Some 17 Chess Club Players

Going to GiLoCatur's chess album collection, below are the pictures of some of 17 Chess Club players taken in a chess tournament back in the year of 2009.

Akmal

Younger GiLoCatur (LOL)

Syed (17CC VP)

Max (17CC President)

Sam (dark blue shirt)

Sahir (white shirt) and Cikgu Azmi (yellow shirt)

17CC Friday Night Chess Fever

Friday, 10th October 2014

GiLoCatur planned to join a mini tournament held in a chess center located in Klang and organized jointly by the chess center owner and 17 Chess Club. But since GiLoCatur has to wake up early on Saturday morning to drive to Malacca for an important program, the plan has to be cancelled. 

GiLoCatur wants to share some uniqueness of the mini chess tourney.

Not many chess tournaments in Malaysia being held at night. 17 Chess Club regularly organize its mini chess tournaments as well as sparring sessions at night.

Food and drinks like the famous nasi lemak are common with the players take part in the sparring sessions and mini chess tournaments organized by 17 Chess Club. The obvious reason is the venue is a bistro cafe or a restaurant. 

17 Chess Club sparring sessions and mini chess tourneys are commonly being held at Friday nights.

warm up session before the tournament starts

Stuck in the traffic jam is not an obstacle for 17cc chess players

A hamper sponsored by SM Fadli

Nasi Lemak for 17cc players sponsored by Ng6 

GiLoCatur hopes 17 Chess Club will stay active in organizing sparring sessions and mini tournaments for the better of Malaysian chess.

BRAVO 17 Chess Club!

UPSI Chess Open and Pilgrimage Season (Musim Haji)

Minggu lepaih GiLoCatur bawa anak-anak, Anis dan Fahim, menyertai NRCC di Universiti Teknologi Petronas (UTP) di Tronoh. Kurang dua minggu lagi Insya Allah GiLoCatur akan bawa anak-anak menyertai Kejohanan Catur Terbuka UPSI di Tanjung Malim pula. GiLoCatur dan anak-anak tidak menyertai edisi tahun lepas kerana GiLoCatur dan isteri menunaikan fardhu Haji di Mekah. Kejohanan catur di  UPSI merupakan salah satu pertandingan catur tempatan yang seboleh-bolehnya GiLoCatur dan anak-anak sertai. Jika edisi-edisi yang lepas time control permainan ialah selama 45 minit (G/45), edisi kali ini time controlnya adalah 60 minit (G/60) bersamaan satu jam.

Tarikh tutup ialah pada 12hb Oktober iaitu kira-kira lagi seminggu. Mengikut info seperti di bawah, penyertaan adalah terhad HANYA kepada 250 orang. Mike (kamu, dialek Perak) udah daftar ke? GiLoCatur sudah daftar. GiLoCatur pun sudah booking tempat bermalam di KALUMPANG RESORT.  Sambil main catur, have a weekend gateway. Meraikan Fikri yang telah usai peperiksaan PMRnya. 

Ada berani nak lawan GiLoCatur? Fauzi Ahim, Karl Zam dan Zullghafari dari Muor dengor khabornya akan turut serta. Tak sabor rasenya nak kerojekan deme. Angin sepoi-sepoi juga mengatakan Ng6 akan turut serta sambil membawa kamera digital Canonnya. Geng-geng Bilut dan 17ChessClub, amacam? Geng-geng Limau Bali dok tunggu tu kat Tanjung Malim. Nak test power pemain2 17ChessClub dan Bilut kata deme. Pemain2 elit negara lak cam mana? GiLoCatur yakin Ian Udani yang pernah merasai nikmat bergelar juara dan dapat cash prize SERIBU RINGGIT juga akan turut serta. Tak putih mata ke kalau Ian menang lagi?

Info terperinci UPSI Open

Let's forget  about UPSI Chess Open for a while. Next, GiLoCatur would like to talk about is Musim Haji.

GiLoCatur terasa sangat syahdu bila musim Haji datang lagi. Penerbangan pertama jemaah Haji Malaysia bagi musim 2011 adalah pada 29hb September lalu. Salah seorang daripada 28,000 rakyat Malaysia yang bakal bergelar Haji tahun ini ialah Sdra Radzuan Abdul Rahman, school mate GiLoCatur. Amat sayang sekali GiLoCatur tidak dapat berjumpa beliau di TH Kelana Jaya pada malam 1 Oktober lalu kerana berada di Tronoh. GiLoCatur mendoakan agar Sdra Radzuan dan isterinya beroleh Haji Mabrur.

GiLoCatur di luar Masjid Nabawi bertentangan makam rasulullah

Memandangkan baru semusim berlalu, ingatan GiLoCatur terhadap Baitullah, Masjidil Haram dan Masjid Nabawi masih kuat lagi. GiLoCatur akan sentiasa cuba Insya Allah untuk ingat, mendekatkan hati dan mengikuti musim-musim Haji agar sentiasa dekat padaNYA. Salah satu carannya ialah dengan mengikuti blog Profesor Muhd Kamil Ibrahim, KEHIDUPAN RINGKAS TAPI SIGNIFIKAN atau singkatannya KRTS. Beliau merupakan penulis buku Travelog Haji: Mengubah Sempadan Iman. Allah telah mengabulkan hajatnya yang mahu dekat dengan Baitullah, Mekah dan Madinah setelah mendapat tawaran menjadi salah seorang tenaga pengajar di sebuah universiti di Madinah. Ini bermakna Prof Kamil telah berhijrah dari Malaysia ke KSA (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia).

http://muhdkamil.org/blog/

Kepada pembaca-pembaca Muslim Blog GiLoCatur, lawatilah blog Prof Kamil tersebut (seperti link di atas) agar sama-sama dapat mengikuti kisah kehidupan beliau di bumi Madinah AlMunawarrah. Semoga kita semua akan setiasa teruja untuk menjadi tetamuNYA tidak kira sewaktu musim Haji atau ketika mengerjakan umrah.

".. I am ready to obey Your orders, O Allah .."

17ChessClub Blitz Tourney

After the 17ChessClub Rapid Open last weekend, there was another tournament. It is a blitz of 5-minute-per-player tourney. Fourteen local chess players took part in the event. GiLoCatur and Fahim did not take part but watched the first few rounds. This type of chess event or tournament should be organized more often and more and more Malaysian chess juniors should be encouraged to participate as the blitz has many benefits for them.

Do you want to know who participated in the blitz event? Check them out in below photos. Saprin aka Nf6 who GiLoCatur believes is one of Malaysian blitz masters did not take part in the blitz tourney even though he played in the rapid tournament earlier.

[ ... updated on Jan 13th, 2011 11.00 pm ... ]

The winners of the blitz tournament:

• Champion - Kamaluddin Yusof (RM 125)
• 1st Runner Up - Syazwan Zulkifli (RM 50)
• 2nd Runner Up - Nik Ahmad Farouqi (RM 25)

As informed by Syazrin

17ChessClub Open Report

Yesterday 9-year-old Fahim and his dad, GiLoCatur, had participated in the nationally-rated 17ChessClub Open organized by Pengurusan Catur Ar Rahman. The 7 Swiss rounds of G/25 tournament was held in the DAT Chess Center. The tournament had attracted about 50 local chess players including Malaysian-based pinoy, Ian Udani.

In order to fulfill the mission of Improving Chess Ratings, GiLoCatur brought Fahim to the first rated chess tournament for the year 2011. His elder brother, Fikri, and sister, Anis Fariha, could not come along because they are at their boarding school and the school is just started. So, how was the performance?

Fahim just managed to win a game and draw another. In the first two rounds his opponents were rated-17ChessClub gang - Syed and Max. Long way to go for him still. GiLoCatur had to face five rated and 2 unrated opponents. GiLoCatur managed to win against both the unrated opponents and one of the five rated ones. GiloCatur's scores higher Tournament Performance Rating than the actual one i.e. 1233. A good start for GiLoCatur eh! :)-

Fireyrook (right) vs Odyssey (left) in Round 1

Ng6 (right in blue shirt)

One interesting fact about the tournament is that the 17ChessClub tournament had attracted several Malaysian chess bloggers. They are Razali Hamzah aka Ng6, Shamsuddin Sabri aka fireyrook, Nor Ilhamuddin Shaikh Ali of ChessOdyssey, Rizal Ahmad Kamal who is the blog owner of Rizal's Chess Trading and GiLoCatur.

Neatly-dressed Max

(GiLoCatur : Chess players should emulate him for the dress code while participating in a chess tournament.)

Fauzi Ahim (left in above picture) had taken up the challenge to play in a rated tournament. As far as GiLoCatur can recall, he had not played in any rated tournament previously. Therefore he has yet have a national or MCF rating.

Blogger Rizal (right)

GiLoCatur notices several new faces in the tournament. Some are really totally new in chess tournaments while others just make a comeback like Foo Chee Kin, GiLoCatur Round 1 opponent. According to him, he is just making a comeback after five years. His last national rating is around 1700. In fact, Chee Kin was placed second during the recent Sarawak Open. Click here for the tournament's final ranking in chess-results.com.

Foo Chee Kin

Abdullah Che Hassan, the champion

So what are the results? Who became the champion? Who were the winnners?

Abdullah Che Hassan had been declared as the champion after having better tie breaks than Ian Udani and Ahmad Fadzil Nayan. All three of them scored 6/7 points. Fadzil could not manage to win or draw in the final round against Ian to become the champion. The recent Malay champion Saprin who beat Ian in the 5th round, could not continue his winning streak after being defeated by Abdullah and Fadzil in the last two rounds.

Click here for the all rounds pairings.

Click here for the final ranking crosstable.

Click here for the official winners.

Click here to view the photos of the tournament.

National-Rated Chess Tourneys in January 2011

THREE national-rated chess tournaments in January 2011. WOW! What a treat for Malaysian chess players. What a start for Malaysian chess in the year 2011.

How do you want to measure and gauge your chess performance and improvement? Surely by participating and playing in rated chess events. What a feeling it will be when you can beat higher-rated opponent. GiLoCatur is a 1200-rated player. GiLoCatur would wonder, can he beats 1300-rated or 1400-rated opponents? GiLoCatur targets to achieve 1300 rating by the end of the year. Meanwhile, Fahim, GiLoCatur's youngets son, is currently rated 1172. The target for him is to achieve the 1300 mark also. How GiLoCatur and Fahim can do that if not participating in a rated tournament? Therefore, GiLoCatur and Fahim plan to participate in as many rated tournaments as possible in the year 2011.

The nationally-rated chess events:

1) 17ChessClub Open - Sunday, 9th January 2011 at DATCC, Wilayah Complex - click herefor its details

2) Kedah Chess Open - Saturday, 29th January 2011 in Sungai Petani - click here for its details

3) DATCC Renegade Rapid Chess Weekender - Sunday, 30th January 2011 at DATCC, Wilayah Complex - click here for its details

What are the above chess tourneys have in common?

• rapid chess of 25-minute time control (in USA it is known as G/25)
• is held only in one day (GiLoCatur : preferred duration for chess playing by most Malaysian chess players)
• has 7 SWISS rounds format

SO, SEE YOU AT THE ABOVE CHESS EVENTS! Like GiLoCatur's chess buddy, Fauzi Ahim, always says "IF YOU DARE!" (in Malay .. "Ada berani??")

Poor Turn Out In The DATCC Dream Team Chess Weekend

From several chess blogs, GiLoCatur found out that the DATCC Dream Team Chess tournament held during last weekend - 29th & 30th May 2010, had a poor turn out. Only four teams came to play meaning only 16 chess players were participating including the arbiter.

Lack of publicity is said to be one of the main reasons for the poor turn out. If this is true, it shows that the local chess blogs have very big responsibility and role in the Malaysian chess. One of the main reasons GiLoCatur believes is that it is the examination week. Most of the schooling chess players are busy studying and preparing for the exams. Furthermore, many of them are attending MSS state centralized training held during the weekend including Selangor state team that is being held about 150 kilometers or more than two-hour drive from KL. For the core IPT chess players they are participating in the MASUM tournament. (GiLoCatur will write further about MASUM Chess later.) Several other Malaysian juniors were attending the First GM chess training at Excel Chess Academy.

But for GiLoCatur, keep up the momentum by having continuous chess tourneys. Four teams is good enough. GiLoCatur is very happy because 17ChessClub keeps active to participate in the local chess tournaments.

Not yet read about the DATCC Dream Team Chess Tourney report? Click here or here to know which team is the champion.

McD Mini Blitz Tournament - 15/1/2010

Once again GiLoCatur was the pairings manager for the McD Blitz mini-tournament held last Friday night. Ten players participated including GiLoCatur. The format was 7-minute Blitz of seven rounds. This time around, the mini-tournament were joined by few Subang Suria gang - Fauzi, Jeffri and Sulaiman Abg Bro and Haq as well as Yen Fischer were not coming but Hashim Jusoh was the replacement as the top seed. Even though hailed from Terengganu, "this (Shah Alam) is my second home" said Hashim whom GiLoCatur met during the De Laguna tournament.

The mini-tournament had attracted someone. He and GiLoCatur exchanged contact numbers. He thinks that chess can be included in his rakan muda program in the future. GiLoCatur also hopes that one day we can have a collaboration to promote chess.

Wanna know the results of the mini-tournament? Actually, the results are not really important in this tournament because it is basically a sparring and training session. But as per in normal chess tournaments, all the players were eager whom they will play against every round, who was leading and what's the score.

So, below are the results and pictures of the mini-tournament.

No one had a perfect 7/7 score.

Sulaiman (left) was punching a different kind of chess clock!

Everyone was focus on their boards, eh!

Fauzi, before the game against GiLoCatur, some sort of a personal rivalry.

Who's winning? You can find out in the above results. :)-

Jeff (orange shirt). Who's the guy with white shirt next to him? Look familiar eh ...

Why Ng6 was smiling? Only he knows ... he made a blunder? or no way his opponent was gonna win?

Normally, Sulaiman spar at Subang Suria with his own gang or "homies". His first session with 17ChessClub gang.

What distracted GiLoCatur, what do you think? Can you guess?

JAYATI BLITZ Mini Tournament - 8 Jan 2010

On Friday night of 8 January 2010, GiLoCatur and Fikri, the eldest son, for the first time joined the 17ChessClub gang on a Friday Night Blitz mini tournament. Besides having a practice session, a Blitz mini-tournament of five rounds had been held. The playing venue is Jayati Restaurant located in Section 17 of Shah Alam.

And for the first time, GiLoCatur had officiated a chess tournament. Basically, not being an arbiter yet but a pairing manager. What a wonderful experience for GiLoCatur to learn how to do chess pairings.

Eight players were playing including GiLoCatur. The format was a 5-minute blitz. Below is the final results.

Ranking and cross table after Round 5.

The Rating Results Table

Sahir, the first seed with 1649 MCF-rating, won four games and drew one to be the champion. He drew with Syed in the fourth round. Zahorin or simply known as Yen Fischer, who is ranked fifth with 1551 MCF rating, was second place after scoring 3.5/5 points. GiLoCatur, being the lowest-rated player, had lost all the five games and placed last. LOL!

Bro Mudin had a game with Haq.

Syed (left) and Zali aka Ng6 (right) watched by Akmal (in the middle)

Max (left) versus Yen Fischer (right)

Fikri (left) versus Sahir (right)

Maybe next time other players can join the tournament. Hopefully, such activity can encourage and motivate others to have similar chess session and play at other places.

We have many chess fanatics or GiLoCaturs in this country for sure.

17ChessClub Players Start Winning in Chess Tournament

Cikgu MIZI

D4 SAM

YEDMAN

17ChessClub members are starting to win medals in local chess tournaments. In the recent Kelang Chess Open, three of its members won prizes. (For the other tournaments can check at their club chess blog here.) The first one is D4 SAM Capablanca, one of GiLoCatur's favourite chess world champions, and the second one is Syed aka YEDMAN Topalov. The third one is Cikgu MIZI. Congrats to all three of them. Keep it up guys! GiLoCatur met with one of the 17ChessClub members, SAHIR Botvinnik in Round 4.