CAS will be launching Lim Chong’s Memoirs on Selangor Open come 2nd half of this year. Stay tune!
Here, we present an article from the memoirs for your reading pleasure.
Woo Beng Keong emerged as the champion when the first
Selangor Open was held at the Royal Selangor Club premises in Kuala Lumpur in
1974. The result did not come as a surprise as he was already considered a
strong player then.
Two years earlier, Woo showed his promise when he was part of
the Selangor team that won the title at the first MSSM (Malaysian Schools Sports
Council) team chess championship held in Penang.
And two years after winning the Selangor Open title, Woo
ended as runner-up in the third Malaysian individual championship which was won
by Goh Yoon Wah. Making further progress, he was chosen as the second board
player for the Malaysian team at the Chess Olympiad in Buenos Aires, Argentina,
in 1978.
Basically self-taught, Woo would have been able to achieve
more in chess if he was not tied up with work commitments as an accountant. He
developed an aggressive style, with the Sicilian Defence as part of his
repertoire, and was known as one of the strongest local players in the 1980s.
Still able to fight hard in every game, Woo continued to make his presence felt,
making occasional forays in local tournaments in past years.
Displaying his dominance, Dr Max Wotulo, an international
master from Indonesia, was the Selangor Open champion in 1975, 1976 and
1977.
According to a write-up, he was born in Menado, Sulawesi, in
1933 and is considered one of the strong players in South-East Asia with
international standing. He has been playing chess since the age of 15 and was
champion of Jakarta in the 1964/65 period and twice finished second in the
Indonesian Open chess championship.
With his strong positional game and a deep understanding of
chess, it is not surprising that he played first board for Indonesia at the
Chess Olympiads in Leipzig, Germany, in 1960 and in Skopje, Yugoslavia, in 1972.
He played second board for the Indonesian team at the Chess Olympiads in Havana,
Cuba, in 1966 and in Siegen, Germany, in 1970. At the 1960 Olympiad in Leipzig,
he was able to hold grandmaster Aleksandar Matanovic from Yugoslavia to a
draw.
Wotulo became an international master in 1969 and since then
he continued to remain active in chess in the local, regional and international
circuits, travelling extensively to play in tournaments.
In 1974, he came to Kuala Lumpur to join Universiti
Kebangsaan Malaysia as a lecturer in mathematics. He immediately took part in
local tournaments and found success at the Selangor Open for three successive
years from 1975. He has been giving simultaneous displays and his presence in
the Malaysian chess scene has been a stimulation for our players.
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