Malaysia wins Singapore-Malaysia Chess Challenge

Friday January 7, 2011
Malaysia wins Singapore-Malaysia Chess Challenge
CHESS
QUAH SENG SUN

It was a neck-and-neck race at the recent Singapore-Malaysia Chess Challenge 2010.

SO what did you do at the turn of the decade? Me, I went to Singapore. I went there not so much as to watch the fireworks display at Marina Bay but to participate in the latest annual match between Malaysia and our neighbours down south, the 21st in a series that goes back to 1985.

With the Singapore Chess Federation being the hosts this time around, a contingent of about 50 people, comprising players and accompanying officials, travelled there bent on reversing the fortunes of the past few years.

It’s to be noted that in February 2010, when the last encounter was played in Kuala Lumpur, we had lost out to the Singapore team by the narrowest of margins: 76½ points to them and 75½ points to us.

What made it heartbreaking last year was that we as the hosts had taken the lead from the first two rounds of games played at normal time controls, only to see the visitors winning the other two rounds, which adopted rapid chess time controls, and thus overhauling us in the process.

This time around in Singapore, the situation was the reverse.

After the first day of normal time control games, we found ourselves down by an unenviable seven points. The first round in the morning had landed us in negative territory. We had tripped ourselves up. From the 38 games played in this round, we scored only 15½ points compared to the Singaporeans’ 22½ points.

Luckily, the situation stabilised in the afternoon. Here, both sides were unable to find the advantage and the results were split right down the table with the Malaysians and Singaporeans scoring 19 points each. So, collectively at the end of the first day’s games, Singapore were leading us 41½ points to 34½ points.

Full article here.