Klang Open 2009 Chess Tournament

I thought of blogging about this days ago, but I've been busy for quite a while.

And please bear with me for a while as I explain some things for you before I proceed with my story. It saves your time and my time to explain difficult terms later on. Just skip this part if you already know what it is.

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A person's chess rating is a numerical value of a person's ability in playing chess. The more, the better.

An FM is FIDE Master. FIDE master is a chessmaster with rating around 2350.

FIDE is a short form of Federation Internationale Des Echecs. That's French for International Federation of Chess.

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The tournament was held at a school in Kampung Jawa, around 30 minutes drive from Shah Alam.

Me, Shahrol and Adi Syazwandi heard that that tournament was gonna be big.

And big is an understatement.

It's HUGE.

From Slip of tongue

Around 400 contestants participated in that tournament, and 148 just for open category only. We signed up for the open category.

At first, we were told it was a 7 round tournament with 25 minutes per round. Then we were told that they changed it to 8 round tournament with 20 minutes per person per round...

Dem.

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I got my ass whooped as early as round 1. He rated 1580 while I was unrated. Although I didn't expect to win against him, it still affected me psychologically.

So I slapped myself hard, trying to stay focused. My next opponent was a 30 year old girl with rating around 1450.

I played white. She used Sicilian Defense Accelerated Dragon Variation against me. I played positionally, not making unnecessary sacrifices.

Then after around 28th move, I noticed an oddity in her move. I thought she made a blunder. I thought around 10 minutes alone calculating the suitable move. Fearing time trouble later on, I took a leap of faith.

I sacrificed my knight, my rook, and my bishop consecutively to set up a mate in 3 with my queen and rook. I was so elated with that victory, as making sacrifices was not my style of play.

Round 3, I was beaten by a 50 year old man. Word has it, he works as a UiTM lecturer in main camp, with rating around 1690. No wonder he was so powerful. I lost again in round 5, 6, and 8.

I won in round 4 and 7 though. So out of 8 round, I won only 3 and lost 5. Bad performance.

Strangely, I enjoyed getting my ass kicked in round 6. My opponent was a women player, around my age. She is UIA student, studying engineering. She was so cute, I can't concentrate. I hope she signs up for UIA Open this year. Hehehe....

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From Slip of tongue

See the Chinese dude wearing Malaysia jersey?

He's Mok Tzee Meng, one of Malaysia's FM. He was the favorite to win.

But he didn't. I didn't notice there was another FM played there as well.

From Slip of tongue

He's FM Anas. He looked like he's around my age, and yet he's already a Master.

Here's a video of him playing the last round against and opponent I can't remember his name. Ong somethingsomething. It was cool nonetheless.

can you watch here? got problem with youtube. later I'll repair.


He's blazing fast!

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Sometimes, I wonder if I can play at their level.

They are people who can think at least 20 possible moves with analysis of 12 move onwards. Simply speaking, they know what you think.

I signed up with the lowest expectation. I didn't expect to win at all. I came there just for an experience.

And experience is what I got. Loads of them.