should rein themselves in. Otherwise, if they continue to lower the age limit, it will defeat the idea of holding a senior tournament in the first place.

As for the other two main draws of the Malaysia Chess Festival, the organisers say that they are confident of at least 100 entries for the main event, the Datuk Arthur Tan Malaysia open championship, while 37 entries have been received for the AmBank chess challenge.

There are at least 17 grandmasters in the Malaysia open and this includes the defending champion, Vietnamese grandmaster Cao Sang. Also taking part are two woman grandmasters and nine international masters. The most prominent names among the Malaysians taking part are Mas Hafizulhelmi and Lim Zhuo Ren.

These three main events will be held at the Cititel Mid Valley Hotel, Kuala Lumpur, from Aug 18-25. They will all be played over nine Swiss rounds using a 90-minute plus 30-second increment time control.

Apart from these long time control tournaments, there is the Svensen’s open rapid age group chess tournament on Aug 21, of which more than 200 entries have been received so far, and the Malaysia Chess Festival open blitz tournament on Aug 25

Vladimir Kramnik and Magnus Carlsen finish in top form.

IT did not come as a surprise to many that Russia’s Vladimir Kramnik and Norway’s Magnus Carlsen were convincing winners in the Dortmund Sparkassen invitational chess tournament and annual Biel Chess Festival respectively.

In Dortmund, Germany, Kramnik had been dominant in the first half of the double round-robin tournament and though he could not repeat his feat in the second half, the advantage that he brought forward was enough to see him through.

In the final round, he was even tempted to try his luck against American grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura. Somewhere in the middlegame, he uncorked a brave sacrifice to open up his opponent’s defences around the king.

A win would almost certainly have propelled Kramnik into the elite 2800 club of the live ratings list of which there are currently only three players: Carlsen, Viswanathan Anand and Levon Aronian. But in this case, fortune did not favour the brave. There was always something in the position that enabled Nakamura’s defence to hold. Possibly, the draw could still be salvaged but at this late stage in the game, Kramnik was probably no longer interested to split the point.

Despite the loss, the Russian grandmaster still won the tournament with a big two-point margin over his rivals, the nearest of whom was Vietnamese grandmaster Le Quang Liem. Ruslan Ponomariov, a former Fide world champion, was third.

Meanwhile in Switzerland, the Biel tournament was won by Carlsen. This was also a double round-robin event which saw the players playing one another twice. However, the organisers had adopted a different scoring system that awarded three points for a win, one point for a draw and zero point for a loss, something that we would probably be more familiar with in football competitions.

There are, of course, merits in trying something different and in this case, the organisers were hoping to impress on the players – and the spectators – that drawing two games have less value than a win and a loss. It would call for fighting chess all the way, which was what the organisers achieved at the end.

Carlsen continued to put in an exemplary display in this event, despite showing a vulnerability in the first half when he lost to French grandmaster Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. However, this only setback did not cause Carlsen any real damage because his closest rival, Alexander Morozevich, was unlucky enough to lose to Fabiano Caruana. The final standings could have been different had Morozevich won that game.

Here is Nakamura’s win against Kramnik from the final round of the Dortmund tournament.

Vladimir Kramnik – Hikaru Nakamura, Dortmund 2011

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. Nf3 O-O 6. Be2 e5 7. O-O Nc6 8. d5 Ne7 9. b4 Nh5 10. c5 Nf4 11. a4 f5 12. Bc4 fxe4 13. Nxe4 h6 14. Re1 Bg4 15. Ra3 g5 16. h3 Bh5 17. Bxf4 Rxf4 18. g3 Rf8 19. a5 Kh8 20. Kg2 Rb8 21. Qd2 b6 22. axb6 axb6 23. Nfxg5 (See diagram)

23…hxg5 24. Qxg5 Bg6 25. cxd6 cxd6 26. Ra7 Rc8 27. Rxe7 Rxc4 28. f3 Rc2+ 29. Kg1 Rc8 30. Ra1 Rf7 31. Qxg6 Qxe7 32. Ng5 Kg8 33. Qh7+ Kf8 34. Ne6+ Ke8 35. Qh5 Bf6 36. g4 Qb7 37. Rd1 Qa6 38. Qg6 Ke7 39. g5 Bh8 40. Re1 Qa3 41. Nd4 Qxb4 42. Nf5+ Kf8 43. Rd1 Rc2 44. Nd4 exd4 45. Qxc2 Qc3 46. Qe4 Qe3+ 47. Qxe3 dxe3 48. Kg2 Bc3 49. Kf1 Rxf3+ 50. Ke2 Rxh3 0-1

Crowded calendar keeps enthusiasts on their toes.

THERE are just too many world-class chess events which have taken place or are taking place all over the world at the same time. From Ningbo in China to Dortmund in Germany and Biel in Switzerland, my attention is being divided by this surfeit of chess activities.

Would I consider this a problem? Yes, but this is a happy problem. I don’t mind the distraction. It only proves that chess can have a crowded calendar.

So where shall I start? Perhaps, from where I left off last week, with the world team chess championship that ended in Ningbo on Tuesday with Armenia deposing Russia to become the new champion.

Poised to win: Vladimir Kramnik is creating waves at the Dortmund Sparkassen invitational chess tournament.

I thought at first that Russia was going to win this event but the Russians stumbled badly and lost to China and Azerbaijan, and in the final round, suffered the ignominy of losing to India.

Russia’s setback was the opportunity for Armenia to spring into the lead. The Armenian team had played so steadily that they hadn’t lost to any other team yet. At their worst, they drew with Russia, the United States and Azerbaijan.

On Tuesday, Armenia was due to play Ukraine in the final round. A drawn match was all that they needed to clinch the title but the Ukrainians themselves were in the chase. If they could score a crushing result like a 3½-½ win against Armenia, they may even come out tops. Maybe the Ukrainians saw the unlikelihood of this ever happening because soon after the start of the round, their match was quickly drawn.

I believe China was disappointed with this outcome because they were mathematically in contention for the title and they would only need to win by 2½-1½ against Hungary, which they did, to be the champion if Ukraine had won by any score line. The only consolation for the Chinese team was that they actually finished with the same game points as the Armenians, except that on the more important match points, they trailed the new champion.

India, Israel and Egypt found themselves out of their depth. Israel was possibly the biggest disappointment seeing how just a year ago, they had finished third in the Chess Olympiad.

India came into this event as the Asian champion but they soon realized that even finishing in the middle of the table would be a tall order. I thought they could play the role of a spoiler and take surprising points off the main title contenders but the only problem was, they could not until the very last round against Russia when the results did not count any more.

As for Egypt, there is little to be said about this African representative except that they failed totally.

And so we move on to Germany where the former world champion, Vladimir Kramnik, is creating waves at the Dortmund Sparkassen invitational chess tournament. Well, at least he has been in impressive form right until the mid-way point of this event last Monday. By the way, the tournament ends on Sunday so there is still time to see whether Kramnik will carry his advantage right through till the end.

The Dortmund Sparkassen is an elite chess tournament that goes a long way back. However, it was not until 1973 that it was converted into a regular annual event. This year’s edition is a six-player, double round-robin tournament that features Vladimir Kramnik, Hikaru Nakamura, Ruslan Ponomariov, Le Quang Liem, Anish Giri and local German player Georg Meier.

As mentioned, Kramnik has been showing great form. He couldn’t have been happier. In the first half of the tournament, his victims included Ponomariov, Giri, Meier and Nakamura, and he has dropped only a draw to Le. Even if he eases up on the pedal and draws the rest of his games in the second half, I believe he should coast through easily to win the top prize.

The last tournament on my list today is the annual Biel Chess Festival.

This chess festival has been around for decades. It started as a masters open tournament in 1968; the grandmaster tournament was introduced in 1976, and evolved into one of Europe’s showcase events. Like in Dortmund, this is a double round-robin tournament featuring six very strong players. Their names speak for themselves: Magnus Carlsen, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Alexei Shirov, Fabiano Caruana, Alexander Morozevich and Yannick Pelletier.

I would be very surprised if Carlsen does not win the event which will end today. On Tuesday as I was writing this story, Carlsen was leading the field with only Morozevich following hard on his tail. The rest had been left behind.

Caruana, who had won last year’s Biel grandmaster tournament, found himself trailing everyone this time around. A complete reversal of form.

Only the top 10 chess nations of the world get to play in Ningbo.

WE’RE in the midst of a mini-Chess Olympiad and it is taking place in Ningbo, China. This is the world team chess championship which started on July 16 and will continue until Tuesday.

Since the first world team chess championship began in 1985, it has always been held every four years but the World Chess Federation changed its regulations and turned it into a biennial event. The last championship was two years ago in Turkey.

In case you are wondering, no, we are ineligible to play in it. Only the best teams in the world can take part, and there are only 10 places available. The foremost criterion for selection into this event is that a team must qualify as their continental champion.

Thus, India came out the winner at the last Asian team championship in Kolkata two years ago and is thus representing Asia in this world team chess championship.

Azerbaijan won the European team championship in 2009 and is playing in Ningbo. Similarly, the United States is the qualifier from America, while Egypt is the representative for Africa.

Apart from these four countries, Russia is playing in the championship as the defending champion, while Ukraine, Israel and Hungary qualified from finishing first, third and fourth respectively from last year’s Chess Olympiad in Khanty-Mansiysk.

Of course, China as the host country is participating, and Armenia is the World Chess Federation president’s nomination.

Of these 10 countries, Egypt has arguably the weakest line-up. The team is not expected to end up anywhere but in the cellar position. But among the other nine teams, it is a real challenge to predict the winner.

Of course, Russia is still the team to beat with a line-up that comprises Sergey Karyakin, Alexander Grischuk, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Peter Svidler and Nikita Vitiugov. But they can’t be expecting any favour from the other teams. If anything, Azerbaijan and Ukraine will be breathing down hard on the Russians.

Both Armenia and Hungary cannot be discounted from leapfrogging over these top three teams while China, the United States, Israel and India will always be there as spoilers.

But having said all this, the first surprise was sprung in the very first round of the championship by an Egyptian player. International master Samy Shoker had been overwhelmed by playing the Ukrainian grandmaster, Alexander Areshchenko.

At the most critical point in the game, Areshchenko, thinking that the point was already in his pocket, went into auto-pilot mode and relaxed for a second. Shoker had the presence of mind to detect the smallest chance given to him and he seized on it.

The result? Areshchenko came under a mating attack and was unable to save the game. Here is the play:

Alexander Areshchenko (Ukraine) vs Samy Shoker (Egypt)

1. e4 d6 2. d4 Nf6 3. Nc3 g6 4. Be3 c6 5. h3 Nbd7 6. Nf3 Qc7 7. Bd3 e5 (I would have thought that the most logical move was to fianchetto the bishop and go for castling quickly.) 8. Qd2 exd4 (Again, 8. … Bg7 was called for.) 9. Nxd4 Bg7 10. Bh6 Bxh6 (Castle! Black should be castling here. Now, his king is caught in the centre.) 11. Qxh6 b5 (Black plays like a patzer. This move can be refuted immediately with 12. Bxb5 cxb5 13. Ndxb5 … and Black is in deep trouble.) 12. O-O-O b4 13. Nb1 Bb7 14. Nd2 Qb6 15. N4b3 Ba6 16. Bxa6 Qxa6 17. Kb1 c5 18. Nf3 c4 (At least Black has the presence of mind not to tempt fate further by capturing the e-pawn.) 19. Nc1 Ne5 20. Rd4 c3 21. Rhd1 cxb2 22. Nb3 Nc4 23. e5 (See diagram. White was already feeling so comfortable that he thought the game would play by itself. He totally overlooked Black’s threats or otherwise he would have played 23. Qg7. Just this one move, 23. e5, and the fortunes in this game turned around.) Rc8 24. exf6 Na3+ 25. Kxb2 Rxc2+ 26. Ka1 Nc4 27. Re4+ Kd8 28. Nc1 Qa3 0-1 (Checkmate is next.)

Grand prix circuit is a grand success.

AT THE last minute on Sunday, I decided to take a short drive down from Penang to look in at the fifth and final leg of the Tan Sri Lee Loy Seng chess grand prix tournament at the Syuen Hotel in Ipoh.

I was very encouraged by what I saw. When I entered the tournament hall, I could see that the Perak International Chess Association (PICA) had a good thing going for them. The hall was full, with 213 people playing chess.

Players of all ages had come to Ipoh from all over Perak and even the nearby states. As far as I could tell, there were players from Selangor and Penang but the organisers were quick to stress that there were busloads of players from areas like Bagan Serai, Slim River, Grik, Kampar, Ayer Tawar, Kuala Kangsar and Sungai Siput.

In fact, despite the closing date for entries being announced much earlier, Pica officials suddenly found an unprecedented number of unregistered players knocking at the door on Sunday morning.

They had to adjust their entries quickly and would have gladly accepted all who turned up at the last minute if not for the fact that they had filled up the tournament hall and had run out of chess equipment. I was told that possibly some 30 to 40 players were turned away.

Because of the large number of players, the organisers also made a quick decision to increase the number of rounds to eight and, at the same time, reduce the time control for each round.

Of course, some of the more serious participants may say that these factors made it uncondu-cive to compete seriously (there was a lot of prize monies involved) but, I was thinking to myself, who cares?

It was a great carnival atmosphere and I could see that the majority of the players were enjoying themselves tremendously. The noise level was high and impossible to shut out, but, again, who cares?

Naturally, the top boards got the most attention. They were the games that were usually among the last to finish, so it gave the other players a great opportunity to mill around and watch the better players.

This is the second year of the grand prix, which started last year. According to Pica president Chan Swee Loon, the association received RM25,000 from Kuala Lumpur Kepong Bhd (KLK) this year to run the five legs in various towns in Perak.

The series began with the Taiping leg in April and then proceeded to Bagan Serai, Slim River, Kampar and finally, Ipoh. Chan said that the grand prix circuit had drummed up a lot of interest in the towns where chess is not normally played. Next year’s grand prix circuit, he added, would probably be increased to six legs and start earlier in January.

At the closing ceremony on Sunday, the mayor of Ipoh, Datuk Roshidi Hashim, enthused about the game and paid a glowing tribute to the late Tan Sri Lee Loy Seng, founder of KLK. Then he sprang a surprise by pledging that the Ipoh City Council would contribute RM10,000 to next year’s grand prix circuit in the state.

For the record, the eight winners of the grand prix were Fong Yit San, Muhammad Nabil Azman Hisham, Fong Yit Ho, Ahmad Jamal Husni Jamaluddin, Jason Teh Chee Ying, Azman Hisham Che Doi, Amirul Rahimi Shamsuddin and Noor Ahmad Fazilah