The Malaysian Chess Federation (MCF) officially invites interested Malaysian chess players from all corners of the country to participate at this year’s Malaysian Chess Championship to be held from 1st to 5th April at Universiti Teknikal Malaysia (UTeM) main campus in Melaka.
MCF expects this year’s edition to be heavily contested as the top three winners of the Open and Women events will have the right to claim their slot as part of the Malaysian National Team that will participate in this year’s World Olympiad in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.
Aside from the automatic qualification for the Olympiad team, MCF has also increased the number of prizes and the total prize fund offered to winners in its effort to attract more participants to one of our national premier events. Aside from the increased prize fund, the event also offers 470 GP points to the top 32 winners in each Open and Women’s event, with another 200 GP points to be earned by the top 32 winners in the Challenger event. As many are now aware, the top 32 GP point earners for 2026 will qualify for the GP final to be held at the end of the year. MCF is also contemplating increasing the number of qualifiers to 64 in its attempt to invigorate more players to take part in the GP 2026 circuits, offering a whopping RM 10,000 to the eventual GP Final Champion.
For more news on the GP 2026 circuits, please continue to follow MCF website for updates and details.
For this year’s MCC26 edition, the number of prizes for the Open and Women events has been increased from the top 3 winners to the top 5 finishes, with the total prize fund to increase from RM 4,100 to RM 8,000 for the Open event, and from RM 2,700 to RM 5,000 for the Women event. Not to be left behind, the prize fund for the Challenger category has also been increased from RM 3,200 to RM 4,000. In short, the total prize fund for this year’s event has been increased from RM17,000 compare to last year’s total purse of only RM10,000.
Players with GM/IM/WIM titles, including past winners with NM/WNM titles, are invited to play for free. Also invited to play for free are players with a FIDE Standard Rating of 2200 and above for Men, and 2000 and above for Women. Players with a FIDE Rating of 2000 and above for the Open event, and 1800 and above for the Women’s event, who are nominated by MCF state affiliates, are also invited to play for free. Take note that players who have a FIDE Rating of 1600 and below for the Open event, including Unrated, are allowed to play only in the Challenger event. For the Women’s event, only Unrated players are not allowed to play in the main Women’s event and must play in the Challenger event.
Closing date is set on 25th March 2026, and entries received after the closing date will only be accepted at the organizer’s discretion, and will incur an additional penalty fee of RM200
Interested players are advised to download the event Rules and Regulations before signing up to play. For inquiries, please forward all emails to mcfsecretariat@malaysiachess.org.