National Junior Master (NJM) Mohd Nabil

After 45 minutes and about 40 moves, the match between Mohd Nabil Azman Hisham and Yee Jian Yang at the top table was over. Nabil won. He scored 8/9 points from eight (8) wins and one defeat.

Therefore, Nabil is the new Malaysian National Junior Master (boys).

Mohd Nabil Azman Hisham

versus

Yee Jian Yang

Nabil's opponents in 4th NJCC
(note: opponents' Pts are up to R8 only)

SYABAS & TAHNIAH to NABIL!

Who Will Lift the 4th Edition NJCC?

"Milik siapakah trofi ini?"

NJCC champion trophies

It is 8:15am now. In 15 minutes the final round of the 4th NJCC will begin. Yes, today the game will start half hour early because today is Friday. So, who will lift the trophy?

The Boys Under-20 category

Top 10 Rank before the final round

In the Boys category, Nabil is leading by one point. In the final round he is paired against Under 12 opponent, Yee Jian Yang who has 6/8 points. The other two six pointers, Mark Siew and Roshan Ajeet Singh play against 5.5 pointers on Table 2 and Table 3 respectively.

GiloCatur's eldest son, Fikri, who is ranked 10th and the lowest 5.5 pointers play white against strong unrated opponent, Teh Wee Zhun.

The Girls Under-20 category

Top 10 Rank before the final round

In the Girls category, in GiLoCatur's opinion, WCM Nur Nabila is set to win the champion trophy. It is a tough challenge for Nur Faqihah Aminuddin who scores 5/8 points to stop Nabila. SEA Games medalist, WFM Nur Najiha who is ranked 2nd with 6.5/8 points is the opponent to beat by Ee Sun Xin at Table 2. While another SEA Games player, Camilia, is challenged by Nur Sabrina Aliya Asman at Table 3.

Anis Fariha who drew her two games yesterday in Round 7 and Round 8 will play white against Goh Xin Yen who just got her PMR results yesterday. GiLoCatur would like to congratulate her for scoring all As in her PMR.

DATCC, 8:15am

4th NJCC - Boys Category Players List

In the Boys category, about fifty (50) players have registered for the championship. Mohd Nabil is the top seed. Along with Mark Siew and Tan Jun Feng, Nabil were among the top 10 winners in last year edition.

Starting list 1 of 2 for the Boys category  

Starting list 2 of 2 for the Boys category 

Based on GiLoCatur findings while checking the players FIDE ratings, both Lim Winsen and Kughan Ravindran have two FIDE ids. But both of them do not have yet the ratings. It is important for them to make sure that only one id is being used and updated.

GiLoCatur just also noticed that Teo Boon Kee should be listed in the Girls category.

4th NJCC - Girls Category Players List

The time has come for Malaysian juniors to fight for the 4th National Junior Master titles. The championship will start tomorrow morning. Where it will be held? The playing venue is DATCC located at the fourth floor of the Wilayah Shopping Complex. All the three GiLoCatur's kids will take part in the championship. 

Let's check out the starting players list for the Girls section. 

Starting list for the Girls category
source: MCF's Biro Catur Wanita blog 

The number of participants for this 4th edition is not encouraging. It is only 21 players listed. GiLoCatur adds Cheong Keat Zhen to the list because she is a female / girl player. Last year, she was in the Girls category whose number of participants was more than thirty (30). 

Based on the ratings info compiled by GiLoCatur, WCM Nur Nabila and her younger sister, WFM Nur Najiha, will be the top two seeds. For GiLoCatur, they are the hot favourites to be the new WNJM since the defending champion does not take part this year. 

Obviously, several names are missing this year. Or would there be more names tomorrow before Round 1 kicks off? 

4th NJCC - 19th to 23rd Dec 2011

Finally, the Malaysian National Junior Chess Championship or simply known as NJCC, the fourth edition, is confirmed to be held from Monday, 19th until Friday 23rd December 2011.

GiLoCatur received an email with the entry form and details of the tournament from Mr Greg Lau, the Malaysian Chess Federation (MCF) secretary, sent yesterday.

4th NJCC

Event :   (1) Boys U-20         (2) Girls U-20

Format : Nine (9) SWISS rounds

Time Control : 90 minutes + 30 seconds increment from move 1. All moves must be recorded.

The Schedule

The closing date : Friday, 16th December 2011

ENTRIES AFTER CLOSING DATE WILL BE ACCEPTED ONLY AT THE DISCRETION OF THE ORGANIZERS AND A LATE PENALTY (RM 50) WILL BE CHARGED.

MALAYSIAN CITIZENS ONLY CAN PARTICIPATE IN THIS TOURNAMENT.


For further enquiries, please contact :

• Mr Gregory Lau at 012-2577123 - (email: msianchess2010@gmail.com) 
• Pn.Zuraihah Wazir at 017-2837808 
• Pn Haslindah Ruslan at 019-2069605

GiLoCatur's Humble Opinion

GiLoCatur feels happy to read the Rating Review of the Kelantanese chess players made by Cikgu Jijoe in his blog here. He is very concerned for the ratings dip especially by the state's chess junior players. Rating review is the first step to ensure chess standard and quality to improve in every state of Malaysia. Next steps shall be planned, devised, addressed and implemented to avoid rating points drop to happen. Such effort should be followed by other states chess community especially MCF in order to improve and better the chess standard and quality in Malaysia.

Let GiLoCatur share some analytical insights relating to the Kelantan chess juniors. Hopefully, this will trigger further discussion and study on Malaysian chess junior players for one main objective - to improve the standard and quality of our juniors performance.

For all the four Kelantan juniors (2 boys and 2 girls) who experienced national ratings drop ONLY played in ONE nationally-rated chess tournament which is the NJCC for the 2011 JAN MCF ratings. So, it is very important for them to make good and enough preparation for such tournament. Otherwise, their national ratings will be affected significantly. GiLoCatur hopes they will participate in many more rated events to have more consistent ratings.

Even for that ONE rated event, their performance is not that very bad as GiLoCatur sees it. Let's see below.

Seeded 54th with Oct 2010 ratings of 1285, Nik Muhd Haziq won both his games against unrated opponents in the 2nd and 5th round respectively. Even he managed to win against one higher-rated opponent in the 6th round. In order for him to improve his ratings, he should had won his last two 1300-rated opponents which ratings gap is relatively small. By the way, he dropped 31 rating points from 1285 to 1254.

For Muhd Faiz Zakaria, he just lost two out of five lower-rated opponents. For sure, his 7th round opponent had participated in many more chess tournaments than him. GiLoCatur strongly believes that Faiz can challenge both 1300-rated and 1400-rated players if he can participate at least three to five tournaments in a month or if he can spar once a week against stronger players. Maybe PCNK can set the sparring activities for Kelantan juniors like him?

Fatih lost only to two lower-rated opponents - Latifah Syamimi and Zainoor Ikmal Maisarah. Syamimi is a strong player actually and if not mistaken was once MSSM KL player. She is the elder sister of Kaiyisah. While Maisarah, eventhough just 8-years-old, has participated in several international chess tournaments like ASEAN and World Youth. In fact, she (Fatih) won against Nur Farihah Aminuddin, a strong player and among the latest top 20 most improved ratings in the sixth round. So, her performance is not that bad GiLoCatur thinks. She just lost 27 points for her national rating points.

As for Norazlisa Ramli who had MCF rating of 1323 in October 2010 losing one game to unrated opponent and another to Zainoor Maisarah, She had lost 62 points in a single rated tourney, to 1261.

The above is only humble opinion and analytical observation of GiLoCatur. GiLoCatur really hopes that all the Kelantan young players are given the chance and opportunity to play many more rated chess tournaments to shine and show their real talents. GiLoCatur also hopes that they will take the opportunity to participate in the coming Kelantan Closed event since it will be a nationally-rated tourney.

2010 NJCC Poll Results

Twenty six and twenty seven votes were made for the NJCC poll for the boys and girls category respectively. The poll results are basically correct. Lim Zhou Ren received the highest vote of 31% for the boys category. In the girls category, Alia got the majority votes of nearly 60%. GiLoCatur would like to thank all who had participated in the poll.

The 3rd NJCC - The Official Winners

Below are the official winners of the Malaysian 3rd National Junior Chess Championship that just concluded last weekend. It was emailed to GiLoCatur by Mr Marcus Yeoh, the tournament's deputy arbiter.

SYABAS AND TAHNIAH TO ALL THE WINNERS!

especially to the new NJM (National Junior Master), Lim Zhou Ren, and NJWM (National Junior Woman Master), WFM Alia Anin Azwa Bakri.

The 3rd NJCC - The Second Day

Click here to read some update on the second day of the 3rd National Junior Chess Championship.

Chess trivia. Who is the smartly-dressed man standing on the right most in the above picture? he he he ...

Malaysian chess players especially the juniors should wear smart and elegant dress or attire during chess tournaments like the above Mister. Wearing "selipar Jepun" should be a NO NO in a local chess tournament like NJCC. Isn't it a Fide-rated and national-rated event by the way?

The 3rd NJCC - Photo Report

GiLoCatur was at the venue of the 3rd National Junior Chess Championship that is scheduled from 15th until 19th this month. It is the first tournament that GiLoCatur attended since being absent from the local chess scene due to the Hajj pilgrimage. As usual, GiLoCatur took pictures to share with this blog's visitors.

The venue of the tournament - 2nd floor, Olympic Hotel, KL

Motivation talk by Encik Azhar to Kelantanese participants

Busy verifying and confirming the participants / players list.

Familiar face eh! Is "Ustaz" back to KL? You all better listen carefully. boys and girls ...

Before the first round starts

the boys (U20) category

the girls (U20) category

More pictures can be viewed here and here.

The 3rd National Junior Chess Championship

The Penang Heritage Chess Championship just ended last Sunday. Now, the focus of chess in Malaysia will be the 3rd National Junior Chess Championship. It will be held at a hotel near the Merdeka Stadium known as Hotel Olympic tomorrow. The championship has two categories - one for the Under-20 boys and one for the Under-20 girls. The champion for the boys will be awarded the title of NJM or National Junior Master and NJWM or National Junior Woman Master for the girls.

Do you know who is last year's NJM and NJWM? If you don't know, click here to find the answer.

The list of participants has been published here. Based on the list, the number of participants for the boys is 71 and for the girls is 32. GiLoCatur's eldest son, Fikri, and daughter, Anis, will take part too. They have not participated in any chess tournament for two months since GiLoCatur and wife went to Mecca for the Hajj pilgrimage. The last chess tournament they participated is the National Rapid Chess at the Universiti Teknologi Petronas (UTP).

So, who do you pick to win the NJM and NJWM titles?