KELANTAN CLOSED BULLETIN

I'm keying in games from the recent Kelantan Closed for the tournament official bulletin. I've finished Round 2 and I found many interesting games played between the players. Here is one of the games, played between Baharuddin Hamzah and Mohd Fadhil Mohd Saufi. Both players took out both their knights for their first two opening moves before Baharuddin pushed the e-pawn. He then gave his Bishop for the black Knight and accepted doubled f-pawns. In the middle game, his Knight dominated d5 before exchanging with the opponent's Bishop to enter a winning endgame with two connected passed pawns. The rest was, like we always say, a matter of technique.

White : Baharuddin Hamzah
Black : Mohd Fadhil Mohd Saufi
Kelantan Closed 2010
Round 1

1.Nf3 Nf6 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.e4 d6 4.Bc4 Bg4 5.h3 Bh5 6.d4 e5 7.Be3 exd4 8.Bxd4 Nxd4 9.Qxd4 Bxf3 10.gxf3 Be7 11.O-O-O a6 12.f4 c5 13.Qe3 b5 14.Bd5 Rb8 15.e5 Nxd5 16.Nxd5 O-O 17.Nxe7+ Qxe7 18.exd6 Qxe3+ 19.fxe3 Rbd8 20.e4 f6 21.e5 fxe5 22.fxe5 Rfe8 23.Rhe1 Re6 24.Rd5 c4 25.Kd2 Kf7 26.Rc5 Ke8 27.Rc6 Ra8 28.Rc7 Kd8 29.Rxg7 h6 30.Kc3 Rc8 31.Kd4 Rc6 32.Rf1 Re8 33.Kd5 Rc8 34.d7 Re7 35.Rxe7 1-0

HOW DO YOU PLACE YOUR KNIGHTS?

How do you place your Knights on the chess board? I bet many of you will adjust the Knights to stare straight ahead, deep into the opponent's camp. But I personally like to put it sideways facing inwards, so that I would know whether this is the King's Knight or the Queen's Knight (useful if you want to read the descriptive chess notation). Now let's see whether these grandmasters agree with you.

1. Anatoly Karpov

Likes to put his Knights facing sideways, either both to the right or left.




2. Viswanthan Anand

Arranges his Knights to stare straight ahead.




3.Magnus Carlsen

This child prodigy likes both his Knights to face each other.




4.Fabiano Caruana

This Italian GM puts his Knights faces away from each other. Strange? Believe it!




Do any of you want to be creative enough with your Knights? Try placing it backwards, towards you!

WHEN I WAS...

... still at the IIUM Matriculation Centre, I entered many rapid tournaments in order to gain some experience. One of the tournament I went to was the UKM Convocation Open Chess in 1998. I registered early through my friend who happened to be the tournament committee member, but I was late on the tournament day. I lost the first game by default, but I quickly recovered and won the other 5 games and drew one to get 7th placing.

Here is a game between me and my fellow blogger, Nassero, whom I stumbled upon in the last round. He practically begged me to post this game, maybe because there was no score sheet at the time, and I was crazy enough to return home and record the game afterwards. The game was marred with inaccuracies because I was still new at chess, and, of course, I was, and still, not a chess master.

White: Yours Truly
Black: Nassero
UKM 26th Convo Open (Round 7)
27.06.1998

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Ng5 d5 5.exd5 Nxd5 6.d4 Be6 7.Nxe6 fxe6 8.0-0 Qd7 9.Nc3 0-0-0 10.Re1 exd4 11.Nxd5 exd5 12.Bb5 Bc5 13.Bf4 Rhf8 14.Bg3 a6 15.Bd3 g6 16.a3 Bd6 17.b4 Bxg3 18.hxg3 Ne7 19.a4 c6 20.Qd2 Nf5 21.b5 Kb8 22.bxa6 b6 23.Rab1 Ka7 24.a5 b5 25.Bxf5 Rxf5 26.Qxd4+ Ka8 27.Re3 Qa7 28.Qb6 Qd7 29.Rbe1 Rb8 30.Re8 Rf8 31.Qxb8# 1-0