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Indian children topped the Asian Youth Rapid Chess Championship held 13 December 2023 at the Al Ain Convention Center in Al Ain, United Arab Emirates. India tallied four golds, three silvers and two bronze medals followed by China with three gold medals.

The event was supported by the FIDE Planning and Development Commission. Visit chess-results.com for round by round results and final standings.

In photo, Asian Chess Federation president Sheikh Sultan bin Khalifah Al Nahyan (center) at the ceremonial opening moves assisted by Thailand Chess Federation president Sahapol Nakvanich (left) and Iraq Chess Federation president Dhafer Madhloom (right).

Russian children playing under the FIDE flag won one gold, four silvers and three bronze medals. Here is the medal tally.

Here are the medalists of each group. Due to the late hour, awards ceremonies were moved to the Cultural Night on 16th December 2023. (Photos by Hossam Eldin Mohammed).

National youth chess delegations have arrived in Al Ain for the Asian Youth Chess Championship with Rapid chess event starting 13th December 2023 at the Al  Ain Convention Center in Al Ain, United Arab Emirates.

In photo above are the members of the large Chinese Taipei delegation at the Dubai airport. Below are some of the Pakistan youth delegation payingat a courtesy call on honourable Governor Punjab Muhammad Baligh Ur Rehman at Governor House Lahore. “This brilliant youth is the new face of Pakistani chess! Thank you Governor sb for the support to chess,” Chess Federation of Pakistan president Hanif Qureshi said.

“Governor Punjab is the constitutional Head of 130 million people province and Head of all universities. He has offered to bring chess in academic institutions, Hanif added. Visit X (formerly twitter) feed of Hanif Qureshi.

The Technical Meeting was held evening of 12th at the auditorium of the Al Ain Convention Center.

The meeting was held in hybrid style with some Heads of Delegations present below and others attending online as can be seen on the backdrop screen above.

Draw of lots for boys. Top seed India represented by GM Pravin Thipsay (right) selecting in the time honored way from outstretched hands by second seed Vietnamese Head of Delegation. Below is the draw of lots for girls.

An Asian Online Chess Workshop in English for Girls under-20 was held 8-10 December 2023.

Thirty four (34) players from nineteen (19) national federations participated in the workshop.

The project has been supported by the FIDE Development Fund.

 https://trainers.fide.com/2023/11/27/asian-online-chess-workshop-girls-under-20-english/

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.

Datamatics chess team won the BPO Olympics Season 12 Chess Tournament after defeating the 5-time champion, Accenture in round 5 and 6, finishing with a perfect score of 35 wins, 0 draws, and 0 losses. Accenture A scored 30 wins & 5 losses, claimed the 2nd place; and Conduent secured the 3rd place.

In above photo are, from left: Stephen Manzanero, Jhulo Goloran, Glory Grace Branzuela, Marc Kevin labog, Tyrone Felos Santos and Jay-r Sumagang

Other companies who participated in the event were Accenture A, Accenture B, Asurion, Conduent, Teleperformance, and ISTA Solutions.
The BPO Olympics (formerly Call Center Olympics) is an annual event open for all BPOs (Business Process Outsourcing) and its employees and aims to promote fitness as well as sportsmanship and camaraderie among the players in the BPO Industry. This will also be a good venue for BPO employees to showcase their other skills and talents outside work. This year, the event was held on December 7, 2023 at Meralco Gym, Ortigas, Pasig City.
The prestigious tournament marked the first appearance of the DATAMATICS Team in events organized by Popcorn Events Production.
The DATAMATICS Chess Team was composed of the following:
Board 1 – Marc Kevin Labog
Board 2 – Don Tyrone Delos Santos
Board 3 – Jhulo Goloran
Board 4 – Stephen Manzanero
Board 5 – Jay-R Sumagang
Alternate – Glory Grace Branzuela (GMB)
Team Captain – John Mauricc Delos Santos
Coach – John Michael Magpily; Asst coach – Carlo Pelagio
Team Manager – Marvin Borabien

In a short interview the team’s coach, JM Magpily, stated “A very special thanks to our very kind and supportive manager, Ms. Glory Grace Branzuela, who has been there from the beginning to the end, valuing the spirit of camaraderie and sportsmanship with courage to fight for a win with a heart of Datamatician.” He also stated that Datamatics truly supports abilities of employees in different sports and passions, not just chess.

By Marlon Bernardino

A FIDE Arbiters Workshop in Arabic was held online 23-26 December 2023 via Zoom under the auspices of the FIDE Arbiters’ Commission.

A total of 31 students participated from 12 countries, namely Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Lebanon, Marocco, Oman, Somalia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.

Lecturers were Asian Chess Federation Arbiters’ Commission Chairman IA/IO Abdulrahim Mahdi, also counsellor of FIDE Arbiters’ Commission, IA/IO Hassan Khaled of Egypt and IA/IO Shaker Al Afoo of Bahrain.

International Master Daniel Quizon of the Philippines and FIDE Master Munkhdalai Amilal of Mongolia stamped their class in the Eastern Asia Juniors and Girls Chess Championship 2023 – Open division at the Sabah Oriental Hotel in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia on Tuesday, December 5.

Visit chess-results.com for round by round results and standings and to download games.

Quizon trounced stablemate FIDE Master Christian Gian Karlo Arca of the Philippines while Amilal turned back International Master Michael Concio Jr. of the Philippines. Quizon and Amilal share the lead at 4.5 points apiece.

National Master Jan Clifford Labog of the Philippines won in contrasting fashion.
Labog bested countryman National Master Ivan Travis Cu of the Philippines to raise his total to 4.0 points and climb to solo third.

In the Girls section, Woman FIDE Master Diajeng Theresa Singgih of Indonesia defeated Woman National Master Ruelle Canino of the Philippines to score 4.5 points and grab solo lead, a half point ahead of Woman Candidate Master Chua Jia-Tien of Malaysia who totes 4.0 points. Chua beat Woman FIDE Master Boldbaatar Altantuya of Mongolia.

Standings after Round 5:
(Open Division)
4.5 points—IM Daniel Quizon (Philippines), FM Munkhdalai Amilal (Mongolia)
4.0 points—NM Jan Clifford Labog (Philippines)
3.5 points—FM Christian Gian Karlo Arca (Philippines), IM Michael Concio Jr. (Philippines), IM Aditya Bagus Arfan (Indonesia), Wee Yin Lin (Malaysia), Muhd Faqih Aminuddin (Malaysia), Siva Kumar Nirish Kumar (Malaysia),  Mohan Kavin
3.0 points—NM Ivan Travis Cu (Philippines), CM Fabian Glen Mariano (Indonesia), Jason Warren Likoh (Malaysia), Davin Sean Romualdez (Philippines), Hiew Jing Yung (Malaysia), Danry Seth Romualdez (Philippines)
(Girls Division)
4.5 points—WFM Diajeng Theresa Singgih (Indonesia)
4.0 points—WCM Jia-Tien Chua (Malaysia)
3.5 points—WFM Boldbaatar Altantuya  (Mongolia), WFM Samantha Edithso (Indonesia), WCM Cecilia Natalie  Liuviann (Indonesia)
3.0 points—WNM Ruelle Canino (Philippines), WFM Sunwoo Park (South Korea), Ma. Elayza Villa (Philippines), Sreekarthika Velmurugan (Singapore), Ha Yihan (Vietnam), Darwisyah Insyirah Nureen  (Malaysia)

MANILA, Philippines – Grandmaster Rogelio “Joey” Antonio Jr. will try to live up to his reputation as the country’s chess ironman as he spearheads the tough player field in the Kamatyas Invitational GM Tourney 11th edition to be held on December 9 to 17 at the Pande Amerikana, Grandmaster Eugene Torre Museum in General Ordóñez Street, Concepcion Dos, Marikina City.

Also plunging into battle are GM Susanto Megaranto of Indonesia, GM Tran Tuan Minh of Vietnam,  GM Wei Ming Kevin Goh of Singapore and WIM Miaoyi Lu  of China.

“Ready for the Kamatyas tournament this December 9. I am ready. I am going try to win this competition.” said the 13-time Philippine Open Champion Antonio.

International Master Joel Banawa,  who topped the Isabela Chess Club Inc. 1st FIDE Rated Chess Tournament last January in in Alicia, Isabela, is also one of the players to watch out for along with IM Michael Concio Jr., IM Daniel Quizon, IM Paulo Bersamina and IM Emmanuel Garcia.

The champion in the FIDE Standard tournament jointly organized by International Master Roderick Nava and National Master David Almirol of Kamatyas Chess Club will receive $4,000 while the second placer to fifth placer will have $2,000, $1,000, $800 and $700. Sixth up to 10th placers will receive $500 each.-Marlon Bernardino-

Some sixty players from ten countries are seeing action in the Eastern Asia Juniors and Girls Chess Championship at the Sabah Oriental Hotel in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia. Visit chess-results.com for round by round results and standings.

Joint leaders FM Christian Gian Karlo Arca (right foreground) and IM Michael Concio Jr. (right background), both of the Philippines.