2010 Chess Olympiad (Part 18)

In the final round when Malaysian men played against Bahrain on Board 54, many of us would wonder what happened to IM MAS who was playing on top board. His opponent is just rated with 2134 ELO. IM Mas resigned after 23rd move while his time showed 1 hour 20 minutes left compared to his opponent 44 minutes as per below.

The reason for that is his mobile alarm clock rang during the play even though it was already off. The alarm is for his lunch reminder as already being set everyday since the beginning of the olympiad. It was just unfortunate that the final round was played at 11.00 am in the morning; not at the normal 3 o'clock for final closing. Below is the sms from IM Mas explaining the matter.

:) my phone alarm rang at 12.20, daily alarm for lunch.. Unfortunately last game is played in the morning.. Fon is off but still the alarm rang..

Yes, it is true. The mobile alarm will rang even though it is off. It needs to be set off for it not to ring. During chess tournament, GiLoCatur will make sure that mobile alarm is set to off even though GiLoCatur is not playing. Surely, Mas will remember and take precaution about this matter in future chess tournaments.

GiLoCatur hopes to avoid this sort of matter to happen again in the future, it should be one of the check list items for team captain or manager. Another important aspect that Malaysia should take a look during the post mortem is about having team coach(es). The women champion, Rusia 1, has two coaches during this chess olympiad. Mind that its players are world-class and Grandmasters. GiLoCatur believes our beloved country MALAYSIA can have this too provided that it is properly and well plan at least one year ahead.

Minus the defeat in the last round, IM Mas performance in this olympiad is great. His two defeats in the 7th and 9th round (as per below table) is against higher-rated. His draw with GM Mickey "Spiderman" Adams (England) and win over a Lithuanian Grandmaster are superb. Fatigue is the real challenge. It does not only affect our Malaysian players but also others. As per what GiLoCatur sees and notices, even better and top players like GM Truong Son of Vietnam also experiences it. GiLoCatur also salutes both IM Mok and FM Peter for their endurance and strength to play all the eleven rounds with respectable results taking into consideration of their ages.

Let's analyze the team performance of all the Asean countries as per below table.

Based on initial ranking, only Singapore has much better performance from 73rd to 58th. It improves 15th ranks. Indonesia is at the same standings of 67th. Thailand only better one rank from 94th to 93rd. Malaysia's final rank is down from 86th to 92nd. Both Vietnam and Philippines have poor results. Having two 2600-rated players does not help Vietnam to at least stay at their initial ranking of 27th. Instead, it is placed out of top 50 after just managed to be 52nd. Meanwhile, Philippines is also down 13th spot from 37th to 50th. The winning statistics also do not differ very much. Except Philippines with 5 wins, all just managed to win 4 games. In such, the match points also do not have big gap. It is either 12, 11 or 10 points.

Based on the previous olympiad (Dresden 2008) placings, Malaysia improves from 96th/146 to 92nd/149. Thailand also improves from 100th to 93rd. Singapore improves 4 rank from 62nd to 58th. Indonesia is down from 51st to 67th in this olympiad. Philippines is also down from 46th place to 50th. The worse is Vietnam, falling from 9th spot to 52nd. For both Asean chess horsepowers, Vietnam and Philippines, is it because their top board players are under huge pressure? Both GM Quang Liem and GM Wesley So were on the second board in Dresden 2008. Or is it because their opponents have prepared well since they are more well known now compared to then? Or is it the board order for the other team members affected?

So, MALAYSIA performs quite well and OK after all. Well done to the Malaysian team!