Thematic Tournaments By FGM

25 March 2011, Kuala Lumpur – Here is a new tournament to be held at Excel Chess Academy on the 24-25th April 2011. Pencil in those dates on your calendar and have some fun at OUG, Kuala Lumpur. The announcement from First GM blogger follows:-

FGM is starting a series of thematic tournaments starting with Ruy Lopez. I am hoping this will be a monthly affair and will be followed by Najdorf, Dragon etc.
The idea is that there will be a short talk on the various lines in Ruy Lopez, with notes and the players will have 10 rounds over the weekend to deepen their knowledge. Format is 10/20/30. ie 10 rounds of 20 mins with 30 sec increment.
Excel is a good place for this as interested players will be able to stay over and continue the discussion informally over the night. I will also be inviting the trainer to stay for the tournament and I encourage sharing throughout the 2 days.
What I found is that it is difficult to find games based on themes as you need the cooperation of your opponents thus leaving many lines and variations untested. Therefore, as part of our aim is to increase the array of stress tested weapons, I would like to limit the places to players with national rating of 1500 and over if possible.
It is my hope that these series of tournaments will fill a niche and be fully supported.
Thank you. More details to follow.

(source: Raymond Siew, FGM)