July 2009 Rating - Indonesian Top Chess Player

From July 2009 FIDE Rating list, GM Susanto Megaranto now down to number two with 2534. Here the list of Indonesian Top 16 excluding many inactive players.

1. Adianto, Utut GM 2548
2. Megaranto, Susanto GM 2534
3. Barus, Cerdas GM 2458
4. Irwanto, Sadikin IM 2429
5. Purnama, Tirta Chandra IM 2417
6. Tirto IM 2407
7. Wahono, Awam FM 2399
8. Sitanggang, Salor FM 2383
9. Yohannes, Simbolon 2368
10. Mahmud, Syarif FM 2347
11. Novita, Anjas FM 2340
12. Khairul, Anam FM 2335
13. Sukandar, Irine Kharisma WGM 2311
14. Susilodinata, Andrean FM 2294
15. Siregar, Novian 2269
16. Simanjuntak, Sebastian FM 2254

David Smerdon Wins Oceania Zonal 2009

Oceania Zonal which served as qualifier for future World Cup at Khanty Mansiysk was won by GM-elected David Smerdon (2489) . The winner is one point ahead of his teenage tailer FM James Morris (2114), who made a good tournament ahead of top seeded GM Zhao Zong-Yuan 2583 with 6.5 points. FM James Morris earned his IM title from this tournament as well.

On women section, popular Aussie WIM Arianne Caoili (2172) also a point ahead her closest rival, IM Irina Berezina (2252) of Australia. Caoili made 8 points of 9 rounds ahead of mostly a below 2000 rated opponents.

Top board games commentaries can be followed on Ian Roger's page, including a trivia of many Michael Jackson's song encoded into the annotations of round 9 games. The link might be broken if there is an updated to the main website.

A whole live blogging archieves can be found at The Closet Grandmaster , official website is here.

Photo : WIM Arianne Caoili in red, by The Closet Grandmaster's Canon 450D.

Juara Zone Oceania 2009 adalah IM David Smerdon. Sang juara adalah calon GM. Remaja berbakat FM James Morris ada di peringkat kedua dan berhasil mengantongi gelar IM. David Smerdon akan turut serta menuju Piala Dunia di Siberia akhir tahun ini.

Di bagian puteri WIM Arianne Caoili, yang lagi kencan dengan super GM Levon Aronian, menjadi juara dengan nilai 8 dari 9 babak. Rival terdekatnya adalah IM Irina Berezina dengan nilai 7. Peringkat ketiga adalah
WFM Sue Maroroa dari New Zealand dengan nilai 6, mbak ini adalah teman wanita dari GM Gawain Jones dari Inggris. Di salah satu babak dia terpaksa mengundurkan diri dari permainan karena diperingati oleh wasit agar tidak berbicara dengan rekan pria-nya.

9th Vision Masters in Singapore

Just a days ago the Fide Presidential Board meeting in Krakow put on the press release that :

“ made a decision to promote the activities of the FIDE Chess Academy system by franchising academies throughout the world, based on the model of the Singapore Chess Academy.“

So, quite but steady, Singapore begin to start a chess atmosphere on the island by providing a good chess education, mainly for junior. There are now at least three chess schools in Singapore can be found by browsing search engine. The main is Intchess, who incorporation with ASEAN Chess Academy, the The Powerchess.org, and Chess Kidz.

Singapore also 'import' many titled players to cheers up the chess competition here. As happen in this week, which is found only by browsing the chess-results, the 9th Vision Master hosted by Intchess are in action now. The tournament consisted of 12 participants,mainly are tutor of Intchess. It is looks like a round robin tournament and held many times in a span of a year. Maybe an internal event for the Intchess tutor?

Updated on Saturday 27th June 09.
Updated on Tuesday 30th June 09.
Well, it seems that my last update on this tournament a bit inaccurate. Yesterday I found that the updated final standing put IM Enrique Paciencia as a winner , tied with IM Ranola Yves. From chess-result the previous edition of Vision Masters are won by IM Rico Mascarinas (2416) and GM Bui Vinh (2509)
(Correct) 9th Vision Masters Final standing are :
1.IM Paciencia Enrique SIN 2422 8
2.IM Ranola Yves PHI 2390 8
3.Gloria Eric PHI 2301 6
4. WFM Nguyen Thi Mai Hung VIE 2295 5.5
5. FM Shanmugam Ravindran SIN 2263 5.5
6. GM Wong Meng-Kong SIN 2423 5.5
7. FM Fernandez Daniel Howard SIN 2171 5.5
8. FM Chua Zheng Yuan Terry SIN 2250 5.5
9. FM Gyozalyan Tigran ARM 2267 5
10. IM Ramos Domingo JPN 2306 4.5
11. WIM Nguyen Thi Thuan Hoa VIE 2205 3.5
12. FM Chia Chee-Seng SIN 2221 3.5

The PGN games can be download at chess-results page. A quick look at it reveals that many game had gone into a miniature-like. Upcoming next is a Singapore National Blitz with Open and Junior section. The list tells that GM Wong Meng Kong is top seed (2465) with closes number two is the youngster Timothy Chan (2118) and Daniel Chan-Yi Ren (2099). A chess writers Olimpiu Urcan also spotted taken part of this event.

Back to Vision Master, here are games from round 6 where the tournament leader IM Ranola Yves down FM Chia Chee-Seng in a miniture like Sicilian game.

Chia, Chee-Seng - Ranola, Yves 0-1 ECO "B34"

Play online chess

Bazna King 2009 - Ivanchuck Smiles

This week's Bazna King 2009 is my dreamt tournament because its composed of most of my favorite chess players. Exluding Teimour Radjabov who is a golden boys of the 2000s, all players are hailed from the late 1990s era, the era where I enjoy chess only by newspaper or magazine. Alexei Shirov is always a fire on board to cheers up the tournament, we are now anxious to see wheter he will top as in Mtel or down like in Poikovsky Karpov Tournament. Accompanied is Vassily Ivanchuck, the tournament marathoneers. Back in action is Gata Kamsky from USA, Boris Gelfand, the 2009 ACP triumphant. And the line up concluded by hailed as a very creative chess player, Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu of Romania.

Round 5 show two wins by Black, Boris Gelfand kick off Shirov in Queen Indian game and Ivanchuck finished Gata Kamsky in a Surreal Sicilian style. While Nisipeanu drew win Black defending a creative Scandinavian game against Radjabov. Let's now see the Kamsky-Ivanchuk game including the climax tactical blunder by white here.

10th ASEAN Age Group Champs - Indonesian Results

Let's see what happen on chess during my holiday this week. In China Ding Liren managed to clinched the 2009 Chinese Championship title, in his final round drama he got a full point thanks to the FIDE "zero start" rules. Big articles on Chessbase here and here.

In South East Asian big chess celebration is on Hue City of Vietname where the 10th ASEAN+ AGE Group Championship taken place. The meaning of plus (+) symbol in front of ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) indicated that there are delegation from countries outside ASEAN which are : Iran, Australia, Russia and India. The member of ASEAN country participated here are : Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapora, Phillipine, Brunei dan host Vietnam, making up a total of ten participating teams.

The championship played in Standard, Rapid and Blitz time control. This week the Standard events was just finished. Indonesian team consists of five youngsters :

FM Rian Kapriaga (2094)- finished 19th in Open 20, top finisher in this group is Vietnamese Le Quang Long with 7,5/9 and Singaporean youngster FM Daniel Chan Yi-Ren finished 3rd with 6,0/9.

WCM (Women Candidate Master) Chelsie Monica Sihite - finished 8th in Girl 14 with 5,0/9.
Nadia Anggraeni followed 9th with 4,5/9.

Big news is coming from Girl 12 where ,
WCM Medina Warda Aulia confirmed a sole leader after won all her games up round 7. She drew in round 8 and won the last round, made her 8,5 points as a clear winner of Girl 12. The winner of each group will awarded a FM or WFM title, so congratulation to Medina for being the next Indonesian WFM! Medina and Chelsie Monica are students of Sekolah Catur Utut Adianto (SCUA / Utut Adianto Chess School) and trained as future team-mate for WGM Irene Kharisma Sukandar. Both Chelsie and Medina were a winners of Girls 13 and Girls 11 of the 4th World Schools Chess Championships 2008 in Singapore.

Lastly, Karenza Dita also seized a Bronze Medal in Girls 10 with 6,0/9. In this group also participating Singapore's Neha Shankar,one of Singaporean Junior with whom I managed to play one rapid rated-game (which she won!), Neha finished 9th with 5,5/9.

Meanwhile the Rapid events are started this week where GM Le Quang Liem (2591) is playing in Open 20. Updating report coming from potretcatur.blogspot.com and chess-results.

Chinese Chess Championship 2009 - Round 7 up

Let’s move to the mainland China to see how the chess going on there. From 26th May to 6th June 2009 the country runs The Chinese Individual Chess Champhionship 2009 in Xinghua . The city is located in Jiangsu Province, where the largest city most known to western would be a city of Nanjing. Jiangsu province itself located on eastern coast line, above the city of Shanghai. Hou Yifan, the youngest female grandmaster was exactly born in this city.

According to Wikipedia, this is where the little Yifan (逸凡=meaning out of ordinary!) stared at a glass chess shown behind a bookstore window. Her father then bought her the chess set and soon she was able to beat her father and grandma at only three years old.

In this Championship, Hou Yifan played in Men section, the same thing she had done in Asian Intercontinental at Subic a while ago. Unfortunately, facing most of China strongest GMs it’s happen a bit difficult for her and after Round 7 Hou ranks 9 with 2,5 points. Topping the standing table is GM Wang Hao with 6,5 points.

In Women section after round 7 unrated Tan Zhongyi stayed at number one with 6 points ahead of WGM Shen Yang and GM Zhao Xue whose followed half point behind.

Result for Men section see here.
Result for Women section see here.

Here a miniature from round 7:

Li Chao - Bu Xiangzhi - Round 7 - Petroff Defence
white just played 18. Qxe7, Black to move and win

While the Chinese usually played till very last here are nice miniature that can be put under Shredding Chess Move games collection.

GM Wang Hao – GM Zhou Weiqi
Round 4 – Queen Gambit Accepted

answer to above quiz is : 18.. Qxa2+!! 19. Kc1 Qa1+ 20. Kd2Qxd1+ 0-1