The Malaysian Team to the Online Olympiad has been grouped into Pool A playing along side qualifiers from Division 4 – Syria and Hong Kong, and neighbor Singapore. Round 1 will start on Friday, 7th August 2020 at 4:00pm local time with Round 2 and Round 3 to follow at 5:00pm and 6:00pm respectively. The round robin qualifying games will continue with another 3 rounds on Saturday and the final 3 rounds on Sunday – all games starting at the same scheduled time. Enthusiasts and fans can follow the games via www.chess.com or via the Olympiad Official website

Based on team ranking, Malaysia is seeded 6th behind top seed Monaco (Average Rating: 2106), Singapore (2094), Albania (2084), Syria (1970) and Ireland (1954). 7th seed in the pool is Japan (1856), followed by New Zealand (1806), Hong Kong (1655) and Korea (1527). Malaysia is drawn 5th in the pool and will play Albania in its opening match on Friday, and top seed Monaco in its final round match on Sunday. For more details, please click HERE

Looking at the teams in our group – with only 3 teams to qualify for the next phase, Malaysia would need to steal some points from the higher seeded teams in order to have a good chance of finishing in the running for the top spots. On paper, we are outnumbered on board 1 and 2 but both our top 2 players have been known to be able to spring surprises that will be crucial in our effort to secure a win. Again based on rating points, we seem to be comfortable on Board 4 and Board 6, making Board 3 and Board 5 as the critical points that are needed to swing our fate.

MCF will prepare a special link for chess followers to view the games on the event day so, be on the look out for the information on this website, our FB page and other social media groups.

MCF wishes our Olympiad team ALL THE BEST and hope that the team will shine during the event and look forward for its continuing journey to glory.