Attacking the enemy fortress

I don't usually play attacking chess, but when the occasion arises its usually a do or die situation for me. This game below which I have just played over the internet at Playchess , as with most Open Sicilian games, has many tactical traps and complicated ramifications. Its pointless going for material gain when the position demands the breaking up of the king's castle and probably a few heavy piece sacrifices. This, coupled with the fact that it is a 5 minute a side game, makes it an exciting evening, at least for me!

As for the local chess scene, here's some breaking news - Yeoh Li Tian has managed to obtain 4th placing in the recently concluded World Youth Chess Championship Under 8 category in Turkey. This is the best achievement ever for our country. We may not be a traditional chess playing nation but the nation can also be proud of its 4th placing in the Asian Indoor Games held at Macau last month. We were just behind China,India and Vietnam, all of whom have strong grandmasters in their respective countries (The current classical world champion is Anand Viswanathan from India). Furthermore, Malaysia won bronze in both the men and women individual events and achieved 5th position in the team blitz category. Alas, such impressive accomplishments were not reported in the mainstream newspapers.

Playchess is one of the top chess servers with thousands of players at any one time playing in the main hall, including many of the world's top grandmasters. If you happen to be there at the right moment, you can look me up (my handle is Converse32). Come join the world's premier internet chess league!

Merdeka Chess Team Rapid (Pt 2)

For final standings and even more photos, proceed to GilaChess.

Merdeka Chess Team Rapid

The Filipinos have arrived. They came, they saw and they captured the top three prizes in the recently concluded Merdeka Rapid Team Chess championship, held at Cititel Midvalley Hotel on August 18th to 19th and sponsored largely by IGB. And they are probably saying to all Malaysians ‘Mahal Kita’ which means ‘I love you’ in Tagalog. FYI, the top spot carried a prize money of RM 8,000 plus trophy which is high in terms of cash reward in our region.

As with previous event, the Merdeka Team tournament, which is part of the week long chess festival, carried a concoction of strong and weak players, young and old, undergrads, local and state chess clubs, family teams, and even a last minute participation! We have participation from China, Russia, Australia, New Zealand, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Singapore and of course, the Philippines. Some flew in just in time for the tournament.

We don’t see a lot of brilliancies in rapid games - although there are more tactical play and very little consideration given to strategic planning. This is because of the high rate for mistakes, blunders and missed chances. Perhaps, in real time pressure, it’s a case of whose brain processor is more powerful! Hopefully, we’ll get to see more fire across the board in the following prime event - the Malaysian Open.

There are of course chess personalities like former world champions Bobby Fischer, Mikhail Tal and Capablanca who outperformed their opponents in blitz games, especially when in front of an audience. The best is to stay true to yourself, especially when ‘external factors’ come into play.

I thoroughly enjoyed myself during the event. In between play, I managed to capture a few shots of the event. Here’s my pictorial report :

Chess meets music

Chess and music are my two great companions. Both complement each other in the way we use our thinking processes. The link between these 2 great art forms are further demonstrated in the world of computing in a soon to be marketed software program called Ludwig, a product of Chessbase, a leading German chess software company. It is discovered that music composition can be programmed in much the same way as chess.

Ludwig, due out in October 2007, should be a great music composition companion for the novice musician. It is able to compose according to any level of competency, accompanied by other musical instruments or even a full orchestra, if so desired. You can choose your own ensemble. It is suitable for people like me who is not used to rote learning and playing from memory. I depend very much on notation, actually. Perhaps, the only thing we cannot control during music composition, I suppose, is the musical style, which should be very Western and classical. Here are some samples of Ludwig’s composition.

More on chess, this time on the local front. MBSSKL will be holding a grand open chess tournament this Saturday at the Exhibiton Hall, Midvalley Megamall. It will attempt to make it to the Malaysian Book of Records as the largest chess tournament. With over 1,400 student and adult participants so far, and barring any large scale absentees, I think this can be easily accomplished. I will be participating in the open section while my son will be in one of the age-groups.

Recently, at the PIKOM PC Fair at KLCC convention centre, there is an open section where about 50 students were quietly battling it out amid the noise and bargaining at the crowded computer fair. The event is organised by IntChess, a regional branch of the successful Singapore-based Asean Chess Academy, which is the only chess training centre recognised by the World Chess Federation. During the event, there was also an exhibition match by a Singaporean boy called Derek Lim who is the current world under-7 champion. This is certainly a fine effort by IntChess to popularise the game. My son has been undergoing training under a program endorsed by the Academy. He is currently guided by a Vietnamese international master.

Not everything that comes from Singapore is about kiasuism. Chess helps children to focus and visualise a position a few moves ahead. Besides helping them to think ahead, it also makes them responsible for their actions. There is no takeback move in a real game. Lastly, anyone can afford to play chess. Unlike computer games, they don't burn a hole in their parents' pockets. You don't need to buy the latest Nvidia GeForce video card that may cost more than a thousand ringgit. You also don't need to add excitement to the sound by getting Sonicgear. You can do away with your Logitech gaming keyboard. Just a simple 64 square checker board will do. I can assure you that once you are in the game, you will be fully immersed in a sea of possibilities.

I am now teaching my son to solve chess puzzles and playing online games. They say that chess is 95% hard work and 5% talent. I also think a little bit of luck will help along the way.

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!