With today as the official closing date to register for the inaugural National Open Team Chess Championship 2024 – the PMX trophy, 51 Teams have already registered and the number is expected to increase as a few more states have requested for additional time to register. With that, MCF has agreed to extend the closing date until the final day of June (with no penalty imposed) and will not except any more entries from 1st July onwards (due to logistics requirement).

The numbers started very slow with only 20 teams registering as late as a week ago but the numbers have increased over the weekend with many organizations decided to send additional teams. Only one IPT Team has registered for the event but for the other categories, there are eight(8) state teams – and is expected to increase, 4 OKU Teams, 6 Secondary School Teams and 5 Primary School Teams, to list a few. MCF also registered its Olympiad Mixed Team as warming sessions for the players to prepare for the big event in September.

A total of RM35k worth of prize fund to be given away to the eventual winners with the winning team bagging RM8,000 for their effort. Event shall be FIDE Rated (and MCF Rated) over 7 rounds using a time control of 90 minutes + 30 seconds increment per move.

MCF would like to thank all the players, teams, organizations, schools and everyone who has given their support to register or to promote the event. As a first ever event of such nature – or a revival of sorts, the number of teams playing is encouraging and we hope to continue the event next year, with many more teams.

Look forward to seeing everyone next week!