Pursuant to the meeting between the HE Ambassador of Azerbaijan – HE Irfan Davudov, and MCF President – Akhramsyah Muammar Ubaidah Sanusi, a friendly four boards Junior U14 and U16 match was set up between our Malaysian Junior Team against their Azerbaijan counterpart. Hosted by Persatuan Catur Putrajaya at their Chess Center in Precinct Diplomatic, the games started at about 3:30 pm over the Chess.com platform with each player playing 2 games – switching to the alternate colors in their second game.

The Malaysian U16 Juniors were represented by the recent U17 Scholastic winner – Uzair Shahar, and U15 Girls Champion – Lee Xia Sean, while the U14 Juniors were represented by U13 Scholastic Champion – Shen Ree Herng, and U13 Girls top winner – Thenmolli Vengadasalam

The Azerbaijan Juniors were represented by FM Orujov Farid, WCM Gasimova Samra (for U16 Open and Girls), and Davudov Tunar and Ismayilova Khanim (for U14 Open and Girls).

Our Malaysian Juniors did well to hold their much higher-rated opponents and after the dust had cleared, it was a close 3.5 – 4.5 in favor of the European country.

Lee Xia Sean was our best performer scoring 1.5 – 0.5 against Ismayilova Khanim while both Uzair and Ren Herng split scores against their opponent at 1 – 1. It was not a good day for Thenmoli who lost both games to WCM Samra.

With indications of having more chess activities in the future including more friendlies with the Azerbaijan Team, MCF is looking to explore and propose the possibility of sending selected junior players to visit and train in Azerbaijan for a short stint to help develop our youngsters.