First GM Thematic Tournament, Taylor’s University

23 April 2011, Kuala Lumpur – At Taylor’s University, six boards with twelve players participated in today’s five rounds of First GM Thematic Chess Tournament with Ruy Lopez as its theme. Raymond Siew, owner of First GM Chess Academy, gave an introduction on First GM and the background to having this thematic chess tournament, which was transformational in nature to breed future GMs for Malaysians. He also talked about doing comparative studies of future opponents before entering any international chess tournaments to ensure players were well prepared to meet specific opponents. Preparation is everything!

Playing in thematic chess tournaments help players get used to specific chess openings as black or white with the idea of learning from those mistakes. This Jax Tham reiterated during his short briefing before the start of the First GM thematic started.

Mark Siew chipped in with a little background of Ruy Lopez with a mention or two about the Marshall Attack, the Anti-Marshall and a word about the Berlin Defense which outside the scope of today’s Ruy Lopez setup 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O with black to make the first move.

The starting position of today’s Ruy Lopez Thematic Chess.

Anyway, during the afternoon session after my round 3 game, a young participant, Jian Yang, came up to me and insisted to have his game put up on the blog. He shoved his book at me and beg that I put it up on the blogs to show what a tremendous fight he had on the board. I can see that his chess game was a close mortal combat of sorts with Kung Soon Heng who was three times his small size. I am obliging to his request, so here it is – Jian Yang and his round 3 mortal combat against Kung Soon Heng.

[Event "Fgm thematic chess"] [Site "Taylor's University"] [Date "Apr 23, 2011"] [Round "3"] [White "Jian Yang"] [Black "Kung Soon Heng"] [Result "0-1"] 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O d6 6. d3 Bg4 7. h3 Bh5 8. Nc3 Be7 9. Be3 b5 10. Bb3 Nd4 11. Bxd4 exd4 12. Nd5 c5 13. Re1 O-O 14. g4 Bg6 15. e5 Nxd5 16. Bxd5 Rb8 17. e6 Kh8 18. Qe2 fxe6 19. Bxe6 Bf7 20. Kg2 Bxe6 21. Qxe6 Rb7 22. Qd5 Rc7 23. b4 Bh4 24. Qh5 Bxf2 25. Ng5 g6 26. Qh6 Be3 27. Rxe3 dxe3 28. Ne6 Qa8+ 29. Kg1 Rff7 0-1

After black played 29…Rff7, white resigned, giving black 0-1 win.