Monday, January 30, 2012

Hou Yifan vs Judit Polgar Gibraltar 2012

Gibraltar 2012 chess tournament happening on the same week with Tata Steel at Wijk Aan Zee. But this "2nd rated" high class tournament is follows by big names as Svidler, Polgar, Almasi etc. Then, the most interesting point here is the encounter of Judit Polgar to two of current strongest female player, Koneru Humpy and Hou Yifan.

Judit Polgar is currently (and for age...) the highest female chess player in FIDE elo rating, rated at 2710. Koneru Humpy at 2589 and Hou Yifan at 2605. The differences are about 100 elo. Judit played a draw game to Koneru, but historically, lost to current female World Champion Hou Yifan. This is perhaps the only lost Judit suffered to female player in classical chess for so long. Judit lost to sista Susan Polgar back in 1992, and lost to Alexander Kosteniuk year 2009 but in blitz game.



Here the game Hou Yifan vs Judit Polgar, Gibraltar 2012. In this dynamic Sicilian game, white maintained her attacking mode all the way and force black to slowly lost a piece. Great game Hou!

Monday, January 23, 2012

Queenstown Chess Classic and Irene Sukandar

A resort town of New Zealand, Queenstown, was hosting their third Chess Classic event from 15th-23rd January 2012 at the Millennium Hotel in Queenstown. The town is famous for being the location of several top end Hollywood motion pictures such as The Lord of The Ring trilogy.

In this Chess classic event, three players climbed to the top and ended up sharing the highest points, hence sharing first place. Australia's GM Darryl Johansen, GM Li Chao and GM Zhao Jun managed to be those first three. In the last round, GM Darryl Johansen won the thrilling sicilian game as black verses GM Gawain Jones. The game had been pushed into the narrow battlefield at the Black's king corner, but Black managed to escape the pressure and pulled out the counter attack. Following game are GM Gawain Jones vs GM Darryl Johansen.



The tournament also marked a succesful trip for Indonesian WGM Irene K. Sukandar. Flying and play in high spirit , as she always shared on her social network, IKS managed to score a positive 6.5 out of this nine rounds event. Only losing point to higher rated opponent , to GM Gawain Jones and GM Zhao Jun, IKS managed to score point notably against IM Stephen Soloman of Australia and WGM Nadig Kruttika from India. This let her to get the 2449 performance point from her 2325 Fide rating.

Irene also scored a nice international exposure, thanks to a report by WGM Nadig Kruttika on Chessbase.com. A photo of Irene with lovely friend, chessplayer/photographer Vivian Gu Xiaobing.

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Medina and Andrean Susilo won Singapore 2011

As a small and emerging chess culture, Singapore is equipped well with their chess education and chess educator. It is only the matter of public interest that chess is yet to pick their best result as competitive sport in region. With international trainer with super GM title from Georgia, China, Phillipine etc, Singapore is establishing great chess education infrastructure in the city.

The Singapore Chess Festival held in the end of year 2011 is a great practise ground for locals. The result on top events still favour strong invited GM, but the point to have their local talent trained was achieved. In the 2nd Asean, GM Cao Sang claimed the first prize, closely followed by Indonesian GM Megaranto Susanto. The 2nd Asean Women, smoothly won by Medina Aulia, ahead of her Indonesian mates Chelsie Sihite Monica and others. In the lower section, FM Andrean Susilo, also Indonesian player, claimed the first position in 8th Singapore Open. Complete English language report can be view in Singapore Chess News website.

Di penghujung tahun 2011, tim catur berisi atlet-atlet nasional berangkat dan tour ke Singapore untuk mengikuti festival catur di tempat. Singapore walaupun sebuah negara dengan daerah geografis paling micro ini mempunyai infra struktur pendidikan catur yang baik. Penulis pernah bermain dan mengamati perkembangan catur mereka dan sistem pendidikannya sangat terstruktur. Sayangnya kultur catur memang tidak terlalu populer di kalangan pelajar muda yang lebih memilih eks skul berpotensial lainnya, kalo tidak Singapore sudah menjadi saingan baru di kancah percaturan ASEAN. Bayangkan mereka mempunyai Akademi catur dengan trainer bergelar GM dari Georgia dan China. Dan banyak lagi GM dari Phillipine dan Myanmar yang memilih ber imigrasi ke kota/negara ini.

Hasil touring pecatur Indonesia di Singapore akhir Desember 2011 adalah, 8th Singapore Open dimenangkan FM Andrean Susilo, 2nd Asean Women dimenangkan Medina Aulia Wardana sedangkan 2nd Asean dimenangkan pecatur China GM Cao Sang tetapi GM Megaranto Susanto tetap memetik hasil dengan menduduki juara ke-dua.
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