About six hours to go before the kick-off of the 40th Chess Olympiad held in Istanbul, Turkey. Round pairings has already been published. GiLoCatur can't wait to find out the results of the first round especially the Malaysian teams, both men and women.
The opponent for the Malaysian women's team is SLOVAKIA who is ranked at 20th place. The Slovakian women's team consists of three WGMs, one WIM and one WFM. What will be the Malaysian players line up? Will Slovakia let its fifth board player, WFM Veronika Machalova, to play? Based on GiLoCatur's research, Veronika had played against a Malaysian woman chess player several years ago. She lost to the Malaysian chess player. Can you guess who the Malaysian woman chess player would be? Click here to find out the answer. [Additional info, 4.30pm - Even the Slovakian top board player, Zuzana, had played against the same Malaysian woman player before. She almost lost the game. For sure both Zuzana and her Malaysian opponent were still under 16 years old during then. In what tournament the game was played? Where it was played? Enjoy the game here. To all the Malaysian chess community, let's pray that our Najiha can follow the feat by winning or at least drawing against Zuzana.]
GiLoCatur hopes that each Malaysian women chess player will play her heart out when facing the Slovakian team. Do not be afraid. Study and research respective opponents' games. Keep in mind that a Malaysian player can beat a Slovakian opponent as been proven before.
Below are the Slovakian opponents that Najiha, Nabila, Mi Yen, Li Ting and Camilia will face. Check it out!
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| WGM Zuzana Borosova (IRtg 2280, yr2008) photo taken from here |
If you are interested to see and learn Zuzana's chess games, please go to 365chess.com website at this link and chessgames.com website here.
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| WFM Veronika Machalova (IRtg, 2222, yr 2005) |
From the 365chess.com website at this URL link GiLoCatur can view the chess games of Veronika. Surprisingly, GiLoCatur found a chess game between her and a top Malaysian woman chess player played in 2005.
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| WGM Julia Kochetkova (IRtg 2305, yr 2007) photo taken from chessbase.com |
GiLoCatur believes Li Ting's deep knowledge on Sicilian opening is very crucial to give a tough challenge in her match-up against Julia. Looking at Julia's games in the chessgames.com website here hopefully will help GiLoCatur when playing against Sicilian opponents. :)
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| WGM Regina Pokorna (IRtg 2353) photo from chessgames.com |
GiLoCatur found that Regina likes to play Ruy Lopez and Sicilian repertoires as shown by the statistics in the chessgames.com website here. Most probably Regina will play against Nur Nabila at the second board provided that Zuzana plays in the MAS vs SVK match up.
SELAMAT BERJUANG SERIKANDI CHESS MALAYSIA! YAKIN MALAYSIA BOLEH!
