Alia, Nur Nabila Win Round 7, Asian Games 2010

15 November 2010, Kuala Lumpur – Today three rounds of play were completed which covered rounds 5,6 and 7. During the seventh round of individual rapid chess today, the girls, WFM Alia and WCM Nur Nabila both won their games against Nuimat Rayah of Jordan and Nodirjano  A Nodira (pix left) of Uzbekistan respectively.

Nur Nabila’s win against Nodirjano is significant as the Uzbekistan has a higher rating than Nur Nabila’s.  Well done girls! Keep it up!

Unfortunately for IM Mok he lost his games in rounds 6 and 7 against GM Fillipov Anton of Uzbekistan and FM Battulga Namkhai of Mongolia respectively.

In terms of ranking, WCM Nur Nabila is at 17th ranked, WFM Alia at 20th and IM Mok at 28th position.

Up next in the 8th round, IM Mok will meet with IM Al-Qudaimi Basheer (pix left) of Yemen, WFM Alia will meet WFM Hallaeva Bahar of Turkmenistan and WCM Nur Nabila Azman Hisham of WFM Shamima Akter Liza of Bangladesh.

The rapid individual events will finish tomorrow and the winners will be decided at the end of the ninth round. Our hope is that our Malaysian players is able to go away with possible IM/GM norms to raise their ratings and obtain future higher titles!

For the top five men’s, GM Kasimdzhanov has taken over leadership at the top of the leaders’ board with 6.0 points from seven rounds of play, while GM Le Quang Liem dropped to 2nd spot with 5.5 points, sharing it with GM Sasikiran Krishnan of India, third, and GM Bu Xiangzhi of China in fourth spot.

GM Hou Yifan is widening her leadership gap by a full point with 6.5 points, ahead of WIM Pham Le Thao Nguyen (pix left) of Vietnam and GM Zhao Xue of China, both with 5.5 points.