Selangor At Its Finest

22 April 2013, Kuala Lumpur – In anticipation of the upcoming Selangor Open 2013, here is another article by the late Lim Chong on his thoughts of the Selangor Open.

Selangor At Its Finest

By Lim Chong

One night after work in December 1978, I decided to go take a look at national individual chess championship which was being held in Petaling Jaya. Late at night, there were few spectators and sometimes they were outnumbered by the players.

Lew Chin Chuan and Laurence How, who were involved in organising the event, were the first two chess officials I met. Though I told them I was not on assignment, they were still pleased to see a reporter showing interest in the game.

The title that year was won by Christi Hon, with Jimmy Liew in second place and Peter Long third and the three of them went on to dominate the chess scene for many years.

From here I was introduced by Lew and How to the Chess Association of Selangor (CAS) and its activities, including its flagship tournament, the Selangor Open, which has the distinction of being the longest running chess event after having started in 1974.

Those who have participated in the Selangor Open would surely have found it an unforgettable experience. Having taken part in five events of the series, with the earliest in 1979 and the latest this year’s edition, they have all provided fond chess memories despite the poor results.

The Selangor Open provided an exciting opportunity for an enthusiast like me to play against top players like Liew, Tony Tay, Ahmad Muzzaffar Mustaffa and Chang Hing Wah, all of whom handed out valuable lessons in chess.

As well as women’s champion Audrey Wong at Selangor Open 1983 through a “surprise introduction” nicely arranged by How, who was the tournament director. I was one of those who lost to Audrey who was making her debut and at the end of the tournament, a star was born when she scored five points from nine rounds.

Audrey’s mother, Jackie Wong, was one of the hardworking officials who helped CAS to rise to the pinnacle. As a longtime secretary, her efficient and frugal approach saw the association having more members, more sponsors and more activities than ever before.

Even during the hard times, CAS somehow was always able to find the resources to carry on with its activities, including its junior training programme, that ensured that new generations of players kept coming up.

Despite difficulties in finding sponsors in recent years, current CAS secretary Lim Tse Pin is among those at the association who have managed to keep things going. He reported that last year’s Selangor Open suffered a loss of RM3,000 and this year’s event, even with 70 participants, is expected to incur a deficit of RM4,000.

The bad news continued with Lim warning that the tournament may be scrapped if CAS is unable to find a sponsor for next year. That would be a terrible loss for chess in this country. Though overshadowed in recent years by events like the Datuk Arthur Tan Malaysia Open and Kuala Lumpur Open in terms of international appeal, the Selangor Open has a unique tradition of its own, which evolved through the long years.

At the latest Selangor Open 2010, the final results saw four generations of players among the top four winners.

Liew, placed second, comes from the veterans, third-placed Kamal Ariffin Wahiddudin was the 1991 national champion, 11-year-old Yeoh Li Tian, who ended fourth, is considered among the most promising juniors, and champion Dr Nicholas Chan is currently the country’s strongest player without the international master title.

Also deserving mention is Penang coach Loo Swee Leong who should be commended for not just playing well to take the fifth spot but also for his effort in bringing down a group of schoolchildren to gain useful exposure in the tournament.

Chan was able to retain the title he had won last year but he still has a long way to catch up with Liew, an eight-time champion. The pivotal moment was in round five when both were paired against each other in their first ever meeting and Chan won with the white pieces.

Throughout the tournament, Chan was hardly troubled except for the eighth round when his opponent Ian Udani of the Philippines had a winning position but failed to convert and the result was a draw. Chan later admitted that he played badly in the opening but he was resourceful enough to fight hard to share the point, maintaining his unbeaten record.

At the rate Chan is progressing, it looks like a matter of time before he joins our small group of international masters if he is able to still find the time to continue playing.

For Liew, being the runner-up showed that he remains a force to be reckoned with. He was the one who ended the foreign domination at the Selangor Open by winning the title in 1980, marking a new era in the country’s chess development.

Liew went on to win the Selangor Open title eight times, a remarkable record that is unlikely to be broken, especially when he has shown that he is still capable of winning more.

The closest challenger is five-time winner Mok Tze Meng but he seems to be less active in tournaments after becoming an international master.

Many of us have gained in many ways from the Selangor Open which represents chess tradition at its finest. It would be surely be an immeasurable loss for all chess enthusiasts if such a tradition is not continued. So, see you at the 38^th Selangor Open next year

 

40th Selangor Open: Update#4

Last call!!! To players who have pre-registered their names but yet to make payment into CAS Bank Account, please do so ASAP to enjoy RM 30 discount as the deadline for early-bird payment is today.

For those who yet to register but would like to be part of this historical event (40 consecutive years), please send an email with your name, HpNo and ICNo to selangorchess@gmail.com by 23rd April 2013.

For tournament details, please click here.

For accommodation details, please click here.


The name list for the event as at 20th April (10pm) is listed as below:-

No.	Names	FED	Status
1	Amier Hamzah Mohd Zuhri	MAS	Paid
2	Amir Ghaazi Mohd Saprin	MAS	Paid
3	Amir Muqqri Mohd Saprin	MAS	Paid
4	Amir Qayyim Mohd Saprin	MAS	Paid
5	Azizul Azlan Zainuddin	MAS	Paid
6	Bausch Koh Sian Kuan	MAS	Paid
7	Benjamin Koo Wei Jie	MAS	Paid
8	Bick, Gabriel J	USA	Paid
9	Dawson Tan Soon Wei	MAS	Paid
10	Dilwen Ding Tze How	MAS	Paid
11	Evan Loo Hsien Rong	MAS	Paid
12	Fairul Yusoff	MAS	Paid
13	Fariz Shafruddin	MAS	Paid
14	Fong Yit Ho	MAS	Paid
15	Fong Yit San	MAS	Paid
16	Haslindah Ruslan	MAS	Paid
17	Ho Chen Ee	MAS	Paid
18	IM Jimmy Liew Chee Meng	MAS	Paid
19	Joel Su Weng Yang	MAS	Paid
20	Kabir Singh Ajeet Singh	MAS	Paid
21	Kaushik Panamparampil	IND	Paid
22	Liew Ken Yew	MAS	Paid
23	Looi Ka Loc	MAS	Paid
24	Low Chee Pang	MAS	Paid
25	Lye Lik Zang	MAS	Paid
26	Mark Siew Kit-Tze	MAS	Paid
27	Martha Victor Plaintiram	MAS	Paid
28	Mat Zaki Yeop	MAS	Paid
29	Maushmi Panamparampil Mahesan	IND	Paid
30	Muhd Amirul Mohd Rosli	MAS	Paid
31	Muhd Nabil Azman Hisham	MAS	Paid
32	Muhd Nurhaffiz Zakaria	MAS	Paid
33	Muniz Pardino, Alberto	HKG	Paid
34	Ng Jen Sheng	MAS	Paid
35	Ng Wei Kiang	MAS	Paid
36	Nur Nabila Azman Hisham	MAS	Paid
37	Nur Najiha Azman Hisham	MAS	Paid
38	Nur Sabrina Aliya Asman	MAS	Paid
39	Puteri Rifqah Fahada Azhar	MAS	Paid
40	Renitha Narayanan	MAS	Paid
41	Rosamund Koo Wei Xin	MAS	Paid
42	Roshan Singh Ajeet Singh	MAS	Paid
43	Shreyes Subramaniam	MAS	Paid
44	Sri Kabelen Srimuralitharan	MAS	Paid
45	Sri Shiva Kumar Narayanan	MAS	Paid
46	Sumant Subramaniam	MAS	Paid
47	Wong Jianwen	MAS	Paid
48	Zulfikar Zulkifli	MAS	Paid
49	Ahmad Fadzil Nayan	MAS
50	Amir Faiz Amirul	MAS
51	Amira Farhana Amirul	MAS
52	Amirul Haji Mohd	MAS
53	Bustaman Harun	MAS
54	Ian Udani	PHI
55	Iskandar Danial Adam Adonis	MAS
56	Lee Zhi Wei	MAS
57	Mahadevan, Aravind	HKG
58	Md, Monir Hossain	BAN
59	Melanie Koo Wei Wei	MAS	Paid
60	Muhd Syazwan Zulkifli	MAS
61	Nor Ilhamuddin Shaikh Ali	MAS
62	Shahrizal Shamsuddin	MAS
63	Sofea Aliya Syahril	MAS
64	Surindren Radha Krishnan	MAS
65	Villanueva, Nelson	PHI

40th Selangor Open: Update#3 (19/4)

The updated name list for the event as at 19th April (11am) is listed as below:-

No.

Names

FED

Status

1	Amier Hamzah Zuhri	MAS	Paid
2	Azizul Azlan Zainuddin	MAS	Paid
3	Bausch Koh	MAS	Paid
4	Benjamin Koo	MAS	Paid
5	Bick, Gabriel J	USA	Paid
6	Dawson Tan	MAS	Paid
7	Dilwen Ding	MAS	Paid
8	Evan Loo	MAS	Paid
9	Fairul Yusoff	MAS	Paid
10	Fariz Shafruddin	MAS	Paid
11	Fong Yit Ho	MAS	Paid
12	Fong Yit San	MAS	Paid
13	Haslindah Ruslan	MAS	Paid
14	IM Jimmy Liew Chee Meng	MAS	Paid
15	Joel Su Weng Yang	MAS	Paid
16	Kabir Singh Ajeet Singh	MAS	Paid
17	Kaushik Panamparampil	IND	Paid
18	Liew Ken Yew	MAS	Paid
19	Looi Ka Loc	MAS	Paid
20	Lye Lik Zang	MAS	Paid
21	Mark Siew	MAS	Paid
22	Martha Victor	MAS	Paid
23	Mat Zaki Yeop	MAS	Paid
24	Maushmi Panamparampil	IND	Paid
25	Muhd Amirul Mohd Rosli	MAS	Paid
26	Muhd Nabil Azman Hisham	MAS	Paid
27	Muhd Nurhaffiz Zakaria	MAS	Paid
28	Muniz Pardino, Alberto	HKG	Paid
29	Ng Jen Sheng	MAS	Paid
30	Ng Wei Kiang	MAS	Paid
31	Nur Nabila Azman Hisham	MAS	Paid
32	Nur Najiha Azman Hisham	MAS	Paid
33	Nur Sabrina Aliya Asman	MAS	Paid
34	Puteri Rifqah Fahada Azhar	MAS	Paid
35	Renitha Narayanan	MAS	Paid
36	Rosamund Koo	MAS	Paid
37	Roshan Singh Ajeet Singh	MAS	Paid
38	Sri Kabelen Srimuralitharan	MAS	Paid
39	Sri Shiva Kumar Narayanan	MAS	Paid
40	Wong Jianwen	MAS	Paid
41	Zulfikar Zulkifli	MAS	Paid
42	Amir Faiz Amirul	MAS
43	Amira Farhana Amirul	MAS
44	Amirul Hj Mohd	MAS
45	Ho Chen Ee	MAS
46	Ian Udani	PHI
47	Lee Zhi Wei	MAS
48	Mahadevan, Aravind	HKG
49	Melanie Koo	MAS
50	Nelson Villanueva	PHI
51	Nor Ilhamuddin Shaikh Ali	MAS
52	Sarika Subramaniam	MAS
53	Shahrizal Shamsuddin	MAS
54	Shreyes Subramaniam	MAS
55	Sofea Aliya Syahril	MAS
56	Sumant Subramaniam	MAS

If you have pre-registered / had made payment but your name was not listed, please send an email to selangorchess@gmail.com

As for those who have pre-registered but yet to make payment, please do so ASAP to entitle yourself for the tournament entry fee discount.

Where as, those who wish to enjoy the tournament entry fee discount but yet to register yourself, please sms your name to selangorchess@gmail.com with payment into our bank account by 20th April (an extended payment deadline).

For tournament details, please click here.

For accommodation details, please click here.

The Playing Fields of Selangor Open

13 April 2013, Kuala Lumpur – The late Larry Parr had contributed to the Selangor Open memoirs by Lim  Chong. This article elucidates the 7th Selangor Open held way back in 1980 when IM Jimmy Liew made an impression on the local chess scene as it was written in 1998.

The Playing Fields of Selangor

By Larry Parr (1998)

Catur and I first became directly acquainted on the evening of August 22, 1980, at the 7th Selangor Open. Playing my first tournament game in several years, I pushed my e-pawn two squares and scored the full point in 18 moves after an opening that began 1. e4 c5 2. b3. I could not help thinking that catur, or chess as it’s played in Malaysia, is an easy game.

Boy, did I get that one wrong! None of us knew it at the time, but the 7th Selangor Open marked a coming of age – a competitive watershed – for chess in Malaysia. If foreign masters had won the first six Selangor Opens in a competition dating back to 1974, then a very young Jimmy Liew was about to become the first Malaysian to capture this country’s most prestigious – indeed, its de facto – national open title. He would score an undefeated 8-1 to finish a full point ahead of the two foreign runners-up, Singapore’s Chia Chee Seng and this writer, who also went undefeated.

The Selangor Open, which this year comes wrapped in a glittering 25th silver edition of numerous satellite events, emerged from the creative turmoil of the early 1970s following the deregistration of the old Malaysian Chess Association and the birth of the Malaysian Chess Federation. Fresh blood entered the ranks of chess leadership, and it somehow seemed natural that the energy and dedication of new MCF president Datuk Tan Chin Nam should also be expressed by leaders at the state level. Hence the 1st Selangor Open in 1974 and the 1st Penang Open shortly thereafter.

But as I was saying about the 7th Selangor Open: Not only did international master-to-be Liew win the event, he triumphed effortlessly. Going into the ninth and final round, he stood at 7.5-0.5 seventh round victory that spelled finis to foreign domination of a tournament that is rivalled in Malaysia only by the National Closed:

 

Jimmy Liew-Chia Chee Seng (Selangor Open 1980)

1. e4 d6 2. d4 Nf6 3. Nc3 g6 4. Bc4 Bg7 5. Qe2 0-0 6. Bf4 c6 7. Bb3 b5 8. 0-0-0 a5 9. a4 Ba6 10. Qf3 Nfd7 11. e5 bxa4 12. Nxa4 d5 13. h4 Bb5 14. h5 Bxa4 15. Bxa4 Nb6 16. Bb3 a4 17. Ba2 e6 18. Qh3 a3 19. b3 Qe7 20. hxg6 fxg6 21. Qxh7+ Kf7 22. Bh6 Rg8 23. Rd3 Qb4 24. Rf3+ Ke7 25. Bg5+ Black resigns. 0-1.

 

Figure 1 IM Jimmy Liew Chee Meng, Malaysia

Figure 2 White played 25. Bg5+ and black resigned.

In spite of the admirable attacking élan of Liew and other Malaysian players, one also noticed an interesting kind of ignorance in the opening and a fatal propensity to weaken squares in the ending.

Concerning the opening, many Malaysians back in the 1970s were already memorising the latest main lines of the trendiest openings. They were not, however, studying openings for understanding. As Black, I discovered that offbeat mixer debuts such as the Budapest Defence and Albin Counter Gambit cut a wide swath; and as White, the infamous Danish Gambit never once failed to confuse surprised opponents. Indeed, I played a Danish in the final round of the 1980 Selangor Open, defeating Indian master Ajai Choudhry, who would win the tournament the following year.

As for endings, fast times limits hit Malaysia 10 years before they came to bedevil the West. Most Malaysian players, I discovered, had never once in their chess career sat down to play a long, difficult endgame with slow secondary time controls. This absence of serious endgame practice showed over the board and helped this writer to save and even win several lost positions.

Still, I can testify that by 1980, winning a game against a good Malaysian player was no easy feat. My sense is that the early Selangor Opens, like the “playing fields of Eton”, were a training ground for young talent. Not only did the very best Malaysian players gather to test one another, but they also had the opportunity to meet foreign talent.

The list of winners of the first several Selangor fixtures includes Indonesian international master Dr Max Wotulo (three times), Filipino international master Luis Chiong and Russian attacking master K.K. Ivanov from the Soviet Embassy. Then, in 1983, English international master David Goodman would compete on the playing fields of Selangor. He imparted some valuable lessons, winning the tournament by a record margin of 1.5 points, scoring 8.5-0.5 (Mohd Noor Yahya got the draw).

The 1978 Selangor Open stands out as the strongest in the long series. Participants included IMs Chiong Rico Mascarinas from the Philippines; GM-to-be Murray Chandler from New Zealand; and IMs-to-be Craig Laird from New Zealand and Rafiq Khan from India.

The Malaysian contingent contained every top player except for Choo Min Wang, a two-time national champion and Malaysia’s first internationalist. I think Jimmy Liew’s supine loss to Mascarinas in this tournament, when compared with his hard-scrabble defence against strong American master Arthur Wang in the 1983 Selangor Open, tells a lot not only about his personal advancement but also a rising tide of tournament toughness that raised the level of most Malaysian chess ships.

To read more about the 40th Selangor Open 2013, please click here.

40th Selangor Open: Update#2

Below is the list of players (Malaysians unless stated otherwise) who have pre-registered / paid for the upcoming Selangor Open:

1. Nor Ilhamuddin Shaikh Ali
2. Mark Siew (Paid)
3. Haslindah Ruslan (Paid)
4. Joel Su Weng Yang (Paid)
5. Liew Ken Yew (Paid)
6. Shahrizal Shamsuddin
7. Sri Shiva Kumar Narayanan (Paid)
8. IM Jimmy Liew Chee-Meng
9. Nelson Villanueva (PHI)
10. Dilwen Ding
11. Ng Jen Sheng
12. Dawson Tan
13. Lee Zhi Wei
14. Mahadevan, Aravind (HKG)
15. Bausch Koh (Paid) 
16. Melanie Koo
17. Benjamin Koo
18. Rosamund Koo
19. Looi Ka Loc (Paid)
20. Sumant Subramaniam 
21. Sarika Subramaniam
22. Shreyes Subramaniam
23. Lim Ming Kang
24. Lim Ming Xian
25. Puteri Rifqah Fahada Azhar
26. Nur Najiha Azman Hisham
27. Muhd Nabil Azman Hisham
28. Nur Nabila Azman Hisham

SELANGOR OPEN: THE EARLY YEARS - First Champions

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.

To read more about the 40th Selangor Open 2013 prospectus, please click here.

 

To know more on accommodation around the venue, please click here.   

 

To get the latest update on the event, please click here.