My Chess Life

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.