DATMO 2011 is over

I just came back from the closing ceremony. China's Li Shi Long is this year's winner although he was only seeded seventh on rating. He was undefeated. I was watching some of his games and thought he is the most boring player at the event. But boring (or solid play) brought home the trophy for him.

In fact he was in trouble in two games. Against IM Oliver Barbosa he was two pawns down and against IM Oliver Dimakiling he was one pawn down. His results in these two games? He drew with Dimaliling and won against Barbosa! That's the mark of a strong player , turning unfavourable games around.

So what's his secret? From my observations I can say two factors. One is that he is a very disciplined player. He almost never gets up from the board. He concentrates one hundred percent in every game. The other is his ability to calculate moves. Quite impressive. Those who thinks that technical is less important needs their heads examined.

The only other that interested me was how the local players fared. There were five prizes for Malaysians. The first prize was won by IM Lim Yee Weng (no surprise here). The second to fifth were won (in order) by Cheah Cheok Fun, Ajeet Singh Roshan, Elgin Lee,and Justin Ong. They edged out our top juniors , Lim Zhuo Ren, Sumant Subramaniam and Mark Siew. The best Malaysian ladies prize went to Narayanan Renitha who was ahead of Nur Nabila Azman Hisham on tie-break by half a point.