The 2nd National Rapid Chess Championship (NRCC) - The Reminder

"Yeop, udah lupe ke mike? 4 hari je lagi. Ade ape? Mike kate nak lawan catur dengan teman. Teman udah bayor yuran sebentor tadi. Hari ni hari terakhir hantor borang dan bayor yuran."

For those who do not understand the above Perak dialogue, actually it says that today is the closing date for the registration and fee payment for the 2nd National Rapid Chess Championship or simply NRCC that will be held in Universiti Teknologi Petronas that is located in Tronoh, Perak. 

The format of the tournament is 8 SWISS rounds of G/25 + 10 secs. What GiLoCatur means by G/25 is a 25 minute per player game. Four rounds each on Saturday, 1st October and Sunday, 2nd October. There would be the Open (17 years old and above) and five age group categories - Under 8, Under 10, Under 12, Under 14 and Under 16. The NRCC is a national-rated tournament. Click here for further details and info on the tournament.

The total prize money is RM 2,960 but it is only for the Open category. No money prizes for the age group categories. Only medal prizes for the top three for each boy and girl section. Why not include prize money for the age groups? It will attract more participants for sure. GiLoCatur hopes in the next edition, the age group categories should be given prize money. 

Will Sumant defend his championship in this year edition? The champion will receive one thousand Malaysian Ringgits. Can Fadzil Nayan who was the 1st edition first runner up add his winning cash prizes to be one thousand ringgits richer? Will both of them face each other again like last weekend in the Insofar Elite Final? How about the number of participants in this year edition? Will it be more or less? As listed out in the 1st NRCC blog here, there were 95 participants in the Open category. At DAT Chess Center in Kuala Lumpur, there is another rapid chess tournament held on Sunday, 2nd October 2011. It is Cerdik Catur Semi Pro Tournament. We will know all the answers this weekend, won't we?

Last year, all GiLoCatur's children participated in the event. Fikri, the eldest, scored 6.5/8 points in the Under 14 & 16 category. He was awarded the gold medal winner for the Open-14 age group. This year, Fikri will not take part because his PMR exam is around the corner. Anis Fariha, GiLoCatur's only daughter, won the bronze medal for the Girl-12 age group category. She scored 4 points. Meanwhile, her younger brother Fahim Al-Faqeh who played in Open-8 section received the silver medal with 5.5 points and placed fourth out of the total 15 participants in the U8 section. 

This weekend, Anis who is in the form 1 at Kuala Selangor Science Secondary school (KUSESS) will take part in the U14 section while 9-year-old Fahim will play in U10 age group category. GiLoCatur will also participate in the 2nd NRCC. Hopefully, after winning the Best Under-1500 in the 1st Insofar Open Scholarship tournament last Sunday, GiLoCatur will be motivated to give the best performance this weekend to improve the national ratings.

WILL YOU BE GILOCATUR'S OPPONENT?

NAG 2011 - (Part 1 : The Participants Statistics)

The first midterm school break is coming near. On this coming Friday, parents including GiLoCatur will fetch their children from boarding schools. Most the school kids will be happy since they will take break from going to school. Surely, many plans and activities for them. Some will go for holidays either overseas or local. Some will go back to their hometowns staying with their grandparents. Some will just stay at home play video or computer games. Some will go for school break camps.

How about for chess playing school children? They will be busy participating in chess tournaments. There are many of them to take part where the big and important one is the National Age Group or simply known as NAG.

GiLoCatur had been to the past three NAGs since GiLoCatur's children took part in the event. GiLoCatur started to know about the NAG in 2008. Both Fikri and Anis took part for the first time in the event. Fikri played in the Under 12 Boys section while his younger sister, Anis, took part in the Under 10 Girls category. At that time, both of them was about eight months into chess. Fikri was rated 1460 while Anis was rated 887. Whereas, Fahim, GiLoCatur's youngest child had his debut in the NAG last year held in Penang.

But unfortunately, for this year edition that is held at the Universiti Teknologi Petronas (UTP), all the three of GiLoCatur's children will not take part. One of the reasons is because Fikri who will sit for his PMR exam this year has a program in his school during the first weekend of the school midterm break.

Let's see and compare the statistics of the participation for the past four years. For this year, the figures are not the final one yet but based on the listing published in most Malaysian chess blogs.

*note : the total number of participants for NAG 2008 was 336.

Below are two basic info regarding the NAG.

In the year 2008, the NAG was held from 10 - 12th March. The venue was the OCM Indoor Sports Arena near the Merdeka Stadium in Kuala Lumpur. The following year of 2009, the championship was held at the Pearl Point Shopping Complex located on Jalan Kelang Lama, which is also in Kuala Lumpur or Klang Valley. Instead of in March, it was held from 3rd until 5th April. While in last year edition i.e. 2010, the national age group chess competition was held in Dewan Seri Pinang, Penang between 14th and 16th March.

From the above statistics, it is very obvious that the 2009 edition had the most number of participants which is 465. It drops to below 250 while it was held in Penang last year. What would be the main reason(s) for such drop in total numbers? For this year edition, the total number of participants climbs back to more than 330 players about equals to the 2008 edition. Is FIDE scholarship one of the reasons or attraction for the increase number of participation?

[ GiLoCatur : As of today, the total number of participants has increased to 378 as reported here by Marcus Yeoh, the NAG's Deputy Chief Arbiter. Hopefully, it will be the actual figure during the tournament day. By then, it is more than in 2008 by 42. - 10/3/2011, 9.00am]

Shouldn't we the Malaysian chess community set the Key Performance Index (KPI) for future editions in order to improve chess in the country? Say, next year the total number of participants to be 400 then 500 after that? How to attract participations from several other states like Sarawak and Sabah? It is quite surprising that for this year edition no players from Terengganu and Malacca either.

GiLoCatur believes many other interpretation or findings can be summarized or generalized from the above statistics. In whatever angle we see from the statistics, GiLoCatur hopes that chess among the juniors will be better and better and has improvements because a strong base among them is very essential for our dream to have the first grandmaster.

UTP NRCC - Report 1

Bandar Seri Iskandar, Oct 10 (10.10.10)

The fifth round is almost over. It started at 9.00 am sharp. The waiting time is 10 minutes. Anis, GiLoCatur's daughter won against her opponent in U12 age group due to the 10-minute waiting rule. In the age groups category, both boys and girls are combined and played in one category due to low participation.

Let's see the Open category first. Five players have the full 4/4 points getting into the fifth round. Sumant, the top seed, has been winning all his games. He is playing Ing Kiat on the top board, while another junior player, Elgin, is facing Fadzil Nayan on the second board. On the third board, Ilham is playing black against WCM Nabila who just came back from the 39th Chess Olympiad in Khanty-Mansiysk. Both Nabil and Syakir plays in the 4th and 5th board respectively.

GiLoCatur is trying to upload all the pairings but encounters few technical issues. Try click here to view the pairings. GiLoCatur tries to upload the pairings into GLCFC. Please provide the feedback.

The pairings - Round 1, Round 2, Round 3, Round 4, Round5