Malaysia 2-2 against Egypt

Egypt with two 2600+ grandmasters should convincingly beat Malaysia on paper. But things went very wrong for the two Egyptian grandmasters. IM Lim Yee Weng played a sharp opening which I suspect he has already prepared for in advance. He won convincingly.

IM Mok beat the GM Bassem with a nice in-between move  (17. Na7+) . After that he won an exchange and converted it with some careful play.

Both Li Tian and Zhuo Ren missed chances to save their games, thus we "only" drew with the Egyptians.







On the women's side there was some more cheer. They beat the higher rated Bolivians who fielded two WIMs, 3-1 to score another match win.

Pictures from Olympiad

Men's team, L-R, Yee Weng, Zhuo Ren, Li Tian, Mok and Jimmy

Five minutes to start, still a big crowd trying to enter the main playing area

3:00 PM starting time, still cannot get in.

Five minutes past three...  round started late

"Cmon King Loek, Mok my day!"

Zhuo Ren seems more interested in Li Tian's game....

More pictures at my Facebook

Malaysia wins round 2

We beat Monaco, a team headed by GM Efimov an ex-Russian. On board one, Mok had a great position and looked like heading for another win after his win in round one over GM van Wely. Unfortunately he choose the wrong continuation in time trouble and lost. Yee Weng won a nice game chasing his opponent's king to the queen-side where it was extremely vulnerable. I had some anxious moments watching Zhuo Ren's game where he had rook, bishop and knight against a lone queen and some extra pawns. Luckily, his opponent offered a draw which Zhuo Ren readily accepted to give us the match win.



I had an interesting moment in my game.

After 17....Bg7

It looks like Black had blundered a pawn and White proceeded.

18. dxe5 dxe5 19. Nxe5 Nxe5 20. Rxd8 Qxd8 21. Bxe5 Bxh3


This stunned my opponent, but why not take the bishop?

22. Bxh3 Rxe5  23. Qxe5

He did not suspect what was coming. Anyway his position is already bad e.g
23. Bg2 Nxe4 24. Bxe4 Rxe4 25. Nc3 Re8 (White is down a pawn and the pin on the a1-h8 diagonal is unbreakable) 26. Rd1 (26. Kf1 Bd4 27. Rxe8+ Qxe8 28. Qe1 Qxe1+ 29. Kxe1 Bxc3+ ) 26... Bd4 27. Rd3 Qf6 wins.

23... Nh5 
 
On an open board, the queen is trapped!

 24. Qxg7+ Nxg7 25. Bf1 h5 26. Bd3 h4 27. Nd2 hxg3 28. fxg3 Qg5 29. Nf1 Ne6 30. Kf2 Nd4 31. Re3 Qc5 32. Kg2 Nxc2 33. Rf3 Ne1+ 0-1

Malayia will meet Egypt in the next round