IM Mas and IM Yee Weng Draws In 9th Round, Vietnam

Both our Malaysian chess players ended up with drawing their last 9th round games in the 2nd Dragon Capitol Vietnam Chess Open 2009 being held in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam from 2-9th December 2009.

This means IM Mas ended up in tenth position with 5.5 points from 9 rounds with one draw against one GM, while IM Lim Yee Weng in 15th position with 5.0 points.

Table 1. Final Ranking for the top 27 players of the 2nd Dragon Capital Vietnam Chess Open 2009. (source: chess-results.com)

The top two seeds, GM Le Quang Liem (Vietnam) and GM Dao Thien Hai (Vietnam) maintained their 1-2 positions with 8.0 and 6.0 points overall respectively.

Table 2. Overall Game statistics for the nine round, 2nd Dragon Capital Vietnam Chess Open 2009.

In terms of winning, players with the white have a higher chance of winning their games as the game stats show as in Table 2 above, 72 games white won out of a total of 171 games or 42 percentage chance of winning. While black won 40 out of 171 games or 23.3 percentage chance of winning and the remainder of 59 games or 34.5 percent were drawn. As always, white has first mover advantage and in chess that is an important tempo advantage.

(posted by firey_rook; http://fireyrook.blogspot.com)

IM Mas and IM Yee Weng win their Round 8 games In Vietnam

In Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, the 2nd Dragon Capital Vietnam Chess Open 2009 has just completed their eighth round of play today, 7th December 2009. Our Malaysian chess players won their respective round 8 games ending with 5.0 points and 4.5 points for IM Mas Hafizulhelmi and IM Lim Yee Weng respectively.

Table 1. IM Mas is now ranked 8th with 3 wins, 4 draws and 1 loss. Meets IM Nguyen Huynh Minh Huy in the final 9th round tomorrow.

In round 7, IM Mas lost his first game of the tournament against GM Dao Thien Hai, Vietnam (2524) who is seeded second in the tournament. While in round 8, he won against WIM Le Kieu Thien Kim giving IM Mas five full points after eight rounds and is now ranked 8th overall.

  Table 2. IM Lim Yee Weng is now ranked 15th with 3 wins, 3 draws and 2 loss. He will meet IM Duong The Anh, Vietnam (2426) in the final 9th round tomorrow.

IM Lim Yee Weng met FM F D Howard, Singapore (2230) and drew the 7th round game, while winning against FM Chan WX Timothy, Singapore (2384) in the 8th round game. If he can further improve his seeding in the ninth round tomorrow against IM Duong of Vietnam, it will help push his rating higher. At the moment his tournament performance is at 2256, which is lower than that of his international rating of 2336.

Table 3. The full pairings for the 9th round of the 2nd Dragon Capital Vietnam Chess Open 2009.

(source: chess-results.com)
(posted by firey_rook; http://fireyrook.blogspot.com)

IM Mas Draws and Yee Weng Wins In Round 6 Games In Vietnam

In Vietnam, our two Malaysian Chess players are doing their level best to win their matches though with different results in the 2nd Dragon Capital Vietnam Chess Open 2009. IM Mas Hafizulhelmi draws his sixth round game against IM Tu  Hoang Thai, Vietnam (2380) and will meet second-seeded player GM Dao Thien Hai, Vietnam (2524) in the seventh round tomorrow morning, Monday, 7th December 2009.

Table 1. IM Mas Hafizulhelmi, Malaysia (2419), is still unbeaten after six rounds of play and maintains his fourth position.

Meanwhile, IM Lim Yee Weng, Malaysia, has managed a win in the sixth round against WIM Nguyen Quinh Anh, Vietnam (2148) and has climbed up seven rungs to 23rd position overall. He will now play FM Fernandez Daniel Howard, Singapore (2230), a young boy, I have personally played against in a blitz game late last year (2008). FM FD Howard is a dynamite player and packs the punch in his game. Let’s hope IM Yee Weng will find a way to overcome him.

Table 2. IM Lim Yee Weng, Malaysia (2336) with 3.0 points after six rounds in Vietnam.

Meanwhile the competition heats at the top as GM Dao Thein Hui drops one position to third and IM Ashwin Jayaram, India (2448) moves to second spot and top spot belongs to GM Le Quang Liem, Vietnam (2624) after round 6 in the 2nd Dragon Capital Vietnam Chess Open 2009 at the Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

Table 3. Ranking Cross-Table After Round 6 with GM Le Quang Liem, Vietnam (2624) in top spot.

(posted by firey_rook; http;//fireyrook.blogspot.com)

IM Mas Wins 5th Round Game In Vietnam

On Saturday, 5th December 2009, IM Mas Hafizulhelmi, Malaysia has managed to win his fifth round opponent and currently sitting in fourth place in the 2nd Dragon Capital Vietnam Chess Open 2009 in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
 Table 1. Mas Hafizulhelmi’s Performance Up To Round Five, 2 wins and 3 draws, unbeaten so far.
Meanwhile IM Yee Weng has dropped to 30th position while only obtaining 2.0 points to his credit after five rounds of play here in Vietnam.

 Table 2. Rankings After Round 5. IM Mas Hafizulhelmi, Malaysia, in fourth placing.

The table illustrates the rise of IM Mas from 9th seed to the current fourth placing after the half-way stage in the 2nd Dragon Capital Vietnam Chess Open 2009.
(posted by firey_rook; http://fireyrook.blogspot.com)