National Closed 2009 - The Play-offs

Pic left : Evan Timothy Capel from Pulau Pinang, won against Mohd Hezri Che Aziz from Negeri Sembilan, therefore he took 7 points from 9 rounds.
Pic right : Next to finished, Lim Zhuo Ren with 7 points from 9 rounds after losing to NM Edward Lee.


Pic left : NM Edward Lee, he makes the play-offs happens!
Pic right : But if Abel Yap wins then there will be no play-offs, he will be the champ by half a points diff, but with tense battle playing White against Abdullah Che Hassan, comes to ending position where Abel was with 1 King and 3 pawns, while Abdullah was with 1 King + 1 Knight + 1 pawn. Abel thus makes a blunder where Abdullah check and fork Abel's King and Pawn. He later on resign, after calculating that the only surviving Abdullah's Pawn can be made Queen soon. With 6.5 points from 9 games that is the end of journey for Abel this year. And Abdullah make it to the play-offs with 7 points from 9 games.


The play-offs takes place at DATCC at 2.30pm. This pic was taken before the start of the first round. This is the double round robin (6 rounds) with time control of 25 min + 20 sec increment. The game ended at night, I think it was around 9.xx pm coz, I was still playing with my team for the DATCC Chess League tournament when I saw Evan with the NM Trophy.



Evan Timothy Capel emerged as the new NM in the series since the tourney was first introduced in 1974, makes NM Evan the 35th winner! The play-off concluded with Evan taking the first spot with 4.5 points out of 6 games, he won against Abdullah Che Hassan twice, win against Edward in first round and drew in the last encounter, lost first half to Lim Zhuo Ren and later win the second half.

NM Edward, making a comeback to be in the top spot despite the unsuspected loss he tumble upon in the 3rd rounds against KK Chan. He is second with 4 points in the play-offs. He lost to Capel once and drew twice, one with Capel in the second half and Abdullah Che Hassan in the first half. And won both game against Lim Zhuo Ren.

Lim Zhuo Ren finished with 3rd place and Abdullah Che Hassan finished with 4th place.

Mohd Saprin Sabri took home 5th place with 6.5 points from 7 games. He drew his last round game against fellow friend Kamaludin Yusof. Imagine if Saprin had won against Kamaludin, then he would be in the play-offs too!