Round 6: Malaysian evaluation

Here are the positions after around 75 minutes of play and my evaluation

Board 1 - Lim Yee Weng - L.Mueller  1-0

Black played an unusual opening and transpose to a French like middle-game. The problem is the black knight on g6 should be on the queen-side, preferably on c6. Black has no counter-play and end up having to play ...f6 which weakens some squares.

Board 2 - Charles Eichab-Aron Teh 0-1

White completely misplayed his opening and his pieces are very un-coordinated compared with Black.

Board 3 - Sumant Subramaniam - M.B. Nitzborn  1-0

Black also played an unusual opening here. White has a big space advantage. The problem is Sumant did not try to expand in the centre by pushing e4 at some stage. Instead the three pieces bundled together on the d-file looks out of place. Still his position is better and I expect him to win.

Board 4 - Handjaba - Fadzil Nayan 0.5-0.5

Opposite colored bishops usually leads to a draw. Black has problems with his white squares and logically a draw will eventually be reached.

Malaysia should win this match at least by 3-1

Intelligent Minds training tomorrow

Intelligent Minds Chess Academy is having chess training every Saturday starting at 9.00 AM  to 12 noon for a total of three hours. Venue is at A-1-9 Amandari ,Jalan 30/38A Sri Sinar in Kuala Lumpur. The fees charged are RM120 per student per session.



The topic for tomorrow's training is a special one.

Intelligent Minds Chess Academy chief coach IM Mok Tze Meng has represented Malaysia at numerous olympiads the last being the olympiad in Istanbul in 2012.

As the Chess Olympiad is currently being held in Tromso, Norway, IM Mok will bring his unique view and vast experience as a member of the previous Olympiad Teams. Tomorrow's topic will be touching on the chess olympiad games and how it feels to represent the country at this major event.  Other topics will be on how to prepare and analyse your games and the teamwork required  for a successful team.

See you all tomorrow at 9:00 AM.

Round 5: Top matches

The fifth round of the Tromso Olympiad had some interesting matches. Azerbaijan could only draw with Serbia while Russia had the same result with Bulgaria. The first board pitted two old rivals, Kramnik and Topalov. Both have not been on speaking not hand-shaking terms since their acrimonious World Championship match where the Topalov team basically accused Kramnik of cheating. It was sweet revenge for Kramnik as he sacrificed an exchange to get a dominant position.

Armenia narrowly defeated Norway with the two top rated players in the world, Aronian and Carlsen playing to a draw. Sargissian beat Agdestein to allow Armenia to win 2.5-1.5.

The upset of the round was the loss of the highly rated Ukraine team to Uzbekistan. GM Vassily Ivancuk is having a horrible tournament so far and he suffered another loss to GM Rustam Kasimdzhanov. The hero for Uzbekistan was  IM Jahongir Vakhidov who upset GM Anton Korobov to give Uzbekistan a 2.5-1.5 win.

As expected Malaysia won 4-0 over Saudi Arabia. Fong Yit San had it easy as his point came without a single move being made. The sixth round will be another easy one as they are playing against Namibia and they can expect to pick up another match win.

Today is a rest day and the sixth round will resume tomorrow.

Round 4: Another loss for Malaysia

Malaysia paired against a slightly stronger team in Guatemala lost narrowly by 1.5-2.5. The points came from Aron Teh who won on second board and Fong Yit San who drew on third. This was not the expected result after two hours of play when it looked like Malaysia could win the match.

Both Yit San and Aron had the better positions after the openings. Playing on the white side of a Grunfeld Defence, Aron sacrificed a pawn in the opening and obtained an over-whelming position. He neatly wrapped up with a mating attack.

Yit San was a clear pawn up and a win was to be expected here. His opponent set up a few problems for him which he never managed to solve. Despite maintaining his extra pawn in a rook ending, it ended in a theoretical draw.

Yee Weng had a slighly worse rook endgame. He made the mistake of playing passively and was ground down.

Fadzil was a strange game. Instead of playing the normal b3, a3 and b4 advance on the queen-side he choose to play on the king-side 15. f4. This is not bad but he followed up with some aimless moves or maybe he was just waiting to see what would happen on the other boards. His opponent cleverly opened up the king-side and saddled him with serious black square weaknesses and he never recovered.


This loss dropped Malaysia to 129th position. The good thing is that when you hit rock bottom there is no other way but up. Malaysia will play Saudi Arabia in the 5th round. This should be an easy win.

Olympiad games selection

This has to be the shortest decisive game in this olympiad A WIM loses to a 11 year old player , rating 1538 , in 8 moves.

You might think the above must be the shortest decisive game in this olympiad but you will be wrong. Observe this. Black played like a complete beginner because she is a complete beginner.

It takes a lot of guts to play the "Fried Liver" against Mr Fire-on-board himself.

Very speculative play against one of the best players in the world but it paid off.

Round 3: Malaysia 0.5 - South Africa 3.5

Last night, Malaysia lost 0.5-3.5 to South Africa. Rating wise, a reasonable result but I was hoping for more.

The only draw came from Fadzil Nayan. His opponent played a passive opening and white and never got anything from the opening.

The first and second boards had the same identical opening and up to the 11th move both positions were the same.  Yee Weng was doing alright until he overlooked a tactic and lost a pawn for nothing.

Aron ended up worse from the opening and forced to give up his queen for rook and bishop. He tried to set up a fortress. It was a good effort but not enough to avoid losing.

Yit San could have had a draw as he had a equal position from the opening. Maybe he thought he should try for more and inexplicably sacrificed a bishop. The attack was an illusion and there was no doubt to the result.

The fourth round opponent is Guatemala with two IMs and higher rated. The difference is only 40 points so we certainly have chances. The last meeting was in Dresden in 2008 where we drew 2-2. Note that at that time we were higher rated than Guatemala.

Round 3 - Malaysia vs South Africa

Round three is about to start and Malaysia is paired with South Africa. This will be the first real test whether this team can score against slightly stronger opposition. On paper, the South Africans are the stronger team but not so strong that an upset is not possible.

The South Africans have three International Masters and everyone is rated higher than our players. However I believe our players have chances. On board one, Yee Weng's game should be the one to watch as he goes up against the experienced IM Kenny Solomon. Chances are equal here.

Aron is up against IM Henry Steel who I think recently obtained his IM title. Aron has been playing very well. His black openings are very well worked out and I think a draw here is an expected result.

Yit San's game is unpredictable. If black plays the opening that Yit San likes, he has chances.

Fadzil Nayan has black but he does not crack easily provided he is not awed by his opponent or the occasion. Self confidence is the key here and our guy has it. I give this equal chances for both sides.

My verdict

2-2 !

Round 2 - Narrow win for Malaysia

Malaysia was paired against the weak Kenya team seeded 130th, for the second round. It is normal to get a weaker team after losing to a strong one. It is the compensating effect of the Swiss system. I went to bed shortly after all the Malaysian games started. Everything looked good, Fadzil was already winning, Aron had the better of the opening, the rest not clear yet but hey, we outpoint them on every board.

This morning I checked the results and got the shock of my life.  A narrow win against a team like this? The team cannot be too happy with this. We should start getting worried.

Ben-Magana-Aron Teh  (draw)

13. Nxg5 is the kind of move my opponents unleash on me in on-line bullet games. It sometimes works because well, it's bullet. But in an olympiad game? Aron went wrong almost immediately with 14. Bg4 which is not necessary at all and leaves the bishop trapped on the king-side. With his bishop trapped on g4 and White's killer bishop on the a2-g8 diagnoal, Aron wisely bailed out with a draw by perpetual.

Fong Yit San-Joseph Atwoli (white won)

Yit San won easily in a Scandinavian opening as the opponent did not have the theory at all (7...Bc8!?) and had his king caught in the centre.

Stephen Ouma - Sumant Subramaniam (white won)

Sumant crashed to his second loss. He made a big mistake with 17...dxe4? opening up the long diagonal for the white bishop on g2 and was outplayed.

Fadzil Nayan - Ngedwa Jackson (white won)

Black is unrated and Fadzil won easily straight out of the opening.

Malaysia 2.5 - Kenya 1.5

Round 1 - Malaysia loses 0.5-3.5 to Spain

In the first round of the Tromso chess olympiad, Malaysia was drawn to meet the strong Spanish team. This is quite traditional as we always seem to be seeded in the lower half of the draw. Compare this with our southern neighbour, Singapore , which shut out Papua New Guinea with a 4-0.

Anything other than a loss would have been a big surprise. Still, Aron Teh managed to draw against his grandmaster opponent, Anton Guijar thus Malaysia lost by 0.5-3.5. I am reminded in the last olympiad, how Lim Zhuo Ren drew the first round game against a grandmaster and went on to make an IM norm (a first for a Malaysian at an olympiad). Aron has been very active in playing and already rated at 2309. We wait to see if he can achieve the same result as Zhuo Ren.

IM Lim Yee Weng played a solid Scotch game against GM Paco Vallejo. He may even have a slight edge in the middle-game. After exchanges, a rook ending was reached where he was ground down from an equal position.

Watching the Malaysia games, I notice a pattern (is that possible after only one round). Our first two boards uses safe and solid openings while the bottom two are more risk taking in their opening choices. This can work well against weaker teams but against a grandmaster team will always result in a loss. On the other hand, if I am going to lose anyway why not try my best opening and get free instruction from a grandmaster?

First round in the olympiad are always very one sided, in many games the rating difference between players can be 500 point or more.  4-0 scores are all over the place. Still, there are upsets where the stronger side could not win or even lost. Example Damion Davy (Jamaica ) drew GM Jan Markos (Slovakia) a rating difference greater than 500. Filipino FM Bersamina (2363) could only draw against Afghanistan's Ahmadi (2031)

I was watching the game Kojima (2373) against GM Sergei Movsesian (2672) The former is a frequent visitor to the Malaysian Chess Festival and I even played him once. The position below happened after 31 moves.

Kojima - Movsesian

It looks like the grandmaster is winning easily but take a closer look, he is black!

5....Nxd5 6. Bh6+ Kf6 7. Bg5+ Kg7 8. Bh6+ White repeats moves as he is very short of time  Kf6 9. exd5  Now he is back on track, the threat is Qg5 mates. Black plays the desperate  Kf5 which should result in mate after 10. g4+ Ke4 11. Ke2 Kxd5 12. Qc4+ Ke4 13. f3#

10. f3 Rxd5 Black desperately makes an escape square for his king on e6 11. Qg5+ ? The quiet move 11.
Rc6 tightens the noose around the black king. There is no defence to the
threats of mate on g4 and g5  11... Ke6 12. Re8+ Kd6 13. Bf8+ White still
wins after 13. Qd8+ Kc6 14. Qc8+ Kb6 15. Bg5 and the check on d8 will win
material. 13... Kc7 14. Qc1+ ??  14. Qe7+ Rd7 15. Qb4 Although he is not
mated immediately, black cannot survive with his king surrounded by active
white pieces. 14... Kb6 15. Rc8 Qd7 Now all the mate threats are stopped and black himself threatens ...Qh3+. White is the one looking for draw now  16. Qc4 ?? Qh3+ 17. Ke2 Qg2+ White will
be mated.  0-1

Round 1 : Malaysia vs Spain

View the games live here.