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The Asian Schools Chess Championship 2018 was held from 7th to 15th July 2018 at Kaluthara, Sri Lanka and organised by the Chess Federation of Sri Lanka under the auspices of the Asian Chess Federation.

Luxman Wijesuriya, Chairman of the Organizing Committee expressed his pride at the record more than 450 entries which surpassed by far the participation in the many previous Asian events held and thanked in particular, Sheikh Sulta Kalifa Al Nayan, President of the Asian Chess Federation and Hisham Al-Taher, General Secretary of the Asian Chess Federation for their support throughout.

Fifteen countries took part, Bangladesh, China, Hong Kong, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Maldives, Mongolia, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and hosts Sri Lanka.

In Standard Chess, Uzbekistan with seven gold, two silver and one bronze were the outstanding performers, their ten medals also the most number won.

Kazakhstan with two gold, one silver and two bronze far behind in second place while hosts Sri Lanka tied India with one gold, three silver and two bronze to share the third spot.

Uzbekistan was also the big winner in Rapid Chess, eleven medals, four gold, four silver and three bronze.

In second place was however a much more competitive India with three gold, two silver and three bronze with hosts Sri Lanka tying Kazakhstan in third place with two gold, two silver and one bronze.

For detailed results, see: http://chess-results.com/tnr364567.aspx?lan=1

There was a FIDE Trainer Seminar in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia from 5-7 July 2018 and co-organised by FIDE, the Asian Chess Federation, FIDE Trainers Commission and the Malaysian Chess Federation.

All 13 participants from Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei were successful.

Full report: FTS-KLP 2018-Report

by GM Jayson Gonzales

Living legend Asia’s first Grandmaster Eugene Torre, commanding the white pieces, played superbly in round 4 of 41st International Barbera Del Valles by dominating his Indian rival all through out the game in their London Opening scrimmage.

Rejuvenated Torre displayed his extra ordinary acumen in technical endgame, good knight versus bad bishop. Anand Saurabh his adversary waved the white flag knowing the eminent defeat cannot be prevented. Thus, giving Torre a thundering triumph, reminiscent of his old form when he reached the World Candidates Finals in the 80’s.

Philippines’ First Woman World Chess Grandmaster WGM Janelle Mae Frayna settled for a draw against 6th seed International Master Venkataraman Karthik from India with a FIDE rating of 2514. Although, Janelle has a minuscule pull in their 31 moves English opening melee by notching a pawn it was not enough for much higher rated opponent to get rattled and for them to split the point.

2018 Asian Youth 18 under Champion International Master John Marvin Miciano seems to be out of form as he was crushed by Indian foe Gupta Saptorshi. Blundering and unexpectedly succumbed to simple combination of knight to f5 check followed by Queen to g5 check which will allow the white’s rook on d1 to capture his Queen on d8 in their Pirc defense battle.

Marvin needs to readjust his frame of mind, be tougher and to have stronger nerves for him to stop the downward trend of his play. And knowing his resilience, he will recover in time and gain his composure to play better.

GM Torre is on 3 points out of 4 games, tied from 5th to 19th places. While WGM Frayna is 2.5 points, tied from 20th to 35th places.

by Hassan Khaled

A seminar for International Organizers was held from 1st to 3rd of July at The Inter Hotel at Baghdad , Iraq by the Iraq Chess Federation and the cooperation of the Iraq Olympic Commission & under the auspices of Asian Chess Federation , and  the Events commission of FIDE.

The objective of the Seminar was to educate and certify Organizers norm on an international basis.

The FIDE Lecturer was IO, IA, FT Hassan Khaled from Egypt.

The Assistants from Iraq were:

IA, FI, IO  Dhafer, Abdul Ameer Madhloom            Iraq Chess Federation President

IA, FI, IO  Asaad, Ismael Tawfeeq                              Iraq Chess Federation Deputy President

The lecturers and the exam were in Arabic. Participated were 12 candidates, all from Iraq, 10 of them attended the exam and passed the test as follows :

Thanks to the Events Commission for supporting us.

The Malaysian Chess (Closed) Championships was held from 29 June to 3 July 2018 at the Universiti Teknologi Petronas in Sri Iskandar, Perak, with the winners guaranteed places in the national team to the coming Batumi World Chess Olympiad.

Fong Yit San was declared champion on tie-break after being joined on 7/9 by FM Lim Zhou Ren and top seeded Lye Lik Zang in a representative field of 69 players.

In the women’s champion, WFM Tan Li Ting, Malaysia’s No. 1 woman player who is already a many times national champion, dominated, her final score of 8/5/9 a whole 1.5 points more than second placed WFM Alia Anin Azwa Bakri. The poor turnout of just 18 players must however be of some concern.

Full results:

Men/Open: http://chess-results.com/tnr363162.aspx?lan=1&art=1&rd=9&turdet=YES

Women: http://chess-results.com/tnr363176.aspx?lan=1&art=1&rd=9&turdet=YES