Malaysia off to a good start on day One of the Online Olympiad clocking three wins against Chinese Taipei 4.5-1.5 in Round 1, 5.5 – 0.5 against Fiji in Round 2 and a narrow 3.5-3.5 win against Sri Lanka in the 3rd Round.

It was a shaky start for FM Lim Zhuo Ren when he was paired against the slightly higher rated IM Raymond Song while handling the black pieces on Board 1. While Zhuo Ren may have had some counter play towards the end of the game, it was too much to deal with when Raymond promoted a second queen and before long, delivered the final blow against Zhuo Ren’s cornered King. FM Chan Kim Yew also had a rocky start drawing against his much lower rated opponent, but the rest of the team members secure valuable wins against their respective opponents.

Malaysia maintain its line up for Round 2 and the team managed to secure a convincing 5.5-0.5 win against Fiji with FM Sumant being the only player to draw against Taione Sikivou on Board 2. Many Malaysians would probably remember Taione as a former student in one of Malaysia’s University having called Malaysia home for some years.

The going gets tougher in Round 3 when Malaysia faced the 6th ranked Sri Lanka Team and it was a hard fought battle till the very end when WFM Puteri Rifqah secured Malaysia’s valuable point in the deciding game against WIM Ranasinghe. For Malaysia’s encounter against Sri Lanka, Looi Xin Hao replaced Sumant on Board 2 whilst on Board 6, Nurul Akma replaced Chua Jia-Tien as the latter need to rest in preparation of her Cadets Quarterfinal round to be played later tonight. While Xin Hao managed to draw his game against FM Minul Sanjula Doluweera, Nurul Akma cruised to a win in her maiden appearance as an Olympiad player against WCM K M Dahamdi Sanudula.

With all the round concluded for the Malaysian team on Day 1, our Ladies have all notched perfect scores with 9 points out of 9 games. Leading the contribution list are sisters WIM Puteri Munajjah and WFM Puteri Rifqah scoring a perfect 3 points from 3 games, followed by WCM Jia-Tien with 2 points (from 2 games) and Nurul Akma with a single point from her 3rd round encounter.

Malaysia will face New Zealand next in Round 4 tomorrow, followed by Japan in Round 5 and Nepal to close the second day of play. Currently, Malaysia is tied with South Korea on the leader board with each country having accumulated 6 match points and 13.5 game points each. Japan and Sri Lanka are tied at 4 match points each behind South Korea. For more details on today’s result, please go to the following website to learn more. http://chess-results.com/tnr575555.aspx?lan=1&art=0&flag=30

All the best to all our Malaysian players #MalaysiaBoleh