Great fighting game from Li Tian

In the 8th round of the HDBank Cup International, Li Tian met Filipino IM Oliver Dimakiling. The following game had me on the edge of my seat (watching in the comfort of my home with engine running!).

[Event "HDBank Cup International"]
[Site "Ho Chi Minh City"]
[Date "2013.03.23"]
[Round "8"]
[White "Oliver Dimakiling"]
[Black "Yeoh Li Tian"]
[Result "1-0"]

1. Nf3 d5 2. g3 Nf6 3. Bg2 c6 4. O-O Bf5 5. d3 Nbd7 6. c4 e6 7. Nc3 Bc5 8. cxd5 cxd5 9. a3 Rc8 10. Nh4 Bg4 11. d4 Be7 12. f3 Bh5 13. g4 Bg6 14. g5 Ng8  

14...Bh5 15. f4 (15. gxf6 Bxf6 {black regains the piece on h4}) 15... Ne4 16. Nxe4 dxe4 17. Bxe4 h6 is the choice of Fritz. Black has enough compensation for the pawn. However no human will play this way!

Comment from Siew Fai

Siew Fai made a comment to one of my posts. After reading it, I felt he has put it so eloquently (for once! Sorry Siew Fai, truth hurts), much better than what I have written in a hundred posts. His observation is so accurate that I have to put this in a post by itself so nobody misses it. Below is Siew Fai's comment.

GM Le Quang Liem wins HDBank

Vietnamese Super GM Le Quang Liem has won the 2013 HDBank Cup International which finished yesterday. He drew the last game against GM Berkes Ferenc to finish with 7.5 points.

Chinese youngster and GM Lu Shanglei was the only one in a bunch of seven who managed to win his game. He finished outright second with 7 points.

Malaysian Yeoh Li Tian lost his last round game to finish with a disappointing four points.

HDBank Cup International Final

The final pairings see the leader GM Le Quang Liem playing against GM Berkes Ference. Quang Liem has a one point lead so only needs a draw. His opponent will want to win to catch up and avoid a second placing tie with a big bunch of six pointers.

Yeoh Li Tian has four points after losing a great fighting game in the eight round. He plays Chinese Xu Xiangyu rated at 2034. The last round starts at 10:00 AM today and you can follow it online here.

Myths of Raymond Siew

It is really hard for me to keep quiet when Raymond Siew keeps spewing myths like favouritism and sponsorship concerning Yeoh Li Tian. So let me put these myths to sleep now.

Sponsorship

Raymond Siew keeps harping on Li Tian's sponsorships. Raymond Siew is famous (amongst other things) for making stupid ASSumptions. I have not seen any sponsor money, except for the time that he was sent to China a couple of years ago.

For example, Campomanes Memorial in Brunei, Melaka  Chess Festival in 2012, Zone 3.3 Championship and the current HDBank Cup in Vietnam, all these trips were paid by Li Tian's father pocket.

HDBanks 2013: Sole leader emerges

A sole leader has emerged in the 2013 HDBanks Cup International in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. GM Le Quang Liem defeated GM Zhou Jianchou to take sole lead with 6.5 points out of seven rounds. In fact, he has a one point lead after GM Oliver Barbosa settled for a draw with GM Zhou Weiqi. Barbosa is second with six points and will play Liem in the eight round.

Malaysian Yeoh Li Tian sneaked in half a point when his much higher rated Chinese opponent overlooked a perpetual check. Li Tian now have four points meaning he has no more chances of making a norm. He next meets IM Oliver Dimakiling, his nemesis. The next round starts at 4:30 PM

HDBanks Round 6

The lead has changed hands with GM Le Quang Liem beating GM Mark Paragua and GM Zhou Jianchao beating IM Wei Yi to share the joint lead with 5.5 points. GM Oliver Barbosa is in sole third with 5 points. GM Le Quang Liem plays GM Mark Paragua in the seventh round while GM Zhou Jianchao plays GM Zhou Weiqi.

Yeoh Li Tian is on 3.5 points after drawing the 1995 rated Nguyen Anh Khoi in the fifth round and beating Chinese Liu Hongyan rated 2020. He plays Chinese untitled Liu Yijie but rated at 2400 in the seventh round due to start this morning at 10:00 AM. He needs to win to keep IM norm chances. Below is Li Tian's fifth round game with light comments.

HDBanks Round 4

Chinese sensation IM Wei Yi and Filipino GM Mark Paragua leads with full points after four rounds in the HDBank Cup International. They will play each other in the fifth round. Wei Yi beat Filipino GM Oliver Barbosa. Yeoh Li Tian lost to IM Pham Le Thao Nguyen , blundering a piece in time trouble.

Email exchange with YCS

Sharing an amusing joke.

There is a Chinese saying 扮豬食老虎  literally translate as "pretend to be pig, eat tiger".
 
My layman explanation of this saying - someone who is clever pretending to be dumb to lower the enemy's guard.

So, as the first round of HDBank Open began, I asked Yeoh Chin Seng this question

Is Li Tian still using the "pretend to be pig and eat the tiger" strategy in HD Bank :) 

Chin Seng's witty reply

No,  strategy has changed:

before the game start:

a. give opponent a humble smile

b. write fat figure on his score sheet

c. give a piece of bent nail as souvenir

d. let opponent accidentally see your gangster tattoo slip out from sleeve

e. and never ever let them know you are not even MAS top 6 Jr.

If you have been reading somebody's poison blog, you will get the joke :)  

Kudos to YCS, despite the constant attacks against him and his son by the mad one, still managed to retain his sense of humor. 

Untitled wins strong Spanish Swiss

Untitled Bulgarian Borislav Ivanov won a strong Swiss tournament in Spain a full point ahead of his nearest rivals. There were several strong grandmasters playing whom he beat , only drawing with GM Alexei Barsov.

If his name rings a bell, then let me jog your memory a little. Lilov did a very conclusive analysis here and the original Chessbase report is here.

The dates of the tournament (16th-17th March) suggests that this is not a standard time control but rather a rapid tournament. Perhaps Ivanov is stronger than everyone assumes.
 

Li Tian wins in Round 3

Yeoh Li Tian has beaten unrated Vietnamese Tran Nguyen Que Huong in the third round of the HDBanks Cup International in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. With this win, Li Tian has 2 points out of possible three.

His fourth round opponent is another Vietnamese , IM Pham Le Thao Nguyen rated 2422. The next round continues at 10:00 AM tomorrow morning. There will be two rounds tomorrow.

IM Wang Chen - Yeoh Li Tian

After the first round win, Li Tian could not continue the momentum and lost to IM Wang Chen from China. What is troubling is the way he lost. Simply put, he had no idea how to play the middle-game after a perfect opening.

[Event "HDBank Open"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "2013.03.19"]
[Round "2"]
[White "Wang Chen"]
[Black "Yeoh Li Tian"]
[Result "1-0"]

1. e4 c6 2. Nf3 d5 3. Nc3 Bg4 4. h3 Bh5

Yeoh Li Tian - GM Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son

GM Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son is the number two player in Vietnam, rated at ELO 2647. A former strong junior just like Le Quang Liem, he reportedly learnt chess at the age of three. He attained the IM title at 12 years old and the GM title two years later. His most recent success was winning the Zone 3.3 tournament, thus qualifying for the World Cup.

[Event "HDBank Open]"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "2013.03.19"]
[Round "1"]
[White "Yeoh Li Tian"]
[Black "Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son"]
[Result "1-0"]
[Annotator "Liew,Jimmy"]


1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nxc6 bxc6 6. e5 Qe7 7. Qe2 Nd5 8.
c4 Nb6 9. Nc3 Ba6 10. b3 O-O-O 11. Bb2 Re8 12. f4 f6 13. Ne4 fxe5 14. fxe5 d5
15. Nd2 g6 16. O-O-O Bh6 17. Kb1 Bxd2 18. Qxd2 dxc4 19. Qa5 Kb7 20. g3 Rhf8 ?

I wonder if black purposely allowed the skewer. Without the black square
bishop, the white king will be exposed so maybe black is counting on this.

 21. Ba3 Qe6 22. Bxf8 Rxf8 23. Qc5 Rf5 24. Bg2 cxb3

Black rejects 24... Rxe5 25. Bxc6+ Kb8 26. Rd8+ Bc8 27. Rxc8+ Nxc8 28. Qxc4
Qxc4 29. bxc4 Nd6 30. Rf1 a6 31. Bd5 as this is drawish. However this is playing with fire.

25. Rhe1 g5 !?

A surprising move but has a point in that it sets a trap for white 

26. Rd8

White threatens 27.Bxc6 and 28 Rb8+ winning. The trap for white is (26. Bh3 Qg6
27. Bxf5 Qxf5+ 28. Ka1 b2+ 29. Kxb2 Na4+  and wins 

26... Rf6

The other alternative is 26... Nd7 27. Qb4+ Nb6 28. Bh3 wins for white as there is no tactical save as in the previous note.

27. Be4 Rh6 28. Rc1 Bc4 ??

28... bxa2+ 29. Ka1 Bc4 is still hold for black

29. axb3 Bxb3 30. Rd6 !

By now both players will be playing on increments which should explain the sub-optimal moves on both sides

Bd5 31. Bxd5 ?

White can go for the material win with 31.Rxe6 Bxe4+ 32. Ka1 Rxe6 33. Re1 wins for white as he retains the passed e-pawn

31... Qf5+ 32. Ka2 Rxh2+ 33. Ka3 cxd5 ??

This last mistake ends the game. black survives the mate after 33... Qd3+ 34. Bb3 cxd6 35. Qxc6+
Kb8 36. e6 (36. exd6 Rd2 wins the e-pawn) 36... Re2 37. Qc7+ Ka8 38. Qd8+ Kb7
39. Rc7+ Ka6  

34. Qc6+ Ka6 35. Qa4+ Kb7 36. Rxc7+ Kxc7 37. Qxa7+ Kc8 38. Qa6+ 1-0

HDBank Round 1

The live games feed from the tournament site showed that Yeoh Li Tian had beaten Vietnam grandmaster Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son at around 3:00 PM today. I was not too sure because there can be errors using such online game feeds. So I thought it best to wait till the official results are posted to the chessgames site before making any celebratory announcements.

Li Tian played a sharp Scotch Game as white against the Vietnamese grandmaster. A very tactical game ensured with both players trading tactical blows. Li Tian's king castled on the queen-side was completely exposed while the GM king (also on queen-side) seemed well defended with his pawns on a7, c7 and c6.

The GM may have missed Li Tian's 30th move (30. Rd6!) which enleashed an irresistable attack on the black king. I cannot really do justice to this game without consulting an engine so game will be published later tonight with Houdini help :)  It really is that sharp.

This is the final position after Qa6+. The black king will be mated.

Li Tian plays Chinese IM Wang Chen next round, which is due to start ..well around now (there is two rounds today).

A fool and his....??

They say it is better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool rather than open it and remove all doubt.

This fool does not even know that the tournament now being contested in London is the Candidates and not the Chess Classic , the latter has already been over for several months. And I bet ten to one he does not even know the significance of the Candidates. And hundred to one that he is now scrambling to find the answer from his son.

And what is "powder move"? Have you been ponteng (Malay for "playing truant") your Form One English classes?

Malaysian Masters announced

The last Malaysian Masters was held in 2009 if memory serves. That was a match format much like the World Cup. It was eventually won by IM Mas who defeated IM Mok in the final. This year the Masters is revived by MCF with the support of KLCA. Its President, Dato' Sri Dr. Edmund Santhara has generously sponsored a prize fund. While the participants in the 2009 version were arbitrarily chosen, this latest Masters have clearly defined criteria for the participants. The bonus is that this may become a titled tournament where it is possible to achieve IM norms. Read more at Peter's blog.

HDBank Cup International

This year's HDBank Cup International will be held in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The tournament begins tomorrow with the arrival of players. On Monday 19th March, there will be an Opening Ceremony followed by the first round. This will be a 9 round Swiss with possibilities of title norms.

There are many grandmasters and international masters who have come to this prestigious tournament. Top seed is Vietnamese GM Le Quang Liem followed by Hungarian GM Ferencs Berkes. The field is very strong with top Vietnamese, Filipinos and Chinese players participating. The highest Chinese player is GM Yu Yangyi at 2696 is almost breaking into the 2700 ELO club.

Malaysia's only representative is Yeoh Li Tian rated at 2278 and seeded 57th. It will be a success for him if he is able to gain some rating points here to add to his "fat number"; as some fool has referred to our ratings. Li Tian leaves for Ho Chi Minh City today accompanied by his mother.

London Candidates: First blood

Radjabov and Aronian are the first players to win a game in the on-going London Candidates tournament. They beat Ivancuk and Gelfand respectively. The other two games were drawn as were the four first round games.

Aronian played a brilliant game when Gelfand overlooked a tactical shot 26. Bh6+ and Aronian won the endgame nicely. Aronian made Gelfand's bishop pair look very clumsy indeed. Gelfand looked absolutely devastated during the post game interview.

Radjabov played a very sharp tactical game against Ivanchuk. If the Candidates continue with games like this, we are really in for a treat :)

Bye! I'm off to watch Aronian-Carlsen!

 Friday evening and Candidates starting at 10:00 PM (not 11:00 PM as written in an earlier post). I'm going home now to await Aronian-Carlsen game!

You can catch it at various sites that are streaming the games e.g  Chessbomb,  PlayChess , the official site , Week in Chess and Chess.com

Candidates begins!

The 2013 Candidates in London starts today, Friday 15th March. See my previous post on this. Read Chessbase report on the opening ceremony.

As GM Erwin l'Ami  sums  it up nicely - "there are no weak players in London". This will be one of the strongest , if not the strongest, tournament of 2013.

London is eight hours behind Malaysia and normally, such tournaments starts their games at 3:00 PM , so in Malaysia we have to stay  up to a late hour if we want to catch the games.

First round pairings -

Let the games begin!

Bangkok Chess Club Open

The 13th Edition of the Bangkok Chess Club Open will be held  from 14th to 21st of April 2013 at the 5-star Dusit Thani Pattaya Resort.

BCC Open prizes are for 1-10 ranks and 5 best Thais, and certificates for best 3 best juniors and best lady. 1st prize will be Baht 100,000 (approximately RM10,400/-).  BCC Challenger has prizes for 1-5 with 1st prize Baht 15,000 (approximately RM1,560/-), and certificates for 3 Best Juniors and best Lady.

Entry fees for the open is 3,000 Baht (approximately RM310/-) and for Challenger it is 1,500 Baht (approximately RM156/-). Tournament fees are waived for GMs, WGMs, IMs, WIMs and players rated over 2500 as of the  official FIDE list at April 2013.

This tournament is normable so those seeking IM and GM norms should consider making their way north. The bad news is the cost of hotel - you can expect to pay  3,100 Baht nett per room per night.

For more details and entry form go to Bangkok Chess website here. Better hurry because the deadline for registration is 15 March, 2013.

Ukraine wins Women's World Team

Ukraine won the gold medals at the Women's World Team Championship in Astana, Kazakhstan yesterday. The team, consisting of Kateryna Lagno, World Champion Anna Ushenina, Mariya Muzychuk, Natalia Zhukova and Inna Yanovska-Gaponenko edged out China (second) and Russia (third).

In the final round, the Ukrainians played Russia with the latter needing to win to have a chance at gold as they were behind by two points (the tournament was based on match points, two for a win and one for a draw). Surprisingly all the four games were drawn with everyone one of them finishing in thirty plus moves. Thus Ukraine took gold and Russia bronze. China (without Hou Yifan) took the silver by beating India in the last round.

MCF Election 2013

The MCF AGM was held on Sunday, 10th March at Olympic Council of Malaysia (OCM) in one of the halls there. I was there to meet up some friends who were attending the AGM. No outsiders were allowed into the meeting so I sat in the cafe with another non-attending friend. Only the state delegates and the current MCF council members were in the meeting. The only exception seems to be IM Mas Hafizul who for some reason was invited (or maybe he was a delegate for Kelantan, I'm not quite sure)  but he left the meeting after a short while.

The meeting started from 10:00 AM and ended around 2:00 PM when the attendees started streaming out of the hall and into the cafe. What most of us were interested in was the elections, especially the post of President. This was a two way fight between the incumbent, Tan Sri Ramli and the Vice President, Zuhri.

One of the hotly contested argument was that the sitting MCF council members had voting rights in the election. I understood that this was always the practice but Zuhri and his supporters tried to change this. Eventually the motion was dropped and the voting began. The total number of voters was forty. Voting was by secret ballot and this may or may not be advantageous to either candidate.

When the votes were counted, it was a dead heat! Both candidates had the same number of votes i.e twenty each. Unprecedented! Well actually it is because there has never been a fight for the presidency , in my memory. No contest until this year.

There were discussions on how to proceed next. Some wanted to adjourn and come back to vote another day. This in my mind was not the best solution as there are many from other states who have to return to KL another day. So the decision was to have a second round of voting.

There is the interesting part to this vote tie. Eye witnesses told me that when the tie was announced, both Zuhri and Tan Sri Ramli were stunned, meaning that both had expected to win handily. And this means that some who had promised to vote one way had reneged and voted the other. As they say, in politics there are no permanent friends nor enemies.

So the voting began anew. I was very sure that there will be no tie this time and I told my friend so. There will be switches of allegiance anew. I was right for the results came back with Tan Sri Ramli retaining his post with 21 votes while Zuhri got 16.

Sharp eyed readers will notice something not right. There were total forty votes (20-20) in the first round but only 37 votes in the second? What happened to the three remaining votes? Did they abstain or spoilted their vote deliberately? No one will ever know because the voting slips were shredded after the votes were counted.

So now we have a new council, hopefully they will get down to work. 

MSSWP Champions

The MSSWP Kuala Lumpur schools championship was completed last week. See the list of winners here.

The 2013 MSSM will start on Monday 25th March in Taiping, Perak.

DATCC Rapid this week-end

DATCC will organize its first rapid series for 2013 with the FANTASTIC RAPID WEEKEND on 17th March 2013 starting at 9:00am followed by Round 1 at 10:00am. The 7 Round Swiss tournament will use a time control of 25 minutes per player played to the finish, with a total prize fund of RM 1,100. The prize giving presentation is expected to start at 6:30pm.

The eventual winner will earn RM300 for his/her effort followed by RM200 for the runner up, and 6 other main prizes up to the 8th spot. Special prize of RM30 each have been allocated for the best U12/U17/Unrated player whilst another RM40 each for the top Veteran and Best Lady player. For the special prizes, there must be at least 3 players or more vying for the tops spots in each category. For DATCC members, there is an additional fund of RM50 and RM40 for the top 2 DATCC members who is not able to win any prizes in the main category - no minimal number of members playing in order to be eligible for the prize.

Students can request for Certificate of Participation/Achievement provided the request is made before the start of the round.

Entry fees for adults are RM25 for non-members and RM15 for members. Entry fees for the junior players below 12 years old are RM10 for members and RM20 for non-members. Closing date is 16th March before 6pm and those who register late for the event will incur an additional RM15. No late penalty charges will be imposed to members but, entries are only limited to the first 80 players hence, once all the seats are filled, it may be difficult to squeeze more people in.

For more information, please download our entry forms by clicking HERE and submit your entries to mailto:datcc@chess-malaysia.com or mailto:najib.wahab@chess-malaysia.com. Payments can be made to our bank account as per the details contained in the entry forms but players are requested to scan their transaction slip and email it together with their entry forms. Please retain the payment slip and bring it to the centre at 9:00am to confirm your registration.

Come have fun and join us for our rapid event. It is going to be FANTASTIC!!!

CAS First Quarter Allegro

This Chess Association of Selangor event will be held on Sunday, 24th March 2013. The venue is the DAT Chess Connections in Wilayah Complex. This event will have a combined prize fund of Ringgit 2,980/=, quite a large sum for a one day tournament.

There will be two sections, one for those with National Rating over 1400 and the other below 1400. The prizes are equal for both sections e.g first prize is RM300 for both sections.

It is unfortunate that the date for this tournament is so close to the MSSM in Perak which  starts the next day on 25th March, though die-hard chess players can still play in this and rush off to Perak immediately :)

By joining the tournament, you will be supporting the CAS and at the same time see first hand the new look of DAT Chess Connections. For more details and entry forms go to CAS website

MCF, where are their titles ?

At the Istanbul Olympiad last September, three of our players fulfilled the requirements for titles. They are Lim Zhuo Ren for FIDE Master, Camilia Johari for Women FIDE Master and Tan Li Ting for Women Candidate Master.

The latest list (March 2013) still does not reflect their titles. See below.

Titles which are earned at special tournaments like the Olympiads are automatically registered by the FIDE President. So what is happening? I checked some of the other players who also achieved the FM title at the Istanbul Olympiad and they reflect the title besides their names. Except for our players.

Below is an example of how the player card shows titles which are registered by the President.

Why is it that the Malaysian Chess Federation, which should look after the interests of all Malaysian chess community/players, is not even aware of this (its already five months since Olympiad)? Or is it because some required fees for title registration were not paid?

Do they serve the chess community or do they serve their own interests? Where is MCF taking us? What are their plans to develop Malaysian chess? Or the MCF officials have no clue?

In the coming election this Sunday, I hope the state delegates vote wisely, who will best serve the chess community and players.

2013 FIDE Candidates

The 2013 FIDE Candidates tournament will begin in a week's time. The tournament will be a double round robin to be held in London from 14th March till 2nd April. This tournament is to determine a challenger to the current World Champion Viswanathan Anand.

The contenders are -

Boris Gelfand - loser of 2012 World Championship Match
Magnus Carlsen, Vladimir Kramnik  and Levon Aronian - highest average ratings on July 2011 & January 2012 lists:
Peter Svidler , Alexander Grischuk and Vassily Ivanchuk  - top three from the 2011 World cup
Teimour Radjabov - nominated by Azerbaijan

Now the last candidate mentioned is a bit of a puzzle. The event is going to be held in London but Azerbaijan has a nomination? The answer is that Azerbaijan was originally slated to hold the tournament. However, Levon Aronian is Armenian and his country and Azerbaijan are still in conflict. Aronian had previously stated that he will not play in Azerbaijan thus London stepped in to hold the event. Azerbaijan was allowed to keep their nominee in the tournament.

The man in form and also the highest rated player in the world is Magnus Carlsen. My bet is on him to win. Kramnik is also in great shape and he is my other bet to win,

One thing is for sure. With a line up like this we will be treated to some great chess!

The deal with short draws

This game ref here received a lot of attention with some criticizing the short draw while others defended the two players action. Even Australian GM Ian Rogers had to comment on it in US Chess ; by the way I learnt a new word there -  ropable -  I had to look up a dictionary for the definition which by the way  means "extremely angry" :)

For what my opinion is worth, I do not see anything wrong with short draws, if drawing ensures a certain result e.g first place, and both players are agreeable with that result. Does it matter if the draw was in three moves or more than three moves?

What I do not like is when the players delay their draw and I have seen plenty of these examples. In one local tournament, the eventual winner needed only a draw in the final round. He was playing with a "friendly", and they were delaying their result waiting for the game on the second board. Presumably an appropriate result there could mean a loss would still ensure a first placing and at the same time help his friend to get a higher placing.  This is the type of situation everyone should be upset about and not a three move draw which was not even pre-arranged.

In the last round of the 2011 SEA Game selection, I offered my last round opponent , IM Lim Yee Weng, a draw after around twelve moves. The ever correct Yee Weng was hesitant about it even though the draw meant that both of us will tie for second placing. We eventually drew after I checked with the arbiter if it was alright for us to draw.

Filipino chess legend, GM Eugene Torre, achieved his title with a thirteen move draw offer against US GM Robert Byrne. When he published his biography, he titled it "Beyond the 13th Move". This book gave me the inspiration to achieve my own IM title.

FIDE Gen. Secretary , Ignatius Leong, once awarded two players zero points. Both players came late to the game and signed their scoresheet with a draw without a single move being made. Good decision I say.

On another occasion, at an important Open tournament, I witnessed the players at the  third board were delaying their game (obviously waiting for the first board result). The tournament director (a strong player himself) noticed this and warned them that he would not accept a decisive result as he contended that the players were involved in match fixing By then, one of the players had reached a winning rook ending. The player with the winning ending tried to appeal to the tournament director to no avail. Eventually they submitted a draw.