Malaysian Women Masters 2010

GiLoCatur could not follow very closely the first Malaysian Women Masters held during this weekend starting on Friday. It is because GiLoCatur was busy with work and own routines. Tonight, after everything is settle, GiLoCatur has the free time to check on the updates of the Masters that can be the first milestone for the growth and development of chess for the ladies and girls. Lots of controversies, comments and feedbacks regarding the selection of the sixteen players for the Masters. GiLoCatur does not want to comment much on that. What's important is such tournament to identify and find the best women players for Malaysia MUST be held every year to make sure that Malaysia is not lacking in women chess players. Based on GiLoCatur's observation since being in the chess fraternity a couple of years ago, not many women are interested in playing chess. Many talented girl players leave the chess scene after completing their high school, get married and work.

What are the reasons? Why? What are the root causes they do not want to play chess anymore? GiLoCatur urges and hopes that the Malaysian chess fraternity to come up with a workshop or seminar with working paper to discuss about this matter. Who else is going to do that? The current women players also need to fight and do something to make sure that their younger sisters can have bright future and good opportunity in chess.

Below are some of what GiLoCatur observes or thinks :

• We do not have many chess tournaments specifically for women or girls except the age groups. Or maybe a ladies category in a chess tournament. In USA, Susan Polgar is doing this.
• The prize for Best Lady category is not good enough to attract the lady players.
• There should be a reward when a lady or a girl player when she beats her higher rated opponent.
• Parents should encourage their daughters to play chess and keep playing chess like Cikgu Zull does to WCM Shazwani eventhough she is really busy with her medical studies, just to name one example.
• Parents need to be very supportive for their daughters to play chess like Cikgu Sabirin from Terengganu with his daughters - Aishah and Khadijah, just to name one example.
• A lady chess icon is needed for the girls as a motivation like maybe the Polgar sisters, Alexandra Kosteniuk, Hou Yi Fan or Irene Sukandar of Indonesia.

For the Malaysian girls especially, check out the Malaysian Women Masters updates at NWM Khairunnisa's blog here or Hairul's blog here for some annotated games.

[ GiLoCatur : Entry ini telah mendapat perhatian pihak Susan Polgar dan telah dipaparkan dalam laman blog beliau di sini. Semoga catur akan lebih maju dan mendapat perhatian di kalangan wanita MALAYSIA. Isnin, 0.36 pagi. ]