Brunei Invitational Grandmaster Tournament
The Brunei Invitational Grandmaster Tournament held immediately after the Brunei Campomanes Memorial Grandmaster Open 2012 proved to be an even bigger success when local hope FIDE Master Yee Soon Wai made his third and final International Master norm in sharing fifth to seventh places.
Yee had also made IM norms in the 2010 and 2011 editions, and the Brunei No. 1 has been receiving financial support while enjoying having a personal trainer through the services of Brunei National Chess Coach Grandmaster Tahir Vakhidov in a shared vision with Brunei Chess Federation (BCF) President Hj. Zainal Ali to produce Brunei’s first International Chess Grandmaster.
The deserving winner of the Brunei Invitational was International Master Jahongir Vakdidov with 7 points from 9 games, making his second Grandmaster norm and so building on his initial success at the Raja Nazrin Shah Invitational Masters in 2011.
In second place was top seeded GM Barbosa with 6/9 while GMs Bitoon and Nguyen Anh Dung shared third and fourth places with 5.5/9.
Final standings:
1. IM Vakhidov Jakhongir UZB 2396 – 7.0
2. GM Barbosa Oliver PHI 2585 – 6.0
3-4. GM Bitoon Richard PHI 2455 and GM Nguyen Anh Dung VIE 2439 – 5.5
5-7. FM Yee Soon Wei BRU 2200, GM Vakhidov Tahir UZB 2481 and GM Dzhumaev Marat UZB 2494 – 5.0
8. IM Yap Kim Steven PHI 2405 – 4.0
9-10. Sulaiman Hj Md Baharuddin BRU 2162 and Dollah Zaidi BRU 2448 – 1.0
Barbosa should have won this.