2010 Chess Olympiad (Part 3)

Two more days the World Chess Olympiad will kick off in Khanty-Mansiysk. The Malaysian teams - both men and women had departed from KLIA yesterday. Based on NWM in her chess blog, the Malaysian contingent will transit in Dubai before waiting the charted flight in Moscow for about two days. Surely it will be a long flight for the contingent before landing in Moscow. GiLoCatur had about 20-hour journey few years back from KLIA to Moscow, 13 hour-flight with KLM from KLIA to Amsterdam, 4 hours transit in the Schipol Airport then 3-hour flight from Amsterdam to Moscow.

What is the time in Moscow? It is four hours behind us in Malaysia. If in Malaysia now is 7.00 pm, it is 3.00pm in Moscow. How about Khanty-Mansiysk where the 39th World Chess Olympiad will take place? GiLoCatur is not so sure but it is GMT +5 compared to the Malaysian GMT +8. Not so sure of the daylight saving time. But GiLoCatur guess is three hours behind.

The Malaysian Men's team

The Malaysian women's team

[GiLoCatur: The above pictures are taken from NWM's chess blog - http://setiachess.blogspot.com]

"SELAMAT BERJUANG PASUKAN CATUR OLIMPIAD MALAYSIA!"

"HARUMKAN JALUR GEMILANG DI BUMI SIBERIA!"

2010 Chess Olympiad (Part 2)

We have seen the Men's Chess Olympiad teams for Malaysia and its ASEAN neighbours. Now let's take a look at the Women's Olympiad. Malaysia did not participate in the last Olympiad in Dresden, Germany. In this year edition, Singapore and Thailand will join Malaysia as well as the other three countries namely Vietnam, Indonesia and Philippines. Singapore is making a comeback after missing the last three editions. Meanwhile, Thailand will make its debut in the Chess Olympiad since it had not participated in any olympiad before at least since 2000.

Malaysia will be represented by the players as per the above table. As far as GiLoCatur knows, the first three board players will be playing their first Chess Olympiad. Only Nurul Huda and Roslina have appeared in the event before. The former had participated in 1992 and 1996 editions. While the later had played in three previous editions - 1996, 2004 and 2006. Hopefully, both of them will guide and lead their other younger team members to earn good and decent placings or standings.

For the record, Malaysia was placed 60th / 86 in 2000 (Instanbul), 62nd /90 in 2002 (Bled), 40th /87 in 2004 (Calvia) and 44th / 103 in 2006 (Turin). Among the former players in the past decade are Siti Zulaikha Foudzi, Wan Khye Teng, Nur Shazwani Zullkafli, Eliza Hanim, Jean Nie Lim (sorry if not correct) and Lim Han Ying.

Vietnam is the strongest team among the ASEAN countries. In this olympiad, it is seeded 24th with average ratings of 2288. All its players are titled players - 2 WGMs and 3 WIMs. Vietnam's best placings in the past decade was in 2002 (12th) and 2006 (15th). It was among the top 30 in the other three editions - 2000, 2004 and 2008. GiLoCatur believes Vietnam will still be the team to beat by Malaysia and other ASEAN countries in Khanty-Mansiysk

WGM Irine Kharisma Sukandar will lead the Indonesian team. No doubt she is the best chess player from our region with ELO ratings of 2372. Her team is seeded 48th with ratings average of 2144. Indonesia is represented by young ladies. Surely, WGM Irine will guide and lead her young and inexperienced team mates including Warda Aulia Medina that GiLoCatur is very familiar with. In her maiden appearance for Indonesia in the Women's Chess Olympiad in 2004, WGM Irine had scored an impressive 10/12 points after 8 wins (including the only win against Malaysia in the ninth round) and 4 draws. She won the silver medal for the third board.

Philippines is seeded 2 ranks lower than Indonesia. The team is led by WFM Camacho with ELO ratings of 2186. The country's best result in the past decade is during the 2006 edition at 26th placing. In other editions, it placed in the 40s placings.

The last time Singapore played in the Women Chess Olympiad was in Bled 2002. It was placed 48th among the 90 participating teams. Such result was much better than in Istanbul 2000 where Singapore was 79th out if the total 86 teams. GiLoCatur hopes Malaysia will get better placing or standing than Singapore in Khanty-Mansiysk.

Come on Malaysian chess lady players! Don't get afraid and intimidated with the reputation of the players from other countries. Believe in yourself. Get focus and rest well. It is very important. Give your best. Be motivated. Don't put pressure on yourself. Enjoy the games. The results will come.

2010 Chess Olympiad (Part 1)

The World Chess Olympiad 2010 is around the corner. Held in Khanty-Mansiysk, almost 1400 chess players will take part in the 39th edition. GiLoCatur would like to start the coverage of the event (hopefully GiLoCatur can make a decent coverage ...) by looking into the players that will represent MALAYSIA and its neighbouring ASEAN countries.

The Malaysian Men's team is seeded 84th in this 39th Chess Olympiad with ELO average of 2325. As per in the above table, Malaysia is spearheaded by IM Mas. He and IM Mok, who was FM then, are the only team members of the last Chess Olympiad held in Dresden, Germany. For record, 2010 Chess Olympiad will be the sixth appearance for IM Mas since 1994 and the eighth appearance for IM Mok since 1990.

IM Yee Weng, who made his maiden appearance in the Chess Olympiad in 1996 and was on the second board in the last Olympiad, would not be around this time. The other members of the Malaysian Chess Olympiad team are FM Peter Long, Tan Khai Boon, the 2010 National Master, and MCF Secretary, Greg Lau.

The best seeded ASEAN country is Vietnam at 29th rank with ELO ratings average of 2587. It has two 2600-club GMs in Le Quang Liem and Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son. Can Vietnam make ASEAN proud by being in the top 10? Let's wait and see.

The other chess superpower ASEAN country is the Phillippines. We hope GM Wesley So will lead his country to be among the top 20 in the 39th Olympiad. His country is seeded 38th with ELO ratings average of 2552.

Just participated in the World University Chess Championship recently, GM Susanto Megaranto is Indonesia's hope to put up excellent performance in this chess olympiad. Making his fifth appearance, surely he will make sure his country to better its 66th seed with average ratings of 2423.

Singapore which has average ELO ratings of 2393 and seeded 70th out of almost 160 participating teams is led by GM Zhang Zhong. Will Singapore has better placings than Malaysia in the chess olympiad? Or can Malaysia perform well and get better results than Singapore? The answers will be known after the chess olympiad is over.

Thailand is the only ASEAN country that is seeded lower than Malaysia. It is seeded 92nd with ratings average of 2256. But bear in mind that Thailand had beaten Malaysian 2.5-1.5 in one of the last chess olympiads. Do you know which one is that?

To be in the top 10 will be too ambitious and very high expectation for our Malaysian team. What GiLoCatur hopes and expects from the team are :

1) Every player should achieve ELO performance that is higher or better than his current ELO ratings.

2) Every player should achieve more than 50% of winnings.

3) The team should win between 60th to 70th final standings.

Are the above expectations and hope too high or hard to attain?

ANYWAY, GILOCATUR WOULD LIKE TO WISH BEST OF LUCK TO OUR MALAYSIAN CHESS TEAM IN THE CHESS OLYMPIAD. MAKE OUR NATION PROUD! PUT YOUR HEART OUT TO PERFORM WELL. MALAYSIA BOLEH!

DOWN UNDER Chess

Not only the Malaysian chess team does not get the support in terms of fund from the government for the coming 2010 Chess Olympiad in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. Even a developed country of Australia which is also known as the Down Under also does not provide the fund for its chess team.

So, what the Australian chess community especially its chess governing body, ACF, does to raise the fund? It makes appeal for donation. Check out its website here.

The important point here is a big effort needs to be taken in order to participate in a big and important chess event like chess olympiad, world junior or world youth chess championships. That's what many chess communities in other countries do for their chess.

GiLoCatur also found a chess blog that is specifically dedicated for the young or children chess players. Check out the blog here. Shouldn't we, the Malaysian chess community, have one also? What are our efforts to develop, encourage and promote chess among our youths? Should we depend only on parents?

Besides the above Aussie chess blogs, our chess community should also browse the following chess website - http://www.chessintranslation.com/. Lots of chess-related ideas, info, news, and chess annotations from chess masters and experts that can be learnt and gained from the website. To be successful in chess, we need to put lots of efforts and make sacrifice especially in time. The important thing is - IT IS FREE!

Are You Ready For the 39th Chess Olympiad?

The Chess Olympiad will kick off in about two months. Below is the poster that GiLoCatur downloaded from its official website.

Below is the official website for the 39th Chess Olympiad. Check it out, especially it has the special reminder to all the participating nations and teams.

The URL - http://ugra-chess.com/

Who will be representing MALAYSIA in the Chess Olympiad? Based on the info from online Olympiad registration page at chess-results.com, the Malaysian team will be :

MEN team - IM Mas Hafizulhelmi (2422), IM Mok Tze Meng (2416), NM Tan Khai Boon (2160), FM Peter Long (2302) and Gregory Lau (2159)

WOMEN team - NWM Alia Anin Azwa (1904), NWM Fong Mi Yen (1905), WCM Nur Nabila Azman Hisham (1833), NWM Nurul Huda Wahiddudin (2020) and NWM Roslina Marmono (1933).

note : numbers in brackets are FIDE ratings

URL link

So, are you ready for the big tournament for chess? How MALAYSIA will fare in 2010 Olympiad edition?