The Malaysian Chess Federation would like to apologize to those who have shown interest to participate at this weekend’s U18 Age Group Standard event, as the program had to be cancelled due to poor response. Due to the long weekend and many other tournaments being organized – with an abundance of weekend to weekend events to choose from, it has been challenging to promote standard time control activities as it takes a bit more time to complete a tournament compared to the single day rapid events.

Nonetheless, MCF will continue to promote the longer time control events for the community in order to help elevate the playing standards, and to encourage Malaysians to be more accustom to a higher quality of play. As such, the Under 8 until the U16 events are still on target as planned, and even if there are only 4 players signing up, the event will continue but with some changes to the format to ensure that all players will enjoy the outing. While the time control will remain as planned – 30 mins + 30 seconds of play, the number of rounds maybe reduced of event changed to a single or double round robins.

While MCF does not plan to stop the growing number of Rapid events being organized, MCF is also calling for organizers to balance the event composition and opt for the longer time control of at least 60 minutes + 30 seconds time control. The proposed time control will allow for participation from players with ELO Rating of less than 2400 should organizers intend to make it a FIDE Rated event. The minimal number of rounds for a FIDE Rated event is only 5 rounds to be played but entries will be limited to 32 players only. Understanding that many organizer would want to keep it commercially viable and get more players to play, then a 7 rounds of play would be preferred for a 128 players pool in order to earn a reasonable return.

To help organizers to promote more standard events – with low number of participants, MCF is also opening its doors to organizers who wants to rent its playing area complete with Sets and Clocks, Tables and Chairs, internets and A/C units (trust us – it is cold in MCF office) to house no more than 60 players (minimum 6 rounds of play). While organizers are welcome to use the office space, separate arrangements need to made for Arbiters and helpers to run the event. Rates rental for the Office range from RM100 for half day (week day) up to RM500 for a full day rental (weekend) but, are negotiable depending on event type and number of days.