Friday July 3, 2009
Biggie of the year
Countdown to the Malaysian Chess Festival.
WE are just eight weeks away from the start of this year’s biggest local chess show. Unless you’ve been away on a prolonged leave, you will know that I’m referring to the Malaysian Chess Festival. This year, it starts on Aug 22.
As in previous editions, this year’s festival will consist of a few tournaments cramped into several days of activity. There will be 10 days of intense, non-stop chess that starts with the IGB Arthur Tan memorial Malaysia open chess championship and culminates with the Merdeka team rapid chess tournament.
The latter tournament is a three-day fun-filled event which attracts a lot of local participation from around the country. Players who come to Kuala Lumpur for this tournament usually find the time to renew friendships amidst rivalry.
For many players, the Merdeka chess tournament is also about getting to know people. If their teams are no longer in the running for a prize, why not squeeze in the opportunity to touch base with other players? That’s what many players do at the Merdeka chess and this year, the Merdeka team rapid chess tournament will take place on Aug 29-31.
Since some six years ago, the focus of the Malaysia chess festival has moved away from the Merdeka team chess event to the Malaysia open.
In its present format, it has become a memorial event to remember Arthur Tan, a son of the Malaysian Chess Federation (MCF) honorary life president, Datuk Tan Chin Nam. Initially, the understanding was that the Malaysia open championship would be a sponsored event for five editions, and last year was supposed to be the fifth and last year of corporate sponsorship.
Here is the full article.
Mr. Quah, I think we need to understand the key objective of this tournament. It’s a splendid tournament in the sense that it has managed to attract so many grandmasters to this part of the globe, but has it in any sense raised the standard of the game amongst Malaysian players? Raising the entrance fee for unrated and below 2000 points can have a negative effect on Malaysian players as many of them are lowly rated/unrated. If the tournament offers enough money, I am sure the IMs/GMs will still come even if that will affect their ratings. From previous tournament results it can only be said that only a handful of Malaysians actually participate in the Open Section. Does this really help the locals? It is a pity to make the GMs come and then we don’t pit enough local players against them.