IM Mas Lost To Top Seed In Singapore

In Singapore, our top Malaysian chess players are competing in the Open category of the Singapore Chess Festival 2009 which runs from the 9th-15th December 2009. The field of players is small with 25 players all and with no grandmasters in sight for this Open category.

It is somewhat of a let down from the organisers with no Grandmasters from the ASEAN or Asian countries participating, considering that the ASEAN Chess Federation is organising this major event.

During the sixth round of play held on the 12th December 2009 (Saturday), IM Mas met the top seed from India, IM Ashwin Jayaram (2448) and lost that round. So far, IM Mas has won twice, draw three times and lost one with a total of 3.5 points. His rating performance is now at 2362 compared to this international rating of 2419, means it is below par.

Table 1. IM Mas Hafizulhelmi’s performance up to the sixth round. He has won 2 game, drew 3 and lost 1. He will meet IM Gokhale Chandrashekhar from India (2259) in the seventh round tomorrow, Sunday, 13th December 2009.

Table 2. Ranking Crosstable After Round 6.

From the table 2, IM Mas is now in 6th position, IM Yee Weng in 11th position and NM Edward Lee Kim Han in 14th position. Both Yee Weng and Edward Lee have 3.0 points each from six rounds of play.
(posted by firey_rook; http://fireyrook.blogspot.com)

Singapore Chess Festival 2009 – Update 1

Here are some results of round 1 based on chess-results.com updates for the first day of tournament play at the Singapore Chess Festival, 9th-15th December 2009.

In the open category, IM Mas won, IM Yee Weng drew and NM Edward Lee Kim Han lost his game in their round 1 games as shown in Table 1 below.

 Table 1. Round 1 Results – Open Category
In the challengers section, Olivia Madhavan won her game and so did Yat Guo Jie and Ismail Ahmad.

Table 2. Round 1 Results – Challenger Category.

Others – Yat Guo Jie won his first round game against a Singaporean. Albert Ang Keliang, Tang Hang Sing and Aron Teh Wu Wen also won their first round game.

Table 3. Challengers Section – Round 1 Results (bottom half).
In the Under 20/Under 16 category, the biggest casualty was the loss of Yeap Eng Chiam in his first round game. Ong Way Justin and Tan Jun Feng won their respective games as shown in Table 4 below.

Table 4. Round 1 Results  – Under 20/Under 16 Category.
In the Under 12 category, Tan Wei Hao got a winning start by beating a Singaporean in his first round game.
 Table 5. Round 1 Results – Under 12.
(source: chess-results.com)
(posted by firey_rook; http://fireyrook.blogspot.com)

IM Mas and IM Yee Weng In Singapore

Both IM Mas and IM Yee Weng were spotted on the internet at Chess-results.com to have entered the Singapore International Chess Festival 2009 – Open category from 9th-15th December 2009.

Both Malaysian players will be just fresh from Vietnam open tournament which concluded last Tuesday, 8th December 2009. This will be a back-to-back chess tournament for Malaysia’s top chess players, allowing further opportunity for them to excel in their chosen sport of chess.

Below are some details of the tournament schedule for our players in Singapore:-

SINGAPORE INTERNATIONAL CHESS FESTIVAL 2009

- Commonwealth Open Championship,
Commonwealth Age-Group Championships & Challengers Tournaments

Tournament Schedule

9^th December : Arrival of Players
9^th December : Technical Meeting – 2000 hour
(players not present shall not be paired for Round 1)
10^th December : Round 1 – 0900 hour;
Round 2 – 1600 hour
11^th December : Round 3 – 0900 hour;
Round 4 – 1600 hour
12^th December : Round 5 – 0900 hour;
Round 6 – 1600 hour
13^th December : Round 7 – 0900 hour;
Round 8 – 1600 hour
14^th December : Round 9 – 0900 hour;
Closing Ceremony – 1500 hour
15^th December : Departure of Players

Besides, IM Mas Hafizulhelmi and IM Lim Yee Weng, the name of Edward Lee Kim Han, Malaysia, also appears on the chess-results.com. All three players will be participating in the Singapore Open Chess category.

For the challenger’s group, some familiar names are Ismail Ahmad, Yat Guo Jie (my DATCC team-mate), both from Malaysia.  From Malaysia, last count was seven players all. But this is just for the challengers’ group.

For the age-group bracket, some familiar names from Malaysia are in the list. In the Under-20 /Under-16 age bracket, ten names are listed from Malaysia. One of them is Justin Ong Way and another, my DATCC team-mate, Tan Jun Feng. While in the under-12, there are about nine players listed from Malaysia. Tan Wei Hao, (1870) is notable as he played in the Individual DATCC Fide-rated Weekender in November 2009 recently and also fresh from Jakarta, Indonesia, held in early November 2009.

All in all, quite a big crowd of twenty-two Malaysian players are participating in Singapore from 9th-14th December 2009. Best of luck to our Malaysian players!

(source: chess-results.com)

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