36th Selangor Open Chess Tournament

Chess Association of Selangor (CAS) is organising the longest running event in Malaysia without any sponsorship. This is a case on the effect from global recession that already hit Malaysia shore. We no longer can be in a state of denial that corporate-sponsored events will not be reduced over the months if economic situation in Malaysia did not see significant improvement in near future.

For the sake of the survival on this longest continuous event in Malaysia, CAS has made a decision to continue the event at least for this year with RM 6,750 prize fund using CAS fund accumulated over the years while cap the entrance fees at RM 90 just like last year. CAS hopes there are 80 players from the chess faternity can come out to support the survival of this long standing event and help CAS to make a smaller losses.

Date: 30th April (Thursday) to 3rd May 2009 (Sunday)
Venue: DAT Chess Centre, 4th Floor, Wilayah Complex, Jalan Munshi Abdullah, KL
Time Control: 90 minutes plus 30 seconds increment from move 1

(30/4) Registration 12.30 pm - 01.30 pm
(30/4) Round 1 @ 02.30pm, Round 2 @ 07.45pm;
(01/5) Round 3 @ 09.00am, Round 4 @ 02.30pm;
(02/5) Round 5 @ 09.00am, Round 6 @ 02.30pm, Round 7 @ 07.45pm;
(03/5) Round 8 @ 09.00am, Round 9 @ 02.30pm.

Congratulation to all 18 students in MSSM

With here, I would like to congratulate 18 of my current and former students who have qualified themselves in MSSM 2009 via Kuala Lumpur (11 pax) or Selangor (7 pax) representation. For the record, each State is allowed to send 36 players to MSSM with the host can add another player to any Individual Category to even up the number of players in the Category.

This year, I've spent the March school holiday helping those who did not make it to MSSM in improving their game for the coming National Age-Group schedules on 4th and 5th April 2009.

I seldom get myself involve with MSSM players during MSSM because I believe preparation towards MSSM must be done prior to the event itself. As an example, I conducted a 15-member elite group training in Dec 2008 and am happy to see many of them qualified into MSSM 2009. My duty as a coach is to provide the basic necessary skills for them to compete against their peers for a place into MSSM. My vision is to see those who have put in effort in improving their games eventually qualifying themselves to MSSM. In over the years, I've always try my VERY best to stay neutral without taking any side to win the MSSM championship as I always tell them the best players (collectively) will win the MSSM Championship.

This year edition saw my students help KL and Selangor to win (1 gold - 1 silver - 1 bronze) from the Individual category, and (2 golds - 3 silvers - 1 bronze) from the Team category. This give a total of 3 golds, 4 silvers, and 2 bronzes. For the record, KL and Selangor won a total of 8 golds, 6 silvers and 3 bronzes from 12 categories contested.

Will they improve their performance in MSSM 2010? Time will tell........

MBSSKL is U-18 Boys Team Champion in MSSMKL 2009

I've not been updating this blog for a very ...... long time due to various commitments in the past 1 year. Let starts with this article.

Methodist Boy's Secondary School KL (MBSSKL) was declared as a cluster school of excellence on 2 April 2008. There are three niche areas to be developed under this program: ICT, English and Chess. As for the chess programme, the school has engaged me as the chief coach to take charge on developing chess excellency for the school.

In this year competition, MBSSKL sent two national players to represent them on the top 2 boards. Yeap Eng Chiam (14 y.o.), MSSM U-15 champion and 7th strongest U-18 player in Malaysia (based on National Rating release Jan 2009), had spearheaded the school campaign to capture the chess team title for the first time at state level competition. He won all his 5 games on Board 1.

Next, Albert Ang Keliang (13 y.o.) who began learning chess from me when he was 8 years old. Within 2 years, he won the National U-10 title, 2-time MSSM player and have been representing Malaysia in International Age-group event in the past 4 years. He's currently ranked 51st among the Juniors in Malaysia. Playing on Board 2 for this event, he won 3 games and drew 2 games including one against a fellow MSSM player from SMK Kepong Baru.

Jonathan Yap, a very enthusiastic learner in the game, had scored 3 wins in 5 games on Board 3. It's a pity that this will be his last outing in MSSMKL since is taking his STPM later this year.

While, Nixon Saw, a fifth former, had 2 wins and a draw from 5 games played to help the school scored 14.5 points from 5 matches. This outing may also be his last outing in MSSMKL.

Will MBSSKL continues to dominate the KL chess scene in future?