THOUGHTS OF A CHESS ADDICT

The turnout of 73 players was less than satisfactory, probably because there is still a week of school before the holidays begin on 1 June. Nonetheless, the tournament went ahead with the best playing conditions for the participants and we truly thank those who came to play. Some of my students took part, all except 3 won prizes. For the Silver section, Nicholas Low finished 11th while Zhong Kai and Nicholas Teo came in 17th and 6th respectively. Adrian Yeo won Best Performance for Gold Section (as he was rated below 1600 and came in 13th).    I managed to persuade my new student to play and he enjoyed his tournament making friends in between games.                                     The games at the Gold Section were fiercely contested, with Tan WeiLiang and Jared Neubronner (both our past winners) leading the pack at Round 3, but fortunes started to change at the 2nd day. Weiliang coul...

Closing date for Thomson Cup International Chess Championships this Wednesday 23 May. Those who have not submitted your entry please hurry.

The Malaysian Chess Festival is usually held on the last week of August to coincide with the Merdeka (or National Day) celebrations, but there are some shift of dates this time: The following tournaments played in Standard time control will be held between 9-16 August: 1) 10th IGB Dato Arthur Tan International Open Chess Championship 2013 2) 4th KLK Tan Sri Lee Loy Seng International Seniors Open Chess Championship 2013 3) 8th AmBank Malaysia Chess Challenge 2013 while the Open Team event will be on 17-18 August weekend and the Age-Group event on 13 August and the Blitz event on the 16th.  Entry forms can be downloaded from the official website here

Please note that the Chess Club will be closed on 3, 10 and 24 May. We will resume from 31 May.

The dates for the Thomson Cup International Chess Tournament 2013 will be on 25-26 May 2013. We have decided not to FIDE rate the tournament, however it will be SCF rated. The entry form link to SCF here

The SCF April rating list has just been published.  For this quarter, the top performer is Lee I Shiuan who has been studying with me since 6 Jan 2013 this year. I had revamped his opening repertoire to allow his strengths in the endgame to shine, while curbing his urge for sacrificial fancies which were most times unsound. This brought about an increase of 86 pts, mainly based on his good performance at the Hong Bao Rapid and National Schools' Individuals. He has been diligent and followed my instructions, generally a good student.  Others have chalked up close to 30 rating points, which is meeting the targets set for the year. There were 3 new students which made their debut in the April list. I will monitor their progress from now on. To slip 20 rating points is a small warning sign which should not be taken lightly. Jaryl has just started changing his repertoire so he will need some time before he gets to winning his games once he familiarises with the moves. However, I fe...

Think of it...just think of it. We had Karpov and Kasparov in Singapore in 2010, its been 2 years since. Would it not be nice to see Anand play Carlsen in Singapore?? It would still be cheaper to do this than the entire Olympiad, in my opinion. I am sure Anand would not object as it beats playing in his hometown in Chennai where the pressure mounts up. I remember the last time he did well on World Championship matches was against Dreev in 1990. When it was held in Sanghi Nagar, he collapsed. So it would be better if Indian resources were to support the venue outside of India, if he wishes to have less pressure on him to win. The Norwegian funds that backed Carlsen would of course prefer it to be in Europe, but Singapore being neutral territory (plus Carlsen has never been here) and being the new financial capital of Asia, it would seem possible to persuade Carlsen to play here. This would be a good angle to pitch the project to the Singapore Tourism Board, where the match would gain in...