[Event "Essent Tournament"]
[Site "Hoogeveen NED"]
[Date "2006.10.27"]
[EventDate "2006.10.22"]
[Round "5"]
[Result "0-1"]
[White "Judit Polgar"]
[Black "Shakhriyar Mamedyarov"]
[ECO "C95"]
[WhiteElo "2710"]
[BlackElo "2728"]
[PlyCount "80"]
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. Re1 b5 7. Bb3 d6 8. c3 O-O 9. h3 Nb8 10. d4 Nbd7 11. Nbd2 Bb7 12. Bc2 Re8 13. Nf1 Bf8 [...]

Today’s featured game is taken from Round 7 of the VI Asian Individual Games in Cebu, Philippines.
WGM Shen Yang is ranked 34th in the World’s best women players but she is the only female (out of about 70 players!) playing in this event and she defeated one of Philippines top grandmaster, GM Mark Paragua on [...]

GM Susanto Megaranto was the surprise leader after round 6 in the Asian Individual Championship currently on-going in Cebu, Phillipines.
He beat my hero GM Wang Hao to take the lead. Impressive.
However, in Round 7 Megaranto himself lost to Wang Hao’s compatriot Zhang Pengxiang.
[Event "VI ASIAN INDIVIDUAL CHESS CHAM"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "2007.09.25"]
[Round "7.1"]
[White "Zhang, Pengxiang"]
[Black "Megaranto, Susanto"]
[Result [...]

Wish I was in Cebu to witness the same Wang Hao’s magic that he displayed in 2005. Well, seeing his game online is the next best thing :-
[Round "1.3"]
[White "Rohit, G."]
[Black "Wang, Hao"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "C13"]
[PlyCount "112"]
[EventDate "2007.09.19"]
1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 dxe4 5. Nxe4 Be7 6. Bxf6 gxf6 [...]

[Event "WCL"]
[Site "World Chess Live"]
[Date "2007.08.19"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Larry Christiansen"]
[Black "Mysterious Malaysian"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteElo "2602"]
[BlackElo "????"]
[PlyCount "90"]
[EventDate "2007.08.19"]
[TimeControl "40+10"]
1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 g6 6. Be3 Bg7 7. f3 Nc6 8. Qd2 O-O 9. Bc4 Bd7 10. h4 Rc8 11. Bb3 Ne5 12. O-O-O Nc4 13. Bxc4 [...]

[Event "WCL"]
[Site "World Chess Live"]
[Date "2007.07.29?]
[Round "?"]
[White "AlexFinkel"]
[Black "Mysterious Malaysia"]
[Result "0-1?]
[WhiteElo "2607"]
[BlackElo "????"]
[PlyCount "102
]
[EventDate "2007.??.??"]
[TimeControl "45+35?]
1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 g6 6. f3 Bg7 7. Be3 Nc6 8. Bc4 O-O 9. Bb3 Bd7 10. Qd2 Na5 11. h4 Rc8 12. h5 Nc4 13. Bxc4 Rxc4 14. [...]

That’s the advice I got from the late Foong Chee Leng. He told me to play more against humans and it’s useless to play against computers as I won’t learn anything from playing computers.
I guess I didn’t take his advice because for the last few days, I’ve played many games online versus this ‘chess bot’ [...]

Abdullah Che Hassan was the leader going into the final round of the AmBank Challenge 2007. However the final round loss wiped out hopes of a Malaysian taking the champion spot from the strong pinoy group leading the tournament. The following game is from Round 8.

The game was completely equal till this position. Black [...]

Today’s featured game is between the late Tony Miles and Zhang Zhong. [Event "Tan Chin Nam Cup 2nd"][Site "Beijing"][Round "7"][White "Miles, Anthony J"][Black "Zhang Zhong"][Result "0-1"][ECO "A26"][WhiteElo "2630"][BlackElo "2425"][PlyCount "60"][EventDate "1996.08.??"][EventType "tourn"][EventRounds "9"][EventCountry "CHN"][EventCategory "10"][Source "ChessBase"][SourceDate "2004.01.01"]1. c4 f5 2. g3 Nf6 3. Bg2 g6 4. Nc3 Bg7 5. Nf3 O-O 6. O-O d6 7. [...]

Zhang Jing from China is unrated yet she had a good performance with 5/11 in the Malaysian Open.Here’s one of her games vs former World Police Champion, Ismail Ahmad.Zhang Jing vs Ismail Ahmad game (with Deep Fritz 10 analysis)… Continue reading | 1 Comment

Li Chao took part in the Scandinavian chess Tournament (4-11 August) just before coming to Malaysia. He not only won the tournament but finished half a point ahead of DATMO 2005 champ, Wang Hao. Here’s a game from Round 2 of that tournament.
[Event "SCT 2007"]
[Site "Täby"]
[Date "2007.08.05"]
[Round "2"]
[White "Chao, Li (B)"]
[Black "Evertsson, Lennart"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "B42"]
[PlyCount [...]

[Event "4th IGB Dato' Arthur Tan Malaysian Chess Open"]
[Site "Kuala Lumpur MAS"]
[Date "2007.08.22"]
[Round "6"]
[White "IM Lane, Gary W"]
[Black "GM Chandler, Murray"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo "2412"]
[BlackElo "2540"]
[PlyCount "129"]
1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 a6 5. Bd3 Bc5 6. Nb3 Be7 7. O-O Nc6 8. Qg4 Nf6 9. Qxg7 Rg8 10. Qh6 Ne5 11. [...]

Someone on the shoutbox made fun of Izz because he lost to a girl. In this day and age, I think there’s no shame losing to a girl particularly if that girl is strong. Perhaps the problem is “us guys” tend to put extra pressure on ourselves not to lose to members of weaker [...]

Ah.. it’s been a long time since I last posted a featured game. I read from the comment section that Jimmy beat Srinath in last year’s DATMO in round 4. Srinath is the winner of the recent Dubai Junior championship. Incidentally Sumant drew with Srinath in the 2nd last round.
Here’s the game between IM Jimmy [...]

[White Sumant Subramaniam 1964]
[Black NM Zarul Shazwan Zullkafli 2051]
1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nd2 Nf6 4. e5 Nfd7 5. Bd3 c5 6.c3 Nc6 7. Ne2 cxd4 8. cxd4 f6 9. Nf4 Nxd4 10. Qh5+ Ke7 11. Ng6+ hxg6 12. Qxh8 Qc7 13. Bxg6?? Qxe5+ 14. Be4 Nc2+ 15. Kd1 Nxa1 16. Bg6 Qg5 [...]

I chose this game because it involves an opening that I also use. Nisipeanu used it as black to defeat none other the Topalov in the Third M-Tel Masters in Sofia, Bulgaria.
I rarely see this opening played at top level. Only 2 other strong players I know of that use this fairly regularly are Singapore [...]

Believe or not there’s a player who calls himself V Topalov on WCN. Of course if you are choosing such a name and your rating is not 2700 then you have painted a big target on your forehead
So it was with great pleasure I got a game against Topalov and without question went [...]

Haven’t played on WCN over a week now!
I fired up the notebook and was pleasantly surprised with a win against a 2300. Only happpens perhaps in one in a thousand game . So, you can understand why I need to save this game in this blog for rememberance.
This is a bullet (2 minute [...]

Here’s my most memorable game from the UM Tourney last Saturday. It’s a bad game as I blundered as early as move 12. with Bd2 allowing a fork that loses the exchange. However instead of simply winning the exchange with 13. .. Nf2+, Black chose a more fancy move with 13. .. Nxh2? . That [...]