It will be busy for the Malaysian chess community starting from this weekend and for the few weeks ahead with plenty of activities at the International, Regional, National and Local levels being planned and executed.

STARTING TONIGHT, it will be the FIDE World Cadets and Youth Chess Championship 2021 where 5 young Malaysians – Anderson Ang Ern Jie, Poh Yu Tian, WFM Agnes Chong Kai Ni, WCM Sim Jia Ru and WCM Chua Jia-Tien, will be starting their respective age group campaigns to be the best that they can be. Last year, both Anderson and Yu Tian qualified in separate age groups and made it all the way to the Semi Finals before they were stop short by the opponent form making an historic achievement for a Malaysian Junior. T A year later, both Anderson and Yu Tian are now in the same U12 age group category and while we hope that both can improve on last year’s performance to make it all the way to the finals, the luck of the draw has put Anderson to face Yu Tian in the early rounds of the Open U12 category which will allow only one of them to wrestle all the way to the top. In any case, best of luck to both players – may the best mind wins!

In the Girls U14 category, WFM Agnes Chong Kai Ni will go against Russia’s WFM Shvedova Alexandra, while WCM Sim Jia Ru will face Tukish WCM Kara Gulce Nehir in her campaign in the Girls U16 category. Wild card entry WCM Chua Jia-Tien – who was given the spot after a player withdrew, will be facing WIM Bach Ngoc Thuy Duong of Vietnam in her opening round.

All games to start at 11pm local Malaysian Time. Those who would like to follow the game can click on the following link in www.tornelo.com
https://tornelo.com/chess/orgs/fide/events/world-youth-cup-finals-under-10
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-14
https://tornelo.com/chess/orgs/fide/events/world-youth-cup-finals-under-16
https://tornelo.com/chess/orgs/fide/events/world-youth-cup-finals-under-18

Other International news to be reported later in this website will be our National Team starting their Online Olympiad 2021 in the Division 3 Pool A from tomorrow onwards. Played over chess.com platform, three rounds will be played per day (from Friday to Sunday) starting at 4:00pm daily. Malaysia is ranked 2nd in the group and is expected to qualify for the next Division 2 qualifying rounds.

In the Regional news, three Malaysians – FM Wong Yinn Long, CM Tan Jun Ying and Shareef Basil have been selected to participate in the Shahid Sheikh Kamal Online Invitational Chess Tournament 2021 organized by the Bangladesh Chess Federation. The 9 rounds event will be played via www.tornelo.com starting at 2:30pm local Dhaka time with the eventual winner to bag USD 2000 for his effort.

Also coming up on the Regional event is the Asian University Chess Championship 2021 starting from 3rd until 12th September 2021. For this event, Malaysia’s numero Uno IM Yeoh Li Tian along with Aron Teh, Emir Rusyaidi Ahmad Nazari and Subramaniam Sivanesan will be representing the Malaysia’s Men’s Team while in the Ladies Team, it will be WIM Puteri Munajjah, sister WFM Puteri Rifqah, WFM Tan Li Ting and WCM Nithyalakshmi. Similar to last year, the event will also be played over www.tornelo.com platform

Later in the month of September, the upcoming Eastern Asian Youth Chess Championship for U8, U10, U12, U14, U16 and U18 Age Groups will start from 24th September to 3rd October 2021. Application to play in this tournament is still open for all Malaysian Juniors to apply

At the National level events, the FT Online Chess Festival 2021 will wrap up its Series 4 this coming weekend, and will proceed to the Final Knock Out Stage starting next weekend the weekend after – with the Open event scheduled on 12th September 2021. And on the last Sunday in September, the MCF Blitz Q3 will take place after the successful execution of Q1 and Q2 editions.

Also at the National Level, plenty of MSSN and MSSM events are being held within the next few weeks as MSSM move towards implementing the online version of the scholastic event.

On the local scene, the Ministry of Higher learning are preparing to organize the 2021 edition of MASUM Closed and Open event to be held sometime in Q3, with another University Open to be held in November 2021.

And without going too much away into Q3 and Q4, the chess community is looking forward to the upcoming B&BTTS Open Discussion Session with MCF President to be held this Merdeka Holiday starting at 3:00pm for the Parents session and 9:00pm for the Organizers session. Registration to attend this free Online Dialogue and Forum is still open until 29th August 2021.

Looks like busy weeks ahead for the Malaysia chess community indicating a positive and productive move towards the development and growth of chess in Malaysia. MCF hopes that the chess community will continue to support events and programs organized by MCF, its state affiliates, chess organizers and other chess establishments in our combine effort to invigorate the local chess scene.