Malaysia will start its Online Olympiad campaign later today in Pool A Division 3 against Chinese Taipei team starting at 4:00pm, followed by Fiji in Round 2 at 5:00pm and wrapping up the day against Sri Lanka in Round 3 at 6:00pm. According to Team Manager IM Mok Tze Meng, Malaysia will field its first team in FM Lim Zhuo Ren, FM Sumant Subramaniam, WIM Puteri Munajjah AzZahraa, WFM Puteri Rifqah Fahada, FM Chan Kim Yew and WCM Chua Jia-Tien for its 1st Round encounter against Taipei. Line up for Round 2 and 3 may change depending on the results obtained in the initial round. Those who would like to follow the games of our Malaysian players are required to login into www.chess.com which is the hosting platform for the event.

Based on the average strength of the players in the team, Malaysia is ranked 2nd behind IPCA team (International Physically Disabled Chess Association) out of the 10 countries listed in Pool A. The top 3 countries from each playing Pool – there are 5 pools altogether, will advance to Division 2 qualifying rounds next week. In its inaugural event last year, Malaysia was stop short from advancing to Division 2 after a surprising loss to lower the ranked Hong Kong in the earlier rounds which the team was unable to recover from. More news on the event can be found at FIDE website via https://www.fide.com/news/1293

On a more glorious note, three of our Junior players – Poh Yu Tian, WCM Sim Jia Ru and WCM Chua Jia Tien, managed to qualify for the Quarterfinal Rounds of the Cadets & Youth Chess Championship which will continue later tonight at 11:00pm Malaysian local time. It was unfortunate that Poh Yu Tuan had to face compatriot Anderson Ang Ern Jie else, it could have been a celebration of sorts if both had qualified for the Quarterfinal rounds. Aside from Anderson, another Junior player – WCM Agnes Chong Kai Ni, also were not able to pass through her first knock out round game against WFM Shvedova Alexandra of Russia although she had fought brilliantly to secure a draw in the return match.

The link to watch the games for the Cadets and Youth event remains the same as follows:
https://tornelo.com/chess/orgs/fide/events/world-youth-cup-finals-under-12
https://tornelo.com/chess/orgs/fide/events/world-youth-cup-finals-under-18
https://tornelo.com/chess/orgs/fide/events/world-youth-cup-finals-under-16

Another event kicking of today is the Shahid Sheikh Kamal Online Invitational Chess Tournament 2021 organized by the Bangladesh Chess Federation. Sanctioned by Asian Chess Federation and FIDE, Malaysia’s representative to the event are FM Wong Yinn Long, CM Tan Jun Ying and Shareef Basil. The event starts today at 2:30pm Bangladesh local time and will be played over www.tornelo.com platform.