Update on Melaka Chess Festival 2012

7 April 2012, Kuala Lumpur - The organizers of the Melaka Chess Festival 2012 has an update with announcements of concurrent chess events complementing the three main chess tournaments.

With a few more days to go before the soft closing date for the Melaka Chess Festival, the number of entries have been pouring in from all over the world with the latest coming in from Tajikistan, Russia and neighbouring Indonesia. A total of 115 players have registered to date with many more expected to come in the last few days. On top of that, the registration for the local entries (from Malaysia) has been extended to Friday the 13th of April 2012. This is to allow the organizer to further promote special entry fee rates for school and university students, members of the chess affiliates, winners of the recent Age Group event and to the top players in the country such as past National Champions and National Women Champions the opportunity to play against some of the best players in the region and around the world. 17 GMs from as far as Spain, USA and Russia has confirmed their participation including local IM Mas Hafizul, IM Mok Tze Meng and IM Jimmy Liew

To further add flavour and interest towards the 750 Years Melaka International Chess Festival, the organizers have added 3 more minor events to run concurrent with the Florencio Campomanes Memorial International Rapid Chess Championship 2012 to be held on 21st and 22nd of April 2012. The venue for these three events will be the same as the main venue which is the Hang Tuah World Heritage Hotel Melaka.

The three additional events are the Melaka Age Group Chess Tournament and Melaka IPT Open Chess Tournament, both to be held on Saturday, 21st April 2012, and the third event to be held on the following day, Sunday 22nd April 2012 which is the Melaka Open Team Chess Tournament

For the Age Group event, the entry is open to all school students in the U-10, U12, U14 and U18 age groups and the entry fees is RM10 per player. Medals and souvenirs have been set aside for the top 8 boys player and top 4 girls player in each age category and the top winners of each category will also win a special 750 Years Melaka International Chess Festival souvenir to take home.

For the Open IPT event, the event is open only to IPTA students and the entry fee is set at RM20 per player. For this event, the top 10 men and top 5 women will take home a certificate and a medal, and similarly, the top finishers from each category will win a special memento from the Festival.

On the second day of the event, Sunday 22nd April 2012, an open team tournament will be held with a RM50 entry fee per team. Trophy, Medals, Certificates and a special memento from the event awaits the winning teams with special additional prizes given to the best School Team, Best IPTA Team and best Company/Department Team.

For inquiries and clarification including registration for these events, interested parties can contact either Nik Ahmad Farouqi at +6019.999.6006 (email to nik.farouqi@gmail.com) or Jax Tham at +6013.323.2280 (email to jaxtham@hotmail.com).

Najib Abdul Wahab
Organizer, Arbiter, Trainer
Tel: +6016 338 2542
Email: najib.wahab@chess-malaysia.com
Web: http://www.chess-malaysia.com
Blog: http://datcchess.blogspot.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Chess-Malaysia/168231673260531