Singapore Chess Festival 2009 Final Ranking

The Singapore Chess Festival 2009 is over. The main event, Commonwealth Championship has gone to a local Singapore, Enrique Paciencia with seven and half points, one full point ahead of the top seed, India's IM Ashwin Jayaram. Australian Max Illingworth is third and with an original seeding of sixteen he performed at 2418, he must certainly be happy with his results. Not sure if he had a IM norm from this.

It's a lot of bad news for Malaysians though. Lim Yee Weng drew with Paciencia, probably a quick one as Paciencia already had the tourament in his pocket, after a tough fight. Unfortunately he still loses a bunch of ELO as does Mas who surprisingly drew his 2214 rated opponent. Maybe Mas wanted to get it over with and forget this tournament. He finished in eleventh place from an original seeding of fourth.

Edward lost to Timothy Chan and finishes with four and half points and finished twelve position just behind Mas. Not bad considering he was seeded 22nd but he did not gain any ELO points (according to Edward he did gain 29 points, a very good result! You have to wondor how many more points he would get if he had won).

Lim Yee Weng 5 points 7th place
Mas 4.5 11th place
Edward Lee 4.5 12 place

Yee Weng in Malaysian Masters semi-finals

Lim Yee Weng beats Edward Lee to move into the semi-finals. However, I am very surprised at the way Edward conceded the match.

The first two games were drawn and Yee Weng won the third to take the lead. In the fourth game, a draw was agreed after eleven moves in a standard French Defence. Edward is playing white so there is every chance of winning. Besides, Yee Weng form has dropped tremendously since the Dresden Olympiad. He did not do very well in the DATMO. In the Merdeka Rapid, he blundered a whole rook against me in a possibly winning position.

It seems that Edward already gave up hope after losing the third game. It is reported that he is currently studying in Singapore and I think he do not fancy coming back again for a semi-final match(?)

The competitors in this event were picked based on their ratings and performances in the National championship as well as the National Junior Championships. I wondor why someone would agree to take part if they are not committed to the event.