19th GACC - The Crucial Final Round

Less than 8 hours from now, the crucial final round of the 19th Grand Asian Chess Challenge will begin. At first, GiLoCatur thought that the champion will be the top seed, Latvian International Master, Vitalijs Samolins.  

Top 20 Rank after Round 8

Round 9 Pairings, Top 20 Boards

GiLoCatur was wrong. The championship is still open. But ofcourse, IM Vitalijs has the advantage for leading with one point. The third seed, FM Bastien Dubessay, can spoil the former's dream. If FM Bastien wins as well as MG Gahan, three players will have the same 7.5/9 points. But GiLoCatur believes FM Bastien will be declared the champion due to "Direct Encounter" Tie Break. IM Vitalijs just need a draw to emerge as the individual champion. 

Only six (6) Malaysian players in the Top 20 Ranking after Round 8. Chan Sheng Yip, former MSSS player, of Sunway Iniversity is at the 6th place with 6/8 points.

Let's wait until the final round is over to know who the winners will be.

19th GACC - The Ranking After Round 6

The GACC is on its fourth day having just completed seven rounds. Two more rounds more to go. So, who is leading right now?

Top 20 Rank after Round 6, click here for full ranking list

An Indian player named MG Gahan is leading the pack up to the sixth rounds. He represents RV Engineering College. He scores 5.5/6 points. Second in the rank is Latvian International Master (IM) Vitalijs Samolins. He also has 5.5/6 points. The 2012 Latvian National chess champion is playing for Nanyang Technological University.

IM Vitalijs (source - here)

The top Malaysian in the ranking is Ng Shi Hao at 7th placing with 4.5/6 points. He is currently studying in the same university with IM Vitalijs.

Can either MG Gahan or IM Vitalijs stay strong in the top and become the champion? Or can the Fide Masters, Blasius Nuber and Bastien Dubessay, crash the top two leaders dream?

19th GACC Kicks Off Today

The 19th Grand Asian Chess Challenge (GACC) or International Inter-Varsity Chess Championship kicks off today.

Not like last year where men and women are in different categories, this year both men and women participants will be playing together in one main event which is the Open category.

For those who like to come to see the action, the venue of the tournament is Tunku Bahiyah College of Universiti Malaya.

The schedule for today as to the knowledge of GiLoCatur is like the following:

9.00 am - 1.00 pm : Round 1

2.00 pm - 4.30 pm : The opening ceremony

5.00 pm - 9.00 pm : Round 2

Based on the chess-results.com Starting List, there are 113 chess players take part in the chess tournament. But two players are not paired in the first round. 

Round 1 match ups - Top 15 Boards

For the full Round 1 pairings, click here.

Good Luck and All the Best to all participants, especially Fikri Saleh.

Al-Fatihah To Allahyarham AM Ahmad Fadzil Nayan

At 9.08 PM today (exactly an hour ago), the Malaysian chess community lost one of its member. The chess player is Ahmad Fadzil Nayan. 

news about Fadzil's demise in fb

Below are the pictures of Allahyarham Fadzil in the Malaysian chess scene. 

8.8.2010 - Cerdik Catur Chess Challenge

25.9.2011 - Insofar 2nd Elite Open Final

26.2.2012 - Feb 2012 Insofar Combined Tournament

3.9.2012 - MMU International Chess Open

Nov 2012 - SUKIPT

25.3.2012 - Mar 2012 Insofar Combined Tournament

GiLoCatur's deepest condolence to Allahyarham Fadzil's family. Al-Fatihah.

19th GACC - 26th to 31st JAN 2015

In about ten days, there will be a FIDE-rated chess tournament organized by a UM residential college. For those who don't know what UM is, it is a university in Malaysia known as Universiti Malaya. GACC, the acronym of Grand Asian Chess Challenge is very synonymous with the university. 

Who can participate in the tournament? Can GiLoCatur take part? The answer for latter question is NO. Why? Because GiLoCatur is not a university student at this moment like GiLoCatur's eldest son, Fikri, who is currently in his second semester at UiTM Segamat. So, the answer for the former question is University students. 

GiLoCatur is quite impress with the promotion of the chess tournament. When GiLoCatur googles 19th GACC in the internet, it is being promoted in chess.dom and a Czech chess website.

19th GACC banner

19th GACC in a Czech chess website

19th GACC in chess.dom

To follow the event, check it out the GACC facebook ...

19th GACC facebook

2015 - The Gloomy Era of Malaysian Chess Blogging?

Wow! It has been quite sometime that GiLoCatur has not blogged. It is the middle of the first month of year 2015 already. What happens GiLoCatur? 

Just now, GiLoCatur wanted to access the Malaysian chess one-stop blog - catur.org. Unfortunately, the following error message has popped up. 

what you'll get when accessing the Malaysian one-stop blog.

GiLoCatur just remembered that Gilachess wants to quit chess blogging. GiLoCatur thought it is just a bluff. Wrong! It is the truth indeed. 

What the year 2015 would be for Malaysian chess blogging?