Karpov - Kasparov 2009

** pic taken from chessbase.com**

While we are celebrating our Eid Mubarak, there was an exhibition match that brings back the two chess legends on the chess board for the first time after their last encounter for the world championship title in 1984. The match marks the 25th annivesary since the 1984! The match is played from 21st September - 24th September 2009 at Valencia, Spain...

Karpov - Kasparov.. the two chess legends when I was a kid, the name kept popping.. especially Kasparov, he is known not only to the chess fans, but also to the rest of the world. Wherever I go, when I mentioned I play chess, they will often pronounce the name Kasparov to me.. and that proves how widely famous he is!

The match is certainly the match of a lifetime that has been waiting by all the fans... I think even in Malaysia, there are people who keep up todate of the results! Well, since it is an exhibition match, they both agree for 4 rapid games and 8 blitz games! I guess.. the solution of having rapid and blitz game is better, since both have been long inactive from professional chess for years now.. Karpov has made his chess appearance more of a hobby rather than serious play. He did compete in few tournaments, but the focus is different now. Kasparov has been retiring from chess since 2004, now a serious politician for the opposition in Russian politics. He also writes many chess books, giving advises and help on Kasparov Chess Foundation (I think the foundation is somewhere in US). And currently, the latest news, Kasparov is collaborating with Magnus Carlsen for the latter World Champion project! (great news to all Magnus fans).

Both players came from different era, Karpov (now aged 58, born in Zlatoust USSR) was the world champion after Bobby Fisher refused for the match in 1975 (he later on fought hard to prove to the world that he is the best player after all). Karpov kept the title until 1985 (at the age of 24-34 years old). I met him once at the World Junior Chess Championship 1993 at Bratislava, he was there for the closing ceremony. He was indeed a very nice person back then.

Kasparov, (who is now aged 46, born in Baku, Azerbaijan but choose to be a Russian Citizen). He was a chess prodigy, and has been predicted to be the world champion when Mikhail Botvinnik first saw him at the age of 6. He won the World Champ title from Karpov after a long hard fought battle in 1985. And kept the title undefeated for more than 20 years until 2000, when he lost the title to Vladimir Kramnik. But still, one cannot forget the beautiful, stylish and brilliance that he posses on the chess board! (I never had the chance to meet him in person, but I do hope one day I will get the chance).

It was an interesting battle overall.. Kasparov won the rapid match by 3-1 (Karpov won the last match), and Kasparov also won the blitz match by 6-2.

*source of the news taken from www.chessbase.com and www.chessvibes.com *

Salam Lebaran 2009!

Hari ini, masuk syawal ke-4 kita beraya.. Kepada semua kawan-kawan, peminat-peminat catur yang tak putus-putus menghantar sms, e-mail, dan ada juga yang pos kad raya, saya ucapkan jutaan terima kasih yang tidak terhingga kerana kesudian meluangkan masa mengingati sempena hari yang cukup mulia ini...

Kepada semua kawan-kawan terutama pembaca blog ini, saya memohon lafaz ampun dan maaf sekiranya ada terkasar bahasa, terluka hati tatkala bicara sepanjang saya menjadi blogger, termasuk juga ada saat dan ketika ramai meminta-minta untuk blog ini di updatekan pada saat itu juga lah, majikan saya meminta-minta kerja saya di pejabat juga di updatekan.. mohon kemaafan sekali lagi! (seperti yang sedia maklum, nukilan dalam blog ini adalah cetusan hati pandangan saya selaku peminat sukan catur, hobi nombor satu yang bertakhta dihati, namun, pekerjaan saya adalah periuk nasi, dan kerjaya yang menyara saya sekeluarga)..

Seperti biasa, saya tidak mengambil cuti raya, cuma cukup sekadar cuti umum yang diberi kerajaan Malaysia selama 3 hari.. Alasan utama, kerana saya malas hendak berebut cuti dengan staff pejabat, dan alasan kedua, kerana setiap tahun bulan Ogos saya telah kemaruk mengambil cuti Malaysian Chess Festival! Namun, raya tahun ini, memang agak kepenatan, kerana saya tidak cukup rehat merancang perjalanan raya untuk memuaskan hati kedua orang tua. Raya pertama beraya di Kuala Lipis, Pahang. Raya kedua di Temerloh, Pahang (dek keadaan tidak mengizinkan untuk singgah ke kampung Awah, kalau tidak mungkin ketemu dengan kak Zaza - mak nabila dan najiha pada tahun ini) dan raya ke tiga, bertandang ke rumah bakal adik ipar. Dan di pejabat lah saya menyiapkan kerja pada raya ke-4 dan seterusnya....

Kepada yang menantikan update, insyaAllah akan saya usahakan, namun peringatan untuk pembaca blog ini, selepas sistem baru bakal dilancarkan dan pejabat bangunan baru yang akan dibangunkan nanti, saya memang akan terlalu sibuk dengan kerja-kerja pejabat..

Walaubagaimanapun, bilamana saya berpeluang untuk berkarya dalam blog ini, akan ada jua hasil untuk tatapan peminat catur semua...

Salam Lebaran 1430 Hijrah untuk semua!

KL Open result

Late in posting the result.. I thought chess fans get the result from the official site, but still others asking from the result by this blog, well.. here goes the result :

Final Ranking after 9 Rounds

Rk.		Name	FED	Rtg	Pts.	TB1
1	GM	Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son	VIE	2589	7,5	38,0
2	GM	Megaranto Susanto	INA	2527	7,0	32,0
3	GM	Iuldachev Saidali	UZB	2519	6,5	31,0
4	GM	Thien Hai Dao	VIE	2542	6,0	35,0
5	GM	Dzhumaev Marat	UZB	2532	6,0	34,0
6	IM	Vakhidov Tahir	UZB	2520	6,0	32,0
	CM	Nguyen Hoang Nam	VIE	2329	6,0	32,0
8	IM	Bitoon Richard	PHI	2490	6,0	30,5
9	IM	Irwanto Sadikin	INA	2429	5,5	32,0
	IM	Liu Dede	INA	2419	5,5	32,0

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!

The Women at DATMO 2009

Pic left : the second best ladies of DATMO - WIM Zhang Xiaowen. She got her WGM and IM Norm at DATMO
Pic right : WFM Helen Miligan

Pic left : Li Panru
Pic right : WGM Atousa Pourkashiyan

Pic left : WIM Ghaderpour
Pic right : the best ladies at DATMO, also currently no. 1 player in her home - UZB, WIM Nafisa Muminova, she got her WGM and IM norm in this event.

Pic left : WGM Irene Sukandar
Pic right : Xu Huahua

Pic left : Emma Guo
Pic right : Kadek Dwijayanti

The Top Players at DATMO 2009

Try not to waste the effort of taking the pic of the fav, it is not easy taking pic of them as they tend to hide their face in the first 5 min. Luckily got Haslindah's and Andrew's camera.. :-))

Pic left : He was once, one of the world's youngest GM - Negi Parimarjan from India in focus of his game.
Pic right : In his last round match against Senador. He annotates his last game against Senador. click :
http://datcchess.blogspot.com/2009/08/datm0-2009.html

And Negi is the Champ for 2009, and received the prizes from Dato' Tan himself.

The crowd requesting him to lift the trophy like the previous champ.. but I think the pic on the right where he poses was much better looking :-))


Pic left : notice the brightness of this pic.. err.. well.. i accidently take it with the flash is on... i felf so embarrased at that time, as everyone esp the players gave me "that" look... I later on apologised to the players...
Pic right : GM Ehsan is well attired for the closing in this final round

Pic left : GM Marat Dzhumaev
Pic right : GM Li Chao

Pic left : GM Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son
Pic right : Yu Yangyi

Pic left : GM Gerhard Schebler
Pic right : GM Nguyen Anh Dung

Pic left : GM Ziaur Rahman
Pic right : GM Darwin Laylo

Pic left : GM Saidali
Pic right : GM Susanto Megaranto

Pic left : Senador Emmanuel
Pic right : Ambank Champ - Samson Lim

Pic left : IM Sriram Jha
Pic right : Gao Rui

The opening game was officiated by Dato Tan by making the first move on behalf of Xie Deshun against GM Ehsan.

The Malaysians At DATMO and Ambank - Some Pics

Pic left : FM Mok Tze Meng
Pic right : Zamahari Abg Draup

Pic left : Amier Hamzah Muhd Zuhri (Ambank)
Pic right : Lavinya Naidu (Ambank)

Pic left : IM Jimmy Liew
Pic right : Aaron Chua

Pic left : Tan Khai Boon
Pic right : from left - Abdullah Che Hassan, Ismail Ahmad

Pic left : Lim Kian Hwa
Pic right : Heng Fook Liang (Ambank)

Pic left : Renitha vs Tan Li Ting (Ambank)
Pic right : Nur Najiha vs Tan Li Ting (Ambank)

Pic left : Ooi Li Tao vs Roel (Ambank)
Pic right : FM Lim Yee Weng

**There are other Malaysians taking part in both DATMO and Ambank, but the above is all the pic that I could capture during the events. I am truly sorry.**