The 2009 Singapore Chess Festival officially starts today. The festival comprises the Commonwealth Open, Commonwealth Age Groups and the Challengers tournament. Each tournament is nine rounds with two games starting at 9:00 AM and 4:00 PM daily from today till Sunday, 13th December. The last round begins on 14th December at 9:00 AM.
The main event is the Commonwealth Open and surprisingly for a major tournamnet, there are only twenty-five players taking part. Most of the participants are from Singapore and India. Malaysia have three representatives, Mas Hafizul, Lim Yee Weng and Edward Lee. There are only five male international masters taking part, no grandmasters. The lack of strong participation may be attributed to the entry fees charged.
Mas is seeded fourth and judging from the opposition, this year may be the best chance for a Malaysian to actually win this event.
The Challengers event had a larger number of players, ninety-two. I spotted one familiar Malaysian, Ismail Ahmad. The other is Olivia Madhavan, daughter of our chess coach, Collin Madhavan.
In the Under 20/16, I can see Yeap Eng Chiam, Justin Ong, Tan Jun Feng and a few other unknown Malaysians.
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