Incident at KL Chess Classic

My student was playing against the adult player, Lim Sim Leong A closed position was reached and both sides started repeating moves. Student offered a draws a few times, thinking that Lim Sim Leong could not make progress. Somehow Lim managed to break through but almost immediately blundered an exchange.

Student now had a R vs B ending which was easily winning. As I was looking at the online chess-results I saw that he was accorded the win. To my surprise a few minutes later, this was changed to a draw result.

I asked him about it and he related the story. Lim kept badgering the arbiter to declare the game drawn. His reasoning was that there were mutiple three-fold repetitions and also my student was repeatedly offering draws. In fact he held up the beginning of the next round by almost half an hour.

Finally the arbiter turned to student and asked him whether he agreed to the draw. In order not to create a bigger scene and to get the next round started, he agreed and a draw was recorded.

I posted this incident to Facebook and drew many comments (Over 130 at this point in time). I have tried to get the arbiter of his version of how this happened but sadly he has not given any. So I can only relate what I believe happened based on my conversation with my student and her mother.

Here I want to give a proper SOP on how to handle this type of situation which is not that uncommon actually.

Arbiter entered the result as win and posted to chess-results, as seen with my own eyes. So there is no reason to deny he already accepted the result of the game at that point.

Then Lim comes along and protests the result. Was he not present when the result given to the arbiter earlier? In such situation, the arbiter should verify the result. How? By playing through the game from the scoresheets. He will then see the final position which he being a chess player for decades he should know that the position was lost for Lim. Case closed.

So why did he start asking my student if he will agree a draw?

The arbiter commented on Facebook that Lim refused to accept the result and delayed the start of the next round. Therefore his solution was to get both players to come to a compromise (draw). The position was win for him so the results stand. It does not matter if the opponent does not agree. Pair the next round and start.

Instead, the arbiter took the coward way out. Instead of standing firm against a bully , he bullied my student instead by asking him if he agrees a draw instead. An 8 year old boy could not stand his ground against a 70 year old arbiter and gave in.

There was some comment that my student made numerous draw offers and this was the reason Lim contested the result. This is not uncommon either and the player can also protest to the arbiter. Arbiter can warn the player. If warning is not complied with, than a penalty can be imposed. Start with time penalty and the last resort forfeit the game. I do not think the arbiter did any of this.

There were also many comments defending the arbiter decision from his daughter, Ruby Kwan. Her arguments were totally irrelevant and without any reference to FIDE Laws of Chess. She did out of loyalty. I respect that last part but sorry.

Know the rules.

Be objective

Make the correct decisions from your understanding of the FIDE rules.

Stand firm on your decisions

Enforce your decisions.

This is the job of a chess arbiter.

Bullying in chess

This is a story about how a grown up man cheated an 8 year old kid of half-point in a chess tournament.

My student (let's call him S, so clever of me) was playing against the adult (I call him A). now A is the number one seed but not doing so well in the tournament. A closed position was reached and both sides started repeating moves. S offered a draws a few times, thinking that A could not make progress. Somehow A managed to break through but almost immediately blundered an exchange.
S now had a R vs B ending which was easily winning. As I was looking at the online chess-results I saw that S was accorded the win. To my surprise a few minutes later, this was changed to a draw result.

I asked S about it and he related the story. A kept badgering the arbiter to declare the game drawn. His reasoning was that there were mutiple three-fold repetitions and also S was repeately offering draws. In fact he held up the beginning of the next round by almost half an hour.

Finally the arbiter turned to S and asked him whether he agreed to the draw. In order not to create a bigger scene and to get the next round started, he agreed and a draw was recorded.

Other students have also related their stories against L, how he lied and cheated against them. I have seen many instances of adults bullying young chess players, arbiters should be alert to this. Unfortunately in some cases, even the arbiters do it as this story shows. If you are not fit to be an arbiter please do not do any arbitering.


I have to say Malaysia has some of the worst arbiters (even senior ones are guilty). It does not help that it is so easy to get an arbiter title here. Almost anyone can organize a chess arbiter seminar and anyone can join after paying the fees.

Lesson on clock handling

Jimmy Liew- Cahyadi

Diagram is my fifth round game at UniKL last Saturday. Both of us less than one minute left. I played Rc2 attacking his bishop and after his bishop moves, d3-d2 wins a piece. He kept thinking and thinking and after some time he moved Bd2-b4. I thought he must have lost on time, glanced at the clock and saw I actually was the one that lost on time! My opponent had just waited and pretending to think about his move until my time ran out.


I actually did press the clock but it did not register. This can happen if the table is uneven (because it is made of two joined tables) and your side is slightly lower. When you press, the clock just moved down due to the uneveness and the feedback made you think you correctly pressed the button but actually your time is still running.


This also happened to IM Mok Tze Meng earlier this year in Pahang. I was watching and wondering why he did not move as his time counted down.

By the way I do not blame my opponent, it is up to ourself to press the clock correctly and he has no obligation to point it out.

8 year old wins Under 1600 tournament

8 year old Kavin Mohan has emerged as the U1600 FIDE Classica Edition 5 tournament at Institute of Chess Excellence today. This
is the third tournament he has won consecutively.

After 8 rounds, he scored 7 points, half a point ahead of Noor Akbar Daniel Iskandar who was the only player who beat Kavin and Benjamin Cheah the leader till the last round.

Benjamin Cheah had 6.5 points against 6 points by Kavin. A draw would ensure a first placing for Benjamin. Kavin was not having any of that even though he was playing the black pieces. He beat Benjamin decisively to take first place.

The time control of 30 minutes plus 30 seconds increment for each move suited Kavin very well. He has always been a fast player. He won a gold medal at the Asian Schools last year and a bronze in Asian Youth in Sri Lanka this year both in the blitz section. It is no surprise that out of 8 games he finished with more time than he started with! In the last round, he had 48 minutes on the clock when he checkmated Benjamin.

So how did he win this tournament against a field much older than him? Kavin used to blunder very easily but this has mostly been corrected. He showed good preparation and fighting spirit in his games. In the position from round 7 below, most of us will write it off as impossible to win even with Black's weaknesses due to the reduced material on the board. But Kavin kept pressing and eventually won!

Kavin receiving his prize from me

On Thursday, 1st August Kavin will leave for Bangkok for the Eastern Asia Youth Championship Under 08 section.