The Eastern Asian Juniors and Girls Chess Championship 2023 which started on 1st December 2023 came to a conclusion yesterday at the Sabah Oriental Hotel in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia. Visit chess-results.com for round by round results and final rank.
For the Open event, it was a tight race between Filipino IM Quizon Daniel (above left) and Mongolian FM Amilal Munkhdalai with the latter edging the top spot going into the 8th round after Daniel lost to Indonesia IM Arfan Aditya Bagus in their 7th round encounter . However, FM Amilal was not able to seal the deal and had to be contented with a second place finish – having drawn both his remaining games, with IM Quizon Daniel winning both his remaining rounds to squeeze the top spot due a better tie break. Both Daniel and Amilal had 7.5 points from 9 encounters with 3rd placed Indonesian IM Arfan Aditya Bagus accumulating 7 points rounding up the podium slots. Malaysia’s top finisher in the Open Section was 12 year old Kavin Mohan in 7th place with 6 points.
On the Girls event, It was a close race between Indonesia’s WFM Singgih Diajeng Theresa and Mongolia’s WFM Altantuya Boldbaatar. After drawing their 4th round encounter, it was a foot race between the two with the Mongolian losing to local WCM Chua Jia-Tien in the 5th round, and 2 rounds later, Singgih lost to fellow countrymate WCM Liuviann Cecilia Natalie. After the dust settled, despite having accumulated the same 7.5 points each, WFM Singgih (below draped in Indonesian flag) was declared the winner due to a better tie break, with WFM Altantuya in the 2nd spot.
WCM Liuviann completed the podium slots with WCM Chua Jia-Tien – despite winning her last round encounter with WCM Liuviann, had to settle for the 4th spot as the top Malaysia performer.
Akhramsyah Muammar Ubaidah Sanusi (right), giving presenting a token of appreciation to the Senior Private Secretary to the Sabah Chief Minister – Datuk Caesar Mandela Malakun, who attended the event and gave away the main prizes to the winner. Also in the photo is Sabah Chess Association President – Muammar Julkarnain.
In the blitz championship FM Christian Gian Karlo Arca of the Philippines and WFM Boldbaatar altantya of Mongolia won the juniors and girls events, respectively.
Chief Arbiter IA K.K. Chan (seated center) with Arbiters and performers.