Merdeka Chess Team Standard

The 2-week long Malaysian Chess Festival ended yesterday with the conclusion of the Merdeka Team Standard event. There is good participation from players from all corners of the nation, who came in conjunction with the 50th National Day celebration. Congrats to ASTRO team for winning the Open Section in blazing fashion. They were in the lead most of the time. Kudos to Malaysian Chess Federation for the meticulous organising, especially the Malaysian Open which attracted a myriad of grandmasters and international masters from 15 countries (see news coverage under Chessbase). Rather than wait for the news to arrive on my breakfast table, I decided to make my own small contribution. Here's some photo sharing:










For me, chess is a form of pleasure and enjoyment. This is just part of life, though, which needs to be continuosly balanced up by being a responsible citizen and a free thinker. We must strive to reject all forms of imbalance, which will always appear in the real world. Just as in a chess match there are all sorts of imbalances that we have to sort out, ranging from the obvious material imbalance to pawn structure (isolated, doubled, backward pawns etc), relative strength of minor pieces, control of vital squares/files, advantage in space, lead in development and finally who has the current initiative.

Recently, a study done by a team of psychologists revealed that contrary to public opinion, chess does surprisingly involved a series of risk-taking behaviour quite similar to activities like rock climbing, sky diving and bungee jumping. The only reason why the public do not see it that way is because chess is the ultimate invisible game to the spectators. One do not see the emotionally tense battle going in the minds of two great players. Of course, rarely, like myself who is not as agile as before, I do doze off a little during (and not in between) matches!

Seriously, chess can be a very creative game if one sees it with an artistic mind, instead of just relying on memorizing 15 to 25 move long opening theories which is a favourite approach by experts and amateurs alike including me. Of course there is a lot of hard work where one has to deal with a position in a systematic manner, but apart from top level chess, the game still provides ample fun. Especially so when a single last move represents the magical end point of a brilliantly thought out combination several moves preceding it. Sometimes, one may be surprised that an insignificant pawn can turn out to be the saviour in a mating attack against the fortress.

Garry Kasparov, recently wrote a book titled How Life Imitates Chess. I think sometimes chess imitates life. And life can be hard. In a difficult situation, one will have to look for whatever tactical resources available to stay in the game before calling it a day.

Can a chess grandmaster become the next russian president?

Gary Kasparov, the former world chess champion for close to 20 years, has hit the headlines again. This time, he had been arrested (and then released) for organising a banned anti-Kremlin rally in central Moscow a few days ago. Mr Kasparov, who formerly retired from active chess competitions in 2005 at the height of his career to join politics, has been mobilising rallies across Russia in protest against President Vladimir Putin's 'dictatorship' regime. He has been openly and regularly criticising President Putin for corruption and the country's slide to dictatorship. President Putin has to constitutionally step down in 2008 and pave way to a free election. Kasparov has claimed that there is no proper election in the past.

In a country where there are few opposition leaders, Kasparov is the only one with celebrity status that stands out. There is no real democracy with most of the population still attracted to authoritarian figures. Though more and more people are joining the movement headed by Kasparov, the number is still very small. His coalition called, The Other Russia, has a mixture of strange bedfellows including hardliner communists, liberals and nationalists, among others. In other words, sort of a left-to-right wing movement. Many people are afraid of joining the uprisings. They wanted freedom of speech and media but is worried about political instabilty. Thousands are being daily questioned by the FSB (formerly KGB) for political extremism and some are put behind bars. See my earlier posting regarding the past condition in Siberia for political dissidents as told by Nobel Prize winner, Solzhenitsyn.

His arrest has drawn worldwide condemnation, especially from the Western countries. Due to security reasons, he had sent his young family (he has a six month old daughter) to settle abroad, in New York. He has also written a new book called "How Life Imitates Chess" although he himself admitted that sometimes life is much more complicated than chess! He said that "if you want to be at the top, at the cutting edge, then you have to be very objective".

He certainly has been very objective and resilient, in organising, coordinating and centralising his rallies, very much like a game of chess! So the question often put forth is, how many more moves will it take to checkmate President Putin? Unfortunately, checkmate is not so easy to achieve. On the contrary, Kasparov said that it is more a game of survival - its like always being in danger of a one move checkmate and how to survive from it.

In this new era, where people are getting more and more intolerant of corruption by governments all over the world, here is a saying by Mahatma Gandhi, that is becoming very popular in the blogosphere. It was written during one of his non-violence movements, 77 years ago:

At first they ignore you,
then they laugh at you,
then they fight you,
then you win!

Though the stream is small, one day there may be many streams joining to become a big river!