Chess Camp by IM Mok Tze Meng

A chess camp will be organized this coming March school holidays. Camp is conducted by IM Mok Tze Meng. Full details below -

Registration form below:

SMK HILLCREST

MARCH HOLIDAY CHESS CAMP

REGISTRATION FORM

Date	:	14 and 15 March 2011
Time	:	9.00am to 3.00pm
Duration	:	12 hours
Venue	:	SMK HILLCREST LIBRARY
Coach	:	IM Mok Tze Meng and his trainers
Name	:
I/C	:
D.O.B	:
Address	:
Tel	:
Level			Fees	Please tick one level only
Beginner ( start to play)			RM 150
Intermediate Player			RM 175
Tournament Player			RM 200
Payable to	:	Intelligent Minds Academy Eon Bank 0053-10-004865-0

l  Breakfast, lunch,certificate and course materials will be provided

l  Please feel free to visit our blog at kelabcatursmkhillcrest.blogspot.com

l  For further information, please contact Ms Wong 017 357 7788 or yenlee741011_u@hotmail.com

Rationality comments on Mok's ending

First GM had a post on my analysis of this ending.

I read Rationality's comments on this post and I am very impressed by his thoughts. He wrote with such clarity that I just have to re-publish it here for everyone's benefit, with my own notes which I put in bold

Rationality says:
The win is not easy to see. Someone who has been playing the whole game and not an individual position tends to miss wins that don't look forced, which was the case in this endgame.

Me: Also read the third paragraph

The winning move, 48.Nd6+ was counter-intuitive. It gives black the option to play Kf4-g3, although with calculation it will prove to be losing. The idea behind it is not obvious either. The first instinct would be to attack the b6 pawn; the follow-up, Ne3 is not an easy move to see and might not even come under consideration.

Me: In positions with knight versus bad bishop, the instinct is not to place the knight on the same color square as the bishop (because of the possibility of being exchanged). That is why Ne3 is not easy to see at all.

Given the position at hand and asked to find a win, anyone could do that. The problem is that Mok has been playing the entire game. To search for a forced win rather than make moves to improve you position is not easy. In other words, Mok was making strategic rather than calculative moves. You see, 48.Nd6 would not be a good move if it was not winning. Mok wanted to improve his worst placed piece, namely the king, and picked the most obvious choice.

To search for a win on every move is not feasible since it is time consuming, and obviously you tend to overspend your time when you try to find a non-existent win.

In short, the reason Mok missed the win was not because he didn't have the technical strength to calculate it through to the end. In fact, if you told him there was a forced win in the position, he would have found it within a short while. Rather, the reason for him to miss the win was because he did not sense that there was an opportunity to win that position. This is one of the many things that make the good and great different.

Me: Which leads to the question - when should we stop and tell ourselves - "There must be something here".

The player is at the board from move one. He is analysing many lines and ideas. This lines and ideas persist to the current position and does affect his current analysis and judgement. This is "baggage" in a sense. If you clear your mind of this baggage, you might see things you did not notice before. There are countless times when I get up from the board to go to the washroom. Half way there I start seeing lines and ideas which were hidden to me when I was sitting at the board.

Mok's missed endgame win

In the third round, Mok had 2544 rated grandmaster Sulskis Sarunas of Lithuania on the ropes

White to move

Mok is a pawn up and have the superior minor piece. Mok played 48. Kd3 and eventually drawn.

Instead he had a forced win. 48.Nd6+! Ke6 49. Nc4 Bg1 50. Ne3!

Now the white king cannot be prevented from reaching e4 which is winning. e,g 50... Kd6 51. Kd3 Ke6 52. Ke4 Bf2  53. Nc4  Bd4 54 b5 axb5 55. axb5 and now black is in zugzwang and must allow the white king into d5

From the first diagram, after 48.Nd6! black can also try 48...Kf4 but this is also lost. 49.Kf2! controlling g1 so the bishop will be unable to defend the b6 pawn. 49...Bg3 50 Kf1 Bh2 51. b5 axb5 52. axb5 wins.

Malaysian Masters Finals, Pre-match Analysis

After months of matches, the eight contestants are now down to two. Mas will face-off against Nicholas Chan. Winner has bragging rights as the best Malaysian chesser, at least for 2009 (let's hope we can see a second edition in 2010).

This event proves that the juniors still have a lot to catch up with our seniors. Both National Master Evan Capel and National Junior Tariq Amru were shown the door in their first match.

Mas had a tougher time to the finals. Although he beat Tariq Amru easily, he was really stretched against "Tiger" Mok Tze Meng who took the match to the rapid tie-breaks. Mas was literally a move away from being eliminated when Mok hung a rook in a completely winning position. Mas just needed a draw in the next game which he managed without difficulty.

Quarter-finals bt Tariq Amru 3-0
Semi-Finals bt Mok Tze Meng 3.5-1.5 (tie-breaks)

Nicholas had an easier route to the finals. After beating Evan, he did not have difficulty showing Yee Weng the door.

Quarter-finals bt Evan Capel 3-0
Semi-Finals bt Lim Yee Weng 2.5-0.5

Prior to this, Mas has played many tournaments without much success. His last two were the Vietnam Open where he was 10th and the Commonwealth Open in Singapore where he finished 11th. I think the number of tournaments have been taking a toll on him.

Nicholas have not been playing much apart from winning the Selangor Open Champion this year and playing a few games in the DATCC Chess League and the Merdeka Team championships.

If I were to compare the styles for these two players, Mas is a more technical and rounded player. Nicholas is a tactician and blitz king and Mas has never been comfortable with someone who plays fast.

Who do I think will win? I pick Nicholas to win this match. Maybe my readers might find this surprising. There are few reasons for me to pick Nicholas.

Mas has been chasing a GM norm for a while now without success. When you are in his situation, you need to take a break, study your games thoroughly and evaluate why he is in the position he is in. I am willing to bet, Mas had many good or winning games in all these tournaments, which he spoiled at some crucial moments, possibly because of time trouble. He needs time to fix this and he is not in the best frame of mind to go into an important six game match with a dangerous tactical player. Besides he must be exhausted by now.

The finals starts tomorrow Saturday 19th December 2009 at 10:30 AM at the usual venue which is DAT Chess Centre. I might be following the games sporadically.

Malaysian Masters Semi-Finals Comments

Now that the quarter-finals are over, we can look forward to the semi-finals. While the quarter-finals were rather one-sided, the semis will pitch the most experienced and strongest players currently in the local scene.

The first match will be FM Nicholas Chan versus IM Lim Yee Weng, or what I call the "amateurs" match. As both of them are currently working, so they can be considered as amateurs. This is their big disadvantage as history have proven that working outside of chess has a negative effect on your chess :)

Yee Weng will be a hard man to beat. His performance in DATMO 2008 is probably his best ever. He had a reasonable result in the Dresden Olympiad with two wins, six draws and three loses on board two. Since then his form has taken a dip with mediocre results in the DATCC Chess League, DATMO 2009 and Merdeka Team Rapid.

From personal observation on their recent play, I think Nicholas did not drop as much in form. My bet is that he will beat Yee Weng.

The second match sees IM Mashafizul against FM Mok Tze Meng. This is the battle of the "pros" as both can be considered chess professionals at this point in time. Mas is attached to Petronas but has been playing chess non-stop for some time. Mok does chess coaching as part of his source of income so undeniably he is a chess pro.

Mas has been playing non-stop for the past two (?) years mostly against strong players in international competitions. Currently he is chasing his first grandmaster norm in Europe. We can expect him to be at the top of his game.

However, Mok cannot be discounted. He has a good run winning the Penang Open ahead of Mas, great performance in DATCC Chess League, had the best performance amongst all the Malaysians at DATMO 2009 and capped off with an outstanding turnout at the Merdeka Team where he beat GM Rogelio Antonio (Philippines) in the last round.

This will be a hard match to predict. But based on rating and recent performances, I am willing to bet that the winner of this match will win the finals as well.

Crouching Tiger, Smiling Buddha

On Wednesday somebody reminded me that I had not had a post for days. This proves that at least one person reads my blog and secondly, he does not have a life. Are you actually counting the days between my blogs?

Chess is a boring game to the uninitiated. You cannot appreciate it unless you know the game. This is why chess will never become a spectator sport. Imagine an audience following the game. After long minutes of thought, one of the player reaches out and moves a piece. Both players sink back into deep thought. Maybe one of them (hopefully not the one on the move), gets up and takes a stroll to the loo (thats the toilet to you less refined types). Then repeat again and again until the handshake signalling the end of the game.

What is the casual observer to make of this? Man, I'm better off watching wrestling at home on my TV in the comfort of my living room.

We need to spice things up to get more sponsors (and money) into the game. Look at pro-wrestling. In the 70s and early 80s, what we got were two big guys slugging it out in the ring in a small town school gymnasium in the good old US of A. Then along came the World Wrestling Federation and turned wrestling around. Just watch Wrestle Mania and see how the thousands of people actually paying hard earned money to watch these wrestlers muck around in a square ring.

How did the WWF (its now called WWE) did it? It made the wrestlers larger than life, giving them outrageous ring names like Hulk Hogan, Brett "Hitman" Hart and many more. There is much more to it than a name, but its a good start and I think we can copy this trick :)

I'm going to take it upon myself to come up with some board names for some of our top players. Let's start with Ooi Chern Ee and Mok Tze Meng, who are going to meet tomorrow morning for their quarter final match for the 2009 Malaysian Masters.

Naturally the name must match some characteristics of the person. If you talk to Chern Ee he is always smiling, and just being the nice guy he is. For some reason, he reminds me of the statues of buddhas at the Kek Lok Si Temple in my home town on Penang Island. OK, I call him "Smiling Buddha" Ooi Chern Ee.

His opponent is more difficult to name. Mok reminds me of a cartoon tiger in a book called "Chess for Tigers". ( If you can still find it, get this book for a good laugh). The cartoonist drew this tiger with an impossibly slim middle. Now Mok has the slimmest abdomen area I have ever seen in a male and I think he really resembles the tiger in the book.

Mok is quite an enigma. Obviously he has the chess skills but never made his IM title. Not many people remember this, but he has been carrying one or two IM norms for some years but never succeeded to achieve the final one. For some time, he has been like a tiger in the shadows waiting for his moment in the limelight. His success in the recent Penang Open where he took the championship ahead of Mas and a GM, indicates he is ready to make his move. He is a crouching tiger ready to pounce on his victims. That's right, I give you ... *drum roll* ... Mok "Crouching Tiger" Tze Meng.

So will it be "Smiling Buddha" Ooi or Mok "Crouching Tiger" Tze Meng who will emerge victorious? Catch the action at DATCC tomorrow morning and Sunday at 9:00 AM or come back here for the results on Sunday.

Nuff said!