KELATE CLOSED IS HEATING UP..

There are already 68 Kelantan chess players registered for this event, making it more prestigious than last year's event. For the full list of registered players, please visit PCNK's blog here. Naserov already looked into the water and predict the winners in his blog here.

Apart from that, there is news about Kelantan female players at last year's National Junior Championship. The blog Biro Catur Wanita MCF commented on the involvement of 5 Kelantan junior female players playing in the event (picture above). Remember my post about their rating drop? Well, apparently, this was the event where they did drop a lot of rating points. You can read the post here.

MISSED OPPORTUNITY

I missed a strong continuation today, chose a weak reply and nearly lost the game.

Black to move from the diagram. The game was balanced until Black decided to go on the offensive and obtained a menacing pawn march. But, I failed to see a strong continuation, where White will be in a really deep trouble. Instead, I took the a-pawn with my a8 rook, and the game was drawn a little later.

What did I missed?

GILOCATUR'S RESPONSE TO KELANTAN RATING REVIEW

This is his review for us to ponder upon. You can read the original post here.

For all the four Kelantan juniors (2 boys and 2 girls) who experienced national ratings drop ONLY played in ONE nationally-rated chess tournament which is the NJCC for the 2011 JAN MCF ratings. So, it is very important for them to make good and enough preparation for such tournament. Otherwise, their national ratings will be affected significantly. GiLoCatur hopes they will participate in many more rated events to have more consistent ratings.

Even for that ONE rated event, their performance is not that very bad as GiLoCatur sees it. Let's see below.

Seeded 54th with Oct 2010 ratings of 1285, Nik Muhd Haziq won both his games against unrated opponents in the 2nd and 5th round respectively. Even he managed to win against one higher-rated opponent in the 6th round. In order for him to improve his ratings, he should had won his last two 1300-rated opponents which ratings gap is relatively small. By the way, she (sic) dropped 31 rating points from 1285 to 1254.

For Muhd Faiz Zakaria, he just lost two out of five lower-rated opponents. For sure, his 7th round opponent had participated in many more chess tournaments than him. GiLoCatur strongly believes that Faiz can challenge both 1300-rated and 1400-rated players if he can participate at least three to five tournaments in a month or if he can spar once a week against stronger players. Maybe PCNK can set the sparring activities for Kelantan juniors like him?

Fatih lost only to two lower-rated opponents - Latifah Syamimi and Zainoor Ikmal Maisarah. Syamimi is a strong player actually and if not mistaken was once MSSM KL player. She is the elder sister of Kaiyisah. While Maisarah, eventhough just 8-years-old, has participated in several international chess tournaments like ASEAN and World Youth. In fact, she won against Nur Farihah Aminuddin, a strong player and among the latest top 20 most improved ratings in the sixth round. So, her performance is not that bad GiLoCatur thinks. She just lost 27 points for her national rating points.

As for Norazlisa Ramli who had MCF rating of 1323 in October 2010 losing one game to unrated opponent and another to Zainoor Maisarah, She had lost 62 points in a single rated tourney, to 1261.

The above is only humble opinion and analytical observation of GiLoCatur. GiLoCatur really hopes that all the Kelantan young players are given the chance and opportunity to play many more rated chess tournaments to shine and show their real talents. GiLoCatur also hopes that they will take the opportunity to participate in the coming Kelantan Closed event since it will be a nationally-rated tourney.

RATING REVIEW 2011

The January MCF rating has been published. There are several Kelantan players who were active and they either gained points or lost them.

IM Mas gathered 5 points to still head the pack at 2275.

Nik Ahmad Farouqi lost a point and now stand at 1914, the same rating as the inactive Abdul Haq.

Nik Ahmad Nazri, who is now at 1789, gained 9 points to go above Syed Azizi.

Another active player, Ariez, was down 2 points from previous rating. He is now at 1605.

Izuddin Ahayat gain 10 points from the previous 1579 to overtake Rosmizal

However, nobody can deny that Norazlin Juarih (BadBishop) is the most progressive player in the period of October to January to gain 70 points to become 1561 from his previous 1491.

There is also a new entrant: Mohd Izani Mohd Tarizi starting at 1283.

Nevertheless, our junior players lost so many points, in particular:

Fatih Nor Sahariah lost 67 points from 1410 to stand at 1383.

Norazlisa lost 62 points from 1323 to 1261.

Nik Muhd Haziq lost 52 points from 1306, and

Muhd Faiz Zakaria lost 58 points from 1314 to stand at 1256.

I don't want to speculate, but there must be something wrong with our junior players. The lost of more than 50 rating points in the period of three months is not acceptable. We must address the problems quickly if we do not want to be too far behind of other states where the junior players are challenging the senior players regularly in big tournaments. I think it must be either the attitude of the players themselves who are not very keen to make self improvement, or the training methods which can not get their full potentials out. It is useless to point fingers at anybody in particular, but we must solve this problem together so that Kelantan will be a force to be reckoned with in the near future.

GOMO KELATE GOMO!

KELANTAN CLOSED

PCNK's first event for 2011 will be a closed tournament for the state's born players. The tournament details are as follows:

Date: 4 - 5 February 2011

Venue: SMK Pahi hall, Kuala Krai

Overall prizes amount to RM3000 will be handed out to more than 30 winners divided into 6 categories. The tournament will be nationally rated event.

Further inquiries, please contact Nik Mohd Azrihan at 019-9866428

KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATOR (KPI)

Everybody now talks about KPI. It is a measurable target for each and every individuals in an institution; in accordance to their respective position. The KPI for a manager, for example, is different from an office boy and your KPI is different from mine. Even my KPI in chess is different from my KPI in my work. It is used to assess the success of our targets in every field.

Enough about the jargon. I just want to share my targets this year in my chess life. In chess, the indicator is obviously the rating. I have both FIDE rating and MCF rating, and I intend to increase both of them. Hopefully this year, I can achieve 2100 FIDE rating and 1700 MCF rating. In terms of coaching, I intend to have at least 3 students from my district (Tumpat) representing Kelantan in MSSM, insha Allah.