It was a great outing for the Malaysian Juniors at the recently concluded Eastern Asian Youth Chess Championship 2021 – securing Gold, Silver and Bronze medals at the Regional meet. CONGRATULATIONS Malaysia!!!

Poh Yu Tian continues his billing as one of Malaysia’s rising star to secure the U16 individual Gold Medal with an impressive 8 points out of 9 rounds, with Philippines Reyes Chester Neil in second place and Mongolia’s CM Batbold Nyamsuren rounding up the podium finishers – both a point behind the leader. With Yu Tian impressive individual showing, it also helps to catapult the Malaysian U16 Boys Team to secure a Team Gold Medal by amassing 19.5 points, leaving Vietnam in second spot with 19 points and Philippines in 3rd place also with 19 points. Aside from Poh Yu Tian, Malaysia’s U16 team consisted of Lim Jing H’ng whom had collected 6 points, and Hiu Jack Yuan with 5.5 points.

And in the U18 category, with impressive performance shown by CM Tan Jun Ying, Anderson Ang Ern Jie and Tan Tzi Yang, Malaysia managed to secure a Silver Medal for the team after securing 18 points to edge Philippines who were 3rd with 17 points. China earned the Gold Medal – a distant away from the crowd at 21.5 points, an unassailable lead even before the final round started.

In the same U18 category, CM Tan Jun Ying also secured an individual Bronze Medal, fending off strong challenges from the Chinese and Vietnamese players who dominated the event in numbers and medal tally. China’s Huang Renjie secured the Gold Medal with compatriot FM Yu Kaifeng winning the Silver medal.

Not to be outdone by the Boys, the Girls also secured two(2) Team Bronze Medals for the U16 and U18 categories. While WCM Chua Jia-Tien came close to winning a medal by securing the 5th spot in the U18 categories, a distant away was Nur Faiqah Aminuddin in 14th place in the same playing category. Other close contenders were Teh Yi-Lynn in 13th spot for U16, and sisters Hashsya Nawwaarah and Ibroh Nawwaarah Mohd Faris who ended up identically at 15th placing in their respective U14 and U12 category.

For the Girls U16 Team, the Bronze medalists went to Teh Yi-Lynn, Nur Batrisyia Wafa Mohsen and Ong Zhiwei with a team score of 14 points, 2.5 points adrift from Silver medalist Philippines and Gold Medalist China whom had amassed 21 points . And in the Girls U18 category, Malaysia Bronze medal were secured through WCM Chua Jia Tien, Nur Faiqah Aminuddin and Ong Coshinne with 12 points. Both Philippines and Vietnam scored 17 points but after the tie break, Philippines was declared the Gold medalist with Vietnam earning the Silver.

With more than 14 countries taking part which included China, Vietnam, Mongolia, Australia, Taipei, Philippines, Singapore – to name a few, and more than 700 participants, Malaysia had the second biggest contingent taking part with more than 200 players participating. Vietnam had the biggest contingent with more than 300 players playing.

The event which started two weekends ago from beginning with the Girls event from the 24th to 26th September 2021, concluded this week with the Boys event which was played from 1st to 3rd October 2021.

MCF CONGRATULATES all the winners and hope to see many more Malaysians achieving accolades and awards at the Regional and International platform. SYABAS and CONGRATULATIONS!