Sing Chess Festival begins.

To follow how our fighters are doing please use the links given below. Nothing yet on the men and women masters but I think it should be out soon.

Sing Age group.

Here.

Good luck to all our age group fighters. May the force be with you.

NM Zhuo Ren and Kian Wah at Sing Open.

Here.

Best of luck guys.

Nabila at Asean Women

Here.

Our fierce competitor Nabila. Our best wishes goes with you Nabila.

IM Yee Weng and Mas playing Asean Men

Here.

The very best of luck Yee Weng and Mas.

Christmas Musings.

You need knowledge to draw the game and you need courage to find the win.

Merry Merry Christmas

FGM wishes our Christian readers a very Merry Christmas.

May you have the gladness of Christmas which is hope;
The spirit of Christmas which is peace;
The heart of Christmas which is love.

-- Ada V. Hendricks

Salutations to the strongest junior 2011/12

Nabil is the undisputed junior Champion. This is what the title National Junior Master means. There were many comments about some missing Juniors but this is the consensus among those I spoke to. You cannot claim to be the strongest outside the ring. That is just your personal opinion. The Champion is the boy that lifts the title. The one that had the courage to step into the ring to fight.

A good analogy is Lee Chong Wei vs Lin Dan. In the fight we acknowledge Lin Dan to be Champion. The Champion cannot be based on ratings. The Champion is determined by the fight among peers; in their category.

So well done Nabil! Be proud of you achievement and your title. Wear it with pride. You have earned it.

Note: I also asked a couple of the top juniors if they thought this was the strongest Junior they have played. After some thought, they said it was. Why? There were almost no cannon fodder on the top tables unlike the past. Strong young juniors are coming up. There were no easy games even with the players with much lower ratings. New Champions in the making. Things are changing for the better. With this type of depth and strong fighters, we may soon find more International class players. Well done MCF.

Clash of the junior titans.

They say when the going gets tough, the tough gets going. We have witnessed our Junior IM killers over the last few tournaments. Yeoh Li Tian also took down an IM at Penang Open and came in 5th place.

And they also say, diamonds are made under pressure and iron sharpen iron. Since the coming in of selection for both juniors and seniors, there are no more backdoor entries. We are also seeing the return of the "lost" generation back into Malaysian tournaments. Players like Abel Yap, Nicholas Cheah, Loo Swee Leong, Fadzil Nayan, Kamaluddin Yusof etc. are back in the fight and getting stronger and stronger.

Now all have the chance to represent the Country. It is now about chess and not politics. This is good for Malaysian Chess. We started this year with a bang, with an emphatic win over Singapore and we are ending it well too. The last big tournament of the year is the National Juniors.

If we can keep this forward momentum, soon we will see new faces in the senior squad. Increased internal competition means our players are conditioned for tough International Tournaments and hopefully we wont hear stories of luke warm play from our players in the future anymore.

And we will be one more step closer to our very own GM.

Jianwen at Board 1- Sarawak Open.

Junior Jianwen is fighting top board in R9 after taking down IM Atanu Lahiri. Go Jianwen go. Good luck!

Here.