SEA Games chess over

Today is the last round of the men and women standard event. The women and men's blitz event also starts after the completion of the standard event.

Standard event

There was two quick draws between GM Cao Sang and GM Wesley So which lasted only four moves. GM So has won the silver with this draw. GM Cao Sang ties for third with

The game between Indonesian GM Megaranto Susanto and Myanmar Kway Ling Naing lasted only a little longer , eight moves to be exact. Megaranto wins the gold with this draw. FM Kway and GM Cao Sang had a play-off to determine the bronze.  Kway surprisingly won the armageddon and thus takes the bronze.

Vietnam takes gold in rapid chess

Vietnamese players snatched gold in both the men's and women's rapid event.  GM Le Quang Liem won his second gold and WGM Nguyenn Pham Le Thao  won the women's event. Indonesia had a silver through the surprising FM Hamdani Rudin. GM  Nguyen Ngoc Truong Song took the bronze.

Truong Song needed to win the last game against the lower rated FM Kasmiran. Surprisingly the position reached a Q+B versus Q+B where the Vietnamese could not avoid perpetual check. Since he already had the bronze , he continued to play on and ended up losing a bishop ending.

The following position was reached in GM Barbosa Oliver against Sumant Subramaniam in the final round. Sumant was not having a good tournament and has lost a pawn. However some resourceful play and time pressure and we have the diagram

Megaranto leads

Indonesian GM Megaranto takes the lead in the SEA Games Men's Standard event. Last night, he created an upset over Philippines GM Wesley So.

The men's standard only has six players and contested over a five round round-robin tournament. A single loss can be the end of the gold medal. Megaranto should now win the gold barring any upset as he needs a single point from the remaining two rounds. A tie with Wesley So will be in the Indonesian's favour due to the personal encounter tie-breaker.

Malaysia loses to Philippines

In the fourth round of the Mixed event,both IM Lim Yee Weng and WFM Najiha lost their games to the more experienced Filipinos. This means Vietnam will take the gold and Philippines the silver leaving the bronze for the other countries.

Malaysia meets Myanmar in the fifth and last round and needs a win to confirm a bronze medal. As I write, Yee Weng is hard at work , preparing to win tomorrow. Much depends on him as a win will ease the pressure on the young Najiha, though we also expect her to beat her opponent tomorrow.

My fortunes in the blindfold continue to slide downward , losing both seventh and eight rounds. Mok drew both games.

The rest of the team, IM Mas, Sumant Subramaniam, Camilia, Li Ting  and Nabila has joined us from Malaysia. They will have a free day tomorrow as their events only starts on the Thursday,17th of November.

Malaysia shocks Indonesia!

In the on-going SEA Games mixed pair event, Malaysia has just registered a shock 1.5 - 0.5  win over Indonesia in Round 3. The mixed event is played over two boards with one men and one women. Our team is out-titled and out-rated but our fighting team did the seemingly impossible to win the match. Indonesia had their top men and women , GM Megaranto Susanto and WGM Irine Sukandar in the line-up.

IM Lim Yee Weng was the first to finish and he beat Indonesia's top player GM Megaranto Susanto.

GM Megaranto - IM Lim Yee Weng

White resigned after 1. Rf3 Qxf3 as the black king will capture the white a-pawn and queen his own pawn.

In the other game, our Najiha drew with WGM Irine Sukandar. Najiha exchanged all pieces to reach a rook vs rook ending with both sides having three king-side pawns. The Indonesian conceded the draw to give Malaysia the match win.

Malaysia now has two match wins and one loss. The mixed event is based on match points so there is a good chance to catch a bronze medal now. The remaining opponents are Myanmar and Philippines.

SEA Games Blindfold, Round 2

There are ten players in this event from five countries. We will play a round robin of nine round with two rounds per day at 3:00 P.M. and 5:00 PM. In the first round, players from same country are paired. The only players to fight it out were Malaysia and Philippines. All others drew quickly. Results of round one

GM John Paul Gomez 1 - 0 GM Darwin Laylo
IM Lioe Dede 0.5-0.5 IM Purnama Tirta Chandra
IM Mok Tze Meng 0 - 1 IM Jimmy Liew
GM Nguyen Anh Dung 0.5 - 0.5 GM Le Quang Liem
IM Myo Naing 0.5 - 0.5 GM Zaw Win Lay

Results of Round 2

GM Darwin Laylo 1- 0 Zaw Win Lay
GM Le Quang Liem 1-0  IM Myo Naing
IM Jimmy Liew 0.5 - 0.5 GM Nguyen Anh Dung
IM Purnama Tirta Chandra 0.5 0.5  IM Mok Tze Meng
GM John Paul Gomez 1 - 0  IM Lioe Dede


In this type of event there are bound to be
some incidents. In round two , IM Mok claimed a three-fold repetition draw which opponent disputed. Even after the arbiter had determined that the claim was valid,  the Indonesian master still did not agree. Arbiter actually had to verbally warn him that the decision was final.

There are a few interesting rules in this totally new event. The time control is twenty minutes with twenty second increments from move one.

For serious rule infractions a player will be given a yellow card similar as in football. After two yellow cards, the third infraction will be a red card which will result in the loss of the game.

Players sit at a empty chess board. They write their move on a piece of paper in long form notation (e.g e2-e4). Doing otherwise will result in a verbal warning. The second time the player will be shown a yellow card. The player on the move shows the move to the opponent and passes it to the game controller (there are two controllers for each game). The controllers verify the moves and play it on a chess board at the side (not visible to the players). An illegal move results in a yellow card.

Players are not allowed to get up from the board until the game is over. This is actually to prevent them from getting a view of the actual position on the chess board besides them though I doubt anyone actually would want to in view of the short time control.

Standings after Round 2


2.0 points
GM John Paul Gomez 

1.5 points
IM Jimmy Liew
IM Purnama Tirta Chandra
GM Nguyen Anh Dung
GM Le Quang Liem


1.0 points

GM Darwin Laylo

0.5 points
IM Mok Tze Meng
 IM Lioe Dede
 GM Zaw Win Lay
  IM Myo Naing

Round 3 pairings.

IM Lioe Dede vs. GM Darwin Laylo
IM Mok Tze Meng vs. GM John Paul Gomez
GM Nguyen Anh Dung  vs. IM Purnama Tirta Chandra
IM Myo Naing vs IM Jimmy Liew
GM Zaw Win Lay vs. GM Le Quang Liem

IM Jimmy Liew - IM Mok, Jimmy wins

GM Nguyen Anh Dung - IM Jimmy Liew, draw

IM Mok - IM Purnama, draw