Thursday, July 8, 2010

GiLoCatur's Performance In the Telok Gong Open


This weekend, Insya Allah, GiLoCatur will play in the Ole Ole Chess Open held in Section 18, Shah Alam. If last weekend, GiLoCatur just brought Fahim to the Telok Gong Open, this weekend Fikri will join since he will come back home from his hostel.

This morning GiLoCatur is not a very good mood because Germany had been eliminated in the ongoing World Cup. GiLoCatur would prefer for the final to be between the Netherlands and Germany. GiLoCatur's most favourite teams had been eliminated earlier. Do you want to know what teams are that? For the 2010 World Cup edition, GiLoCatur is supporting Ivory Coast or Cote d'Ivoire which is captained by Didier Drogba (GiLoCatur's most favourite player at the moment) and Kolo Toure and England, for having four Chelsea players. Then the other favourite team is the "Oranje" boys - the Netherlands or GiLoCatur prefers to call Holland better.

GiLoCatur dreams the Holland vs Germany final after watching the exciting Germany games especially when they thrashed England and Argentina. Let's forget about the World Cup for a while. The squid or sotong prediction is correct so far huh!

Let's talk about the performance of both Fahim and GiLoCatur in the recent Telok Gong Pro Am Chess tournament.

Fahim is seeded 26th among the total of 78 players in the Under 12 category. In the first round, he played white against unrated Miza Mohd Yunos. He won. Then, in the second round, he faced the first board of the MSS Selangor U12 team player, Puteri Munajjah. He could not match her yet and had his first defeat. GiLoCatur is not sure who was his opponent for the third round because missed to capture the third round pairing. But Fahim won his third round game. In the fourth round, he challenged his U12 MSS Selangor player chess friend named Ethan Wong. He even befriended his younger sister Valerie during the MSSM Chess Championship a month ago in Perlis. He conceded his only other defeat.

Fahim won all the following consecutive games. His opponents were Farid (5th round) with black, Zainoor Ikmal Munirah (6th round) with black and Najwan Azman Hisham, one of Fahim's close chess friends, in the final round with white.

It was a good tournament for Fahim after scoring 5/7 points. Normally, with that point one would be on the podium. But he wasn't in this tournament because many strong players were participating and many had the same 5/7 points as he was with higher tie breaks. Anyway, Fahim was very happy because he achieved the 5/7 score as he envisioned and promised. Even he had a sweet victory against much experienced Najwan AH. GiLoCatur hopes such result and score will motivate him to work harder and learn more.

The fifth round, Fahim (black pieces) versus Farid (white pieces)
sitting next to him was Nur Islamurni from Kedah


The sweet victory for Fahim in the final round against his chess buddy, Najwan


So, how GiLoCatur fared in the tournament?

GiLoCatur lost the first three consecutive rounds. LOL! In the first round, GiLoCatur made a bad move towards the endgame playing white against an Indonesian Ahmad Rubel Abbas (seeded 22nd, ratings 1771). Rubel finally was one of the winners in the tournament. In the second round, GiLoCatur played white again against Mohd Hussein Jamil, the 23rd seed with 1699 ratings. In earlier round, Hussein was upset (based on ratings) by a U15 MSS Selangor player, Suniil Kalaivanan, Fikri's team mate. GiLoCatur was quite happy because not being whacked and thrashed by him. The important thing is that GiLoCatur did not make silly blunder and fought hard. he he he But it is the sign that GiLoCatur still has long way to go to join the 1700-ratings club. (:

In the third round, GiLoCatur played black against a local player, Mohd Nor Idris. GiLoCatur could not manage to win against the unrated player. Perhaps GiLoCatur had put all energy to fight the earlier two 1700-ratings opponents ... he he he a good excuse uh!

After the lunch of a free nasi ayam, GiLoCatur was fully recharged. Unbelievably, GiLoCatur went all the way to score four consecutive wins. The first victim was Yusri Md Yusof. GiLoCatur played black. We were playing on the bottom tables. Then in the next round, GiLoCatur played Queen Gambit against a teenager named Lim Kah Lung. He is a 1500+ ratings player. Not a bad result for 1233-rating player, right?

GiLoCatur vs Nazatul Zarina
( photo taken form stonemaster.info )

In the sixth round, GiLoCatur's opponent was a lady player by the name of Nazatul Zarina M Nasri (the above picture). She is a no nonsense chess player. Perhaps she had not played in chess tournaments so often. She has a national ratings of 1400+. Perhaps she respected too much of GiLoCatur that finally she could not manage to win the game. Anyway, GiLoCatur hopes Nazatul will keep playing and participating in chess tournaments. We don't have many lady players in Malaysia.


GiLoCatur vs Azam ( 1-0 )


Then, in the final round came the familiar opponent to GiLoCatur. He is Khairul Azam Mastuki, one of the McD or Burger King sparring partners. Based on the ratings and performance, GiLoCatur has the disadvantage. GiLoCatur was so determined to win the game for a revenge. GiLoCatur had lost to him a couple of times in previous chess tourneys. GiLoCatur fought very hard and finally won the game. Fauzi Ahim, one of our chess buddies, insisted to take our picture for a record purposes for our rivalry. It is very unfortunate that GiLoCatur did not meet Fauzi in the tournament to revenge GiLoCatur's earlier defeat to him in the UiTM Open three months ago. (Click here to read about it). Hopefully, we will meet in the Ole Ole Open this weekend. Fauzi Ahim, you better watch out! Be prepared!

That's all folks! Hope you enjoy reading the above report. Especially to the participants, Go to http://malaysianchesspairings.blogspot.com/ to see and view your pairings and performance of the Telok Gong Open.

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