The world cup is over and Italy is King!
Here’s the overdue poll results on what people think about Malaysian’s performance in the Olympiad held in Italy last month.

Taken from : Malaysian Chess Federation official website.
Personally I voted “Above Average” which is what most of the readers think anyway… Continue reading

Thanks to Teoh Seng Hong who spent the good part of the day to compile the performance of our Malaysian Team in the recently concluded Turin Olympiad 2006. Now that’s really GilaChess.
The result was originally an Excel file but it’s been converted to web friendly format for your viewing pleasure:
View here Continue reading

Ak Hirawan who played on the Board 6 performed exceptionally well by earning 6.1/2 points out of a maximum seven points to earn a silver medal.

Taken from Brunei Direct.com
My two cents:
Brunei maximised their chances to get medals by using the ’strategy’ of putting their weaker players on top boards while their strongest player like Ak [...]

British Grandmaster Danny Gormally punched Armenian top board Grandmaster Lev Aronian over a girl !!
This news has been picked up by Raymond Keene on Times Online. This news has also been a hot blog topic for the Australian chess blogger - The ClosetGrandmaster as the girl in question played for the Australian team.

Danny Gormally, [...]

I prepared this over the weekend to cheer for the Malaysian team before round 13 but never got to posting it in time.
Anyway, I think it’s still appropriate. The recent Olympiad did not end with the results everybody was hoping but our Malaysian Team showed that they have the potential to take on world class [...]

It was disappointing to see our Malaysian men go down 4-0 to Italy-A. That loss cost us. We fell from 41 position to 80th position in the final standing. We finished in 70th place in the last olympiad.
However let’s not allow the bad result to erase our team’s valiant fighting spiring in face of strong [...]

Pufichek from Kosteniuk.com has posted 2 galleries of photos (women only) to be ranked and voted for by the public.

Interestingly I found our Malaysian Women pictures there too (and ranked 5 stars at the moment)… Continue reading

From the Turin latest bulletin:

“Grandmaster Viktor Korcnoi informs the public and especially chess tourists he lost two games in a row.
“He tries to explain his bad play by exaggerated interest of the public to his person. He has an opportunity to announce that from now on he is not going to give any autographs to [...]

FM Lim Yee Weng and Wan Khye Theng is rested this round.
As comparison, Costa Rica has 3 IMs versus Malaysia’s 2 FMs + one IM. Overall the playing strength of the two countries is very close (6 points difference in cumulative ELO)
Here are the board pairings:
Malaysia (MAS) [...]

Men Round 10
Malaysia lost 0.5-3.5 to Phillipines. The good news is FM Lim Yee Weng achieved his final IM norm by drawing with GM Eugene Torre. Lim was playing the White side of an Alekhine defence. However, the rest of the Men lost. The ClosetGrandmaster has a picture of that encounter.
The Men team are still [...]

Board 1
IM Mas vs GM Victor Korchnoi

Not the GM-stomping-out-an-IM as most people expected. This was the shortest game of all for this round as Korchnoi capitulated in 21 moves.
The game was a Ruy Lopez exchange variation where Korchnoi allowed Mas to bring his Queen to the King side and even allowed Mas to push his [...]

Sad to report that the Malaysian Women did not fare well as the Men.
They lost 3-0… Continue reading

On board 1, IM Mas beats chess legend GM Victor Korchnoi!!
Mas as White just pushed his pawn to h6.

Korchnoi(Black) reply was 18. … g5.
19. Ng7 forks the Queen and Rook

After 19. … Qxh6
20. Nxf8 Rxf8
21. Qxf7

21. …. Black resigns!!
As of this blog post the other 3 games are still on going… Continue reading

Men’s Round 9 Bo. 83   Malaysia (MAS) Rtg - [...]

Download in PGN format here:
Men’s Round 1-8
Women Round 1-8
PS: Thanks to Charly for giving me the games. TWIC hasn’t even offered Round 8 pgn yet Continue reading

Another good result for Malaysia winning in the Men as well as the Women section in Round 8.
Men: Malaysia beats Morocco 3.5-0.5, the country that caused the biggest upset by beating India 3-1 in round 1.
Mas drew the first board. Lim Yee Weng was rested and the other three boards delivered wins for Malaysia. Mok, [...]

Malaysia just beat Canada in round 6 of the Turin Olympiad 2006. Being the busybody, I went to Google website(s) related to Canadian Chess to see if there was any feedback on the loss. Didn’t find any but found an interesting fact about their incentive scheme.
Each player is rewarded Canadian $500 for one win (that’s [...]

Both the Men and Women team suffered losses in round 8. The Men lost 0-4 to a powerful Germany consisting of all GMs.
Malaysia Women lost 1-2 to Sweden. They did slightly better than the men with the only loss on first board but board 2 and 3 were drawn.
Men’s Round 7
[...]

I regret waking up so late and finding out late that Malaysia actually beaten Canada!
Unbelievable!! Jimmy predicted a 4-0 wipeout for Malaysia vs Canada and I predicted we may steal half a point but we were both wrong. The men’s team did the impossible in bringing down the mighty Canadians 3.5-0.5.
STRONG>IM Mas Hafizulhelmi seems to [...]

Malaysian Men
Mixed results as the Malaysian Men team had a big 3-1 win over host Italy B team.Mas lost on first board but Mok, Yee Weng and Jonathan all delivered full points.
Malaysian Women
As predicted it was a 3-0 whitewash for the Malaysian Women. France was just too strong for them. There is still a lot [...]