4 PLAYER CHESS IS QUITE FUN..

... but you should be aware that it is not like the traditional chess.

However, you can still develop your pieces as usual-the knights to their usual c3 and f3 squares, the bishops need open lines and so on so forth. That was what I did playing this game for the first time, and luckily it still paid dividends. There were four colours - blue, red, green and yellow, and you couldn't choose what colour you would have in this chess.com board.

When I was playing, I didn't really know the rules. But I learned as the game went along. One of the players just pushed his pawn up the board and it changed into a queen in the middle of the board! WOW! I was shocked but I managed to neutralized the threat because he wasn't my nearest neighbour. It means he was not sitting on my left, so, there will be a move from another player directly on my left before I replied his. 

Another thing is, you could eat a person's King and get lots of points by doing that! But, that person must be stoned first before his King is permitted to be eaten by anybody or else it would be illegal to do so. By stoning (this is my own word because I don't know the real word for it), I mean he should be out of the game by NOT MOVING WITHIN 1 minute ALLOCATED TIME. Knowing this, I took my left opponent's King after he was stoned.  

In that game, Laserdragon14 was the first one to be stoned WITHOUT MOVING A SINGLE MOVE. I don't know whether he had connection problem or he was also new to this game and didn't know how to play it. His King was then eaten by Salmonete13. Cham2Sul was the second player to get stoned which left me to fight it out with Salmonete13. 

Finally, when I got the hang of the game and controlled the centre, I managed to attack him vigorously. In the end, he could not find the solution and succumbed to the time trouble. This was the final position...

... and the BLUE team won. 

MAY ALLAH BLESS YOU, SHAHIFUL BAHRY

Today, one of my chess playing friend died. He was warded for about a month in the ICU, Kubang Kerian Hospital. I only visited him once, and was not able to talk to him then because he was unconscious. 

Now, what remains is the memory of him playing chess against me when we were in high school, SMU (A) Maahad Muhammadi, Pengkalan Chepa. Luckily, I have a habit of keeping games even though they were only casual games, so, I have three games playing against him in my database. I was quite surprise when I reviewed the games again as they were quite entertaining. 

GAME ONE

GAME TWO

GAME THREE

(I'm sorry for only giving the links, it seems that I don't know how to put in game replayers nowadays. They simply don't work!)

Now let us pray for his well-being the hereafter.

CHESS ANIME?

Take my advice - don't start watching them or you'll be stucked.

I have just finished watching 'Ace of Diamond', an anime about baseball. Initially, I wasn't planning on watching any cartoon and wasting my precious time away from my tasks, but one day, I accidentally watched it when my brother switched it on television and I ended up finishing all the 126 episodes! 

I also found out that he has a lot of other animes too, most of them about sports. Among others are:

Baby Steps - an anime about tennis.

Haikyu - an anime about volleyball.

Slam Dunk - an anime about basketball. 

This makes me wonder, if Japan has a lot of animes on sports, does it have an anime on chess? Apparently not. Maybe chess is not a popular sport among Japanese people. However, they do have board games, and one of the animes is Hikaru no Go, an anime about the game Go. 

IM YEOH LI TIAN vs GM VISWANATHAN ANAND TBILISI 2017

FIDE World Cup had my attention this year. It is held in Tbilisi, Georgia and it featured one of the best current Malaysian player, IM Yeoh Li Tian. 

I was on holidays but I still found some time to watch the games.

It only lasted two games, but our own IM made them very eventful. I don't have anything but praise for the way IM Yeoh Li Tian took GM Anand in the games. In fact, many of his moves surprised me as they were really energetic. Going for the Queen sacrifice in Round 1 and taking the initiative with the Black pieces in Round 2 gave me goosebumps. It was clear that the ex-World Champion was going for the draw by choosing the exchange variation so Yeoh was forced to play aggressively. In the end, he went down fighting. 

Congratulations. 

The games

Round 1

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1884627

Round 2

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1884695

Some video coverage on the games from Youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHOEMp5dhQA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95SEXiMc9dI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFs-2TpUM_4

GOOD LUCK TEAM PARA ASEAN 2017!

Tonight I was asked whether I would stop blogging for good. I did not give him a definite answer, but gave him a good hint instead. I cited being busy with school work as the culprit, but I knew that it was not the main reason. Being far away from half of my family really robbed me of weekend treasure. Every Friday and Saturday when I didn't have school events would be filled with programs for my sons and daughters who are currently living separately as siblings. 

However, I managed to arrange a family time even though I am currently reprsenting my state in a chess tournament. In between the two playing days, Kelantan state teams spent some time at Zaaba College, University of Malaya playing chess as friendly gestures with Malaysian PARA chess team which will be playing their games starting on 18 September. The results won't matter, as the experience they got tonight would surely help them to improve before taking on their opponents in the real tournament. 

I played Black with Shaharuddin Sidek. Hopefully he got something from our game.

MSSD TOURNAMENTS COMING UP

Starting this month, each district in Kelantan would be organising their own selections hoping to find their best players for the MSSK event which will be held in July. Here are the dates:

10-12 April - Gua Musang

10-12, 17-19 April - Kuala Krai

17-18 April - Machang

24-25 April - Jeli
2-3 May - Tanah Merah

3 May - Tumpat

3-4 May - Pasir Puteh

16-17 May - Bachok

23-24 May - Pasir Mas

Only Kota Bharu selection is still in the dark. 

SO MANY THINGS TO DO, YET SO LITTLE TIME..

.. and I wonder if I can ever blog again. This is only the second post for 2017 and we are already in April. It was 5 posts for 2016 and 8 posts the year before. It will be just a matter of time before I stop blogging for sure. SIGH. 

I don't like to copy materials from other sources like many bloggers do, and I rely mostly on my own chess experience in order to write something, therefore, the posts will be lesser and lesser as I play lesser and lesser each year. It doesn't help much that I am newly appointed as the head arbiter for MSSK this year, and is re-elected during the Annual General Meeting on 28 January as the PCNK president which means I can no longer play as much as organising chess events in Kelantan. 

At the time of writing, PCNK had already organised and co-organised several tournaments and a coaching clinic:

28 January - Kelantan Closed & Kelantan Age Group

11 February - UiTM Open

25 February - SMK Pahi Open

25 February - Coaching Course (Beginners)

4 March - Chess2Care Open

31 March - Kuala Krai Junior Open

1 April - Kuala Krai Open (FIDE rated event)

In the mean time, Kelantan was chosen as the home of this year's Malaysian Chess Championship. The ultimate event was co-organised with MCF and it was held at Al-Khatiri Multi-purpose Hall, Kubang Kerian from 22 - 27 March. The event was nearly called off due to H5N1 outbreak, but with the cooperation of all parties involved, it continued as scheduled. 

With lots of tournaments and courses coming up throughout this year, I would really have to search for suitable time to continue blogging. 

 

MAKSAK KUALA LUMPUR

I might be whining, but this MAKSAK was my worst to date. Three losses in winning positions spelled my doom which ensured my journey home filled with embarrassment and regret. It was all down to one factor - the time control. I accept that not everybody will see eye to eye with me on this one, but, in my humble opinion, the 45 minutes + 10 seconds increment time control was not my cup of tea, especially when I had to write until the end of the game. When my time was in the mercy of the 10-second increments, I basically had 3 seconds of thinking time after I had done all these:

1. Move the piece

2. Push the clock button

3. Take the pen

4. Write down the move

5. Put the pen down again

I did not even see basic tactics - pushing passed pawns, taking free pawns or basic forks and checks as I was too engrossed with writing down moves as per required. I might be smiling and congratulating my victorious opponents at the end of the flag, but deep down, I cursed myself for being incapable of thinking faster, which was something that I've been missing nowadays. One of my teammates suggested fatigue as the culprit, but I beg to differ on his opinion. The time control has to be reviewed, at least, as writing down moves using the 10-second increments is next to being impossible to be done. I saw a lot of players neglected writing the moves, and those who wrote, made mistakes they should have never done if left blitzing without the distraction of writing moves. 

Here are the final positions of the lost games:

Game 2: Yours Truly vs Nor Azmi (Terengganu). White to move.

Game 4: Yours Truly vs Zaidi Saleh (Melaka). White to move.

Game 6: Yours Truly vs Amirudin (Perak). White to move.

The Kelantan team fared badly also. We lost a lot of games we should have won had I not lost my games. I felt guilty and gutted, as playing as a team needs everybody's contribution which I clearly did not provide. The team even got a BYE for the last round because of my loss against Perak. This had caused my teammates their best board prizes, and Kelantan to return home empty handed. 

Here is the final rank (click on the picture for chess-results link):

This year also saw a handful of beautiful players playing in the women's individual category. It was a start to what I think will be the women team category next year. Each state may have to scramble to search for female players after this. 

As for Kelantan, we brought Mrs. Haslina to compete in this category, and she did okay, I believe. Here is the results for this category:

Here are some pictures from the event:

Stopped by at PCNK Vice President's place in Lipis

The playing venue

First game - Lost to Sabah

The best line up

The female category contestants

Dinner at Bangi Station

A view from Bangi Station

Baharuddin missed a mate in six moves