My Visit to KL Open 2009

Still in chess fever after Malaysian Chess Festival ended in August, I decided to have my buka puasa with my chess friends while enjoying the round 4 games at KL Open 2009. It was held at Shah Village Hotel in Petaling Jaya. Not far from Taman Jaya LRT station, and from Amcorp Mall. Today is the last of the 9 round swiss system. Not many players taking part this year, only about 56 players. Though it was held after Malaysian Open, but not many foreigners stay back to play at KL Open, I guess at the same time too many tourneys is on going. I see improvements in this year KL Open. Last year, the scoresheet is just a photocopy piece of paper, but this year I see the carbonised score sheet is used. I saw Andrew, so, maybe this year we can see the bulletin of the games printed to players. Last year, there were no time increment, but this year the organiser used increment digital clock (and by the way, it is the same as being sold at this site dgt 2010). I am only there for the round 4, and the place is quite small too (coz not many players I guess), so, I cant take many pictures as walking around seems to make the players uneasy. Here are pictures that I managed to snap..


pic left : unrated MAS - Abdul Haq Muhammad after round 8 he won 3 games and drew 2 games = 4/8.
pic right : Haslindah Ruslan (MAS) - 1698. After 8 rounds, she is with 2.5 points. In round 8 she drew against Ismail Ahmad.

Pic left : Ismail Ahmad (MAS) - 2089. He is with 2.5 points from 8 games. His performance in this tourney is not much like what the rest of us expected... probably, the fatique from recent DATMO does affect ones game.
Pic right : NWM Tan Li Ting (MAS) - unrated. She is with 2.5/8. Not bad!

Pic left : NM Edward Lee (MAS) - 2089 vs WIM Nafisa Muminova (UZB) - 2320 .In this game Nafisa won against Edward. Edward is currently 4.5/8.
Pic right : Yellow shirt is Jafar Sofyan (INA) - unrated, and next to him our filipino Ian Udani - 2241, who has been doing well in KL Open including beating IM Tirto, but unfortunately at round 7 he lost to 13 years old, Masruri Rahman (INA) - rated at 1987! He is now with 4.5/8

Pic left : Najib Wahab - He is normally known as the arbiter of Malaysian Open.. infact he has been doing that the past 2 - 3 years now. But I was surprised when I saw him play at KL Open! Wonder what on earth struck him to take part? :-)) though he hasnt play for so many years, but he got a good result too! 4/8! Not bad huh for an arbiter turn player.. :-))
pic right : the scenery of KL Open 2009.

Pic left : IM Dede Liu (INA) - 2419
Pic right : IM Tahir Vakhidov (UZB) - 2520

Masruri Rahman (INA) - 1987. He was my opponent at the recent Merdeka Team. Aged 13, but he is a very good player. The next Indonesian GM perhaps?

*for more info click to http://blog.gilachess.com/
or http://hairulovchessmaniacs.blogspot.com *

The final round pairings :

Round 9 on 2009/09/08 at 1430

Bo.	No.		Name	Rtg	Pts.	Result	Pts.		Name	Rtg	No.
1	1	GM	Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son	2589	6½		6	GM	Dzhumaev Marat	2532	3
2	2	GM	Thien Hai Dao	2542	6		6	GM	Megaranto Susanto	2527	4
3	7	IM	Bitoon Richard	2490	5½		5½	IM	Vakhidov Tahir	2520	5
4	16	FM	Pak Yevgeniy	2348	5½		5½	GM	Iuldachev Saidali	2519	6
5	11	CM	Van Huy Nguyen	2414	5		5½	CM	Nguyen Hoang Nam	2329	19
6	8	GM	Nguyen Anh Dung	2454	5		5	FM	Chan Wei Xuan Timothy	2363	14
7	17	FM	Mahmud Syarif	2347	5		5	IM	Irwanto Sadikin	2429	9
8	18	FM	Chan Yi-Ren Daniel	2340	5		5	IM	Liu Dede	2419	10
9	32	WIM	Mendoza Beverly	2060	5		4½	IM	Tirto	2407	12
10	15		Tolentino Rustum	2362	4½		4½		Panggabean Hasian	2226	24
11	20	WIM	Muminova Nafisa	2320	4½		4½		Rahman Masruri	1987	35
12	22	IM	Shetty Rahul	2270	4½		4½	CM	Farid Firman Syah	2207	26
13	31		Lee Kim Han Edward	2089	4½		4½		Udani Ian	2241	23
14	34		Foo Benjamin	2037	4		4	FM	Wahono Awam	2393	13
15	48		M. Vivek	1661	4		4	CM	Neubronner Jarred	2220	25
16	29		Eng Andre-Jerome	2089	4		4		Mohamed Abdul Haq	0	53
17	50		Abdul Wahab Najib	0	4		3½		Kalugampitiya R.S.	2131	28
18	42		Sathiyanarayanan R V	1822	3½		3½	IM	Gokhale Chandrashekhar	2284	21
19	33		Neubronner Shannon Scott	2050	3½		3½		Jafar Sofyan	0	52
20	40	WFM	Dewi A. A. Citra	1931	3½		3½	WCM	Medina Warda Aulia	1950	38
21	27		Legaspi Edmundo	2158	3		3		Dissanayake R.d.a.c.	1811	43
22	37		Ferdiman Tersiman	1979	3		3		Tanda Joni	0	57
23	45		Wong Jianwen	1763	3		3		Biswajit Bharadwaj	1920	41
24	49		Chan Yi Jun Timothy	1594	2½		3		Virda Riska Aulia	0	58
25	30		Ismail Ahmad	2089	2½		2½	WCM	Sihite Chelsie Monica	1986	36
26	54		Oentoro Djoni	0	2½		2½		Haslindah Ruslan	1698	47
27	46		Chen I-Chen	1715	1		2½		Tan Li Ting	0	56
28	55		Tan Fischer	0	1		2		Abedin Md. Jaynul	1947	39
29	44		Lee Kai Jie Edward	1763	0	0			not paired
30	51		Chan Kim Keng	0	0	0			not paired

My prediction - the top boards would probably agree for a quick draw, while the rest will fight for the top ten prizes.

Best Malaysian so far is NM Edward Lee (4.5) will play against Ian Udani. Hmm.. this would be interesting! Abd Haq (4) will play against Singaporean Jerome Eng. The arbiter turn player - Najib Wahab (4) is up against Kalugampitya from Sri Lanka. Wong Jianwen (3) vs Biswajit, Ismail Ahmad (2.5) vs Monica (INA), Haslindah (2.5) vs Djoni (INA) - he is the manager of Sekolah Catur Utut Adianto, Tan Li Ting (2.5) vs Chen-I-Chen (TPE).

Hope the last rounds produce better results for the Malaysians!