Chess craftsman

India has many skilled craftsmen of wooden chess sets and India is largest exporter of such sets. I know that wooden sets and boards are also made in Poland, Italy and Spain. But I never expected Morocco to have such a skilled craftsman.

It amazes me how he can carve a chess piece in just a few minutes with such primitive tools. That tool that he is using to turn the wood is called a lathe. Pay close attention because at one point he fashioned a wooden ring around the chess piece out of that single piece of wood.

World Youth U16 Olympiad - Round 6

Malaysia put up a creditable score against Kazahkstan losing 1.5-2.5.

The sole win was posted by Yeoh Li Tian and Wong JianWen did us proud by drawing against his higher rated opponent. Sadly Eng Chiam lost his game as did Elgin.

Malaysia now drops down to shared 9-10th placing. We meet England Switzerland in the next round. I predict a win loss though it will be a narrow one.

The final position of Li Tian's game is interesting. I am not sure if Black resigned or lost on time

Black to move

Despite having the move - and a check at that - black cannot avoid losing material.White is threatening 1. Ne6+ forking the bishop or 1. Ne3+ forking the rook. Play might continue 1...Rxg2+ 2. Kh3 Re2 3. Ne6+ and wins the bishop

Today is a free day and rounds 7 and 8 will resume on Saturday. Standings after round six below.

World Youth U16 Olympiad - Halfway through

At the half-way mark, Malaysian boys are doing quite well. After five rounds, they now have 12 points.and tied for 5-7th placing!

Individual results -

Name	ELO	South Africa	India	UAE-A	Syria	Turkey	Kazakhstan	Total	% Score
Wong, Jianwen	1960	0		0.5	0			0.5	16.66667
Yeoh, Li Tian	2139	1	0	1	1	1		4	80
Lee, Kah Meng Elgin	1984	1	0	0.5		1		2.5	62.5
Yeap, Eng Chiam	2150	1	0		1	1		3	75
Ajeet Singh Roshan	1886		0	1	0	1		2	50
		3	0	3	2	4		12

Both Li Tian and Eng Chiam are doing well enough to be in contention for board prize though there are still five more rounds to go and anything can happen. Nevertheless here are the standings

Malaysia meets a tough team in the sixth round, Kazakhstan. This will be an important round for Eng Chiam and Li Tian as their opponents are in second place in the board standings just ahead of them. If they defeat them, then both our boys will move into second placing :)

Malaysia beats Turkey 4-0

As I predicted, our boys won their games very comfortably. The best game was played by Eng Chiam. In a middle-game with opposite coloured bishops and major pieces middle-game, he made two line clearing sacrifices to conjure up an attack against the black king.

Yeap Eng Chiam - G.N. Guney

From the diagram, Eng Chiam sac a pawn for attack.

27.c6! bxc6 28. Qh5+  Kf8 29. Rad1 Qc8 30. Rxd8 Qxd8 31. Rd1 Qc8 32. f5! 

A second line opening pawn sac finishes the game.

32...Bxf5 33. Bh6+ Rg7 34. Rf1 Bg4

34...e6 35. g4  Bh7 36. Rxf6+ Kg8 37. Bxg7 Kxg7 38.Rf7 wins.

35. Qg6 Bf3+ 36. Rxf3 exf3 37. Bxg7 and black resigns.

World Youth U16 Olympiad - Round 4

After four rounds, Malaysia have a 50% score and tied for 12th-16th place. In the fourth round,we drew 2-2 with Syria. Yeoh Li Tian and Yeap Eng Chiam delivered the wins. As I said, I expect this two to deliver the points. Especially Eng Chiam on board four should be very effective except against the very top teams.

Round 5 is now in progress and Malaysia is paired with one of the three Turkish teams. The Turkey team is much lower-rated than our players so on paper we should win by a comfortable margin.


JianWen is resting in the on-going round 5 match so Li Tian moves up to board one. He has a slight edge over his Turkish opponent.and I think he should convert into a win. All the other boards are still in the early middle-game and not clear.

World Youth U16 Olympiad

Malaysia's representatives are Wong JianWen, Yeoh Li Tian, Elgin Lee, Yeap Eng Chiam and Roshan Singh. This is also the board order. The team left early Sunday (23rd October) morning. They had to play the first round the very next day.

In round one we were paired with the South African "B" team. On first board, JianWen lost his game but Li Tian, Elgin and Eng Chiam all won to give Malaysia a 3-1 win.

Most of the time the top board will have very difficult task and it seems no different here. The next round tonight will see our boys meeting India who have an IM on first board. However I believe our boys can pull off some upsets on the other boards. My guess is that Li Tian and Eng Chiam will score points for the team in round two. Hopefully JianWen and Elgin can hold against their opponents.

Lets think about it and then do it my way

Time to give the chess a rest and share some funny videos.

"Lets think about it and then do it my way". Priceless!

"You dont even feed my fish"....LOL

Carlsen wins Grand Slam

In the final round, Carlsen drew with Nakamura and Ivancuk with Aronian so the top placings were unchanged. According to the rules a blitz tie-breaker had to be played to decide a champion.

The first game was drawn. In the second , Carlsen had a promising position and converted. Thus he is the champion of the 2011 Grand Slam.

Anand managed to beat Vallejo to put the Spaniard back in the cellar.

Tension in Bilbao

The last round of the Grand Slam in Bilbao is about to start in two hours time. Carlsen and Ivancuk are sharing the lead so anything can still happen. Despite losing the first round, Carlsen has come back into contention beating Ivancuk twice. No mean feat there. World Champion Anand is in an unfamiliar place - last spot!

In the pen-ultimate round all games were decisive with Carlsen beat Ivancuk and Aronian overcame the current world champion , Anand. Surprisingly Anand lost in only twenty-five moves. This game should be worth studying although I do not have time to go into that yet.

Unmasked again

I could not be bothered to do the research. Not when someone keeps moving the goal posts and doing that much mis-direction.

Nothing more can be said and  nothing more need be said. But thanks to Chess Ninja anyway, beside being informative the post is full of humor.