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.
3 comments:
Hey guys, can u all stop beating 2600 grandmasters already? U guys might just cut off my daily source of 'entertainment', by forcing a certain blogger to shut up for good! Slow down!! Hehe ;-)
Colossal performance. You guys may never know how nervous Malaysian chess fans were during the games.
Analysis from Houdini showed that GM Amir Bassem could snatch a possible draw if Mok did not see 37.f7 and play 37.Bxa3 instead. From the live feed, Mok took like 10mins to figure that out and that 10 mins was so nerve wrecking for me! What a cool performance from Mok. Not to mention Yee Weng's game is a gem, basically putting the once African Champion on the back foot from 14..Bxd5. I wonder how the game would have went if Yee Weng opted for 19..Rh1+, as he could pick up a second rook, but Adly could counter with 20.Bxe6. Houdini saw it a totally winning for Black, though I wonder if it's that simple to see for human.
I thought Li Tian could get the 0.5 point needed to win the match as he was up a pawn in the middle game. While the end game was a drag, I wonder if allowing Black's 31..Re1+ was a good idea. Li Tian was in the back foot from there on. Zhou Ren's game was hard, and he could not recovered from his time trouble. His perseverance almost paid off with 40.. Qg5 in an already very bad position, which almost turned the game around.
Still, all in all, a very very commendable effort. The performance worth every minute that I sacrificed from sleep. Thanks for the great fight!
sorry that your comment went into the spam box. I just saw it and re-published. thanks for the interesting comments.
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