According to FIDE World Cup history, even some Grandmasters were not able to pass through the first round of the World Cup and with that, while the effort was valiant, our Malaysian pair of FM Sumant Subramaniam and WIM Puteri Munajjah Az-Zahraa can hold their head high for having put up their best effort at the FIDE World Cup 2021. Despite the sad ending, the Malaysian chess community rejoice and were supporting them along the way with prayers and hope that they will do well.

For WIM Munajjah, she did well to hold WGM Ana Matnadze to a draw in the opening round but, in the return match – playing the black pieces, she fell into positional setback very early in the game and little by little, lost out her initiative due to the Spaniards strong control of the white diagonals, open c-file and eventually, a passed pawn on the b-file. The open game was too slow for her Knight to make any impact and she finally threw in the towel.

For Sumant, the dynamics of the game belong to GM Sevian and it was difficult for him to regain any control of the game although he was up the exchange. Despite having the rook pair, he was down by two center pawns with a very much exposed King on the kingside. It was a good effort by Sumant but, the initiative clearly tipped to his opponent.

Both Sumant and Munajjah, including Puan Shamsiah and Head of Delegate Muhammad Firdaus Ismail, will be returning home later next week but for Firdaus, he hopes to forge circles of network in the hope of bringing back wealth of knowledge to help develop chess in Malaysia.

In any case, kudos to our players – regardless what the situation was (or is), you have done the country proud.

#staysafe #stayhome #kitajagakita