Play-off Poker by Junior Tay

Top finishers in the National Schools Individual Championships will be very familiar with the concept of the Championship playoff, usually comprising of 2 or 4 rapid or blitz matches to decide who walks home with the title. Ties in the National Championships and National Schools Individuals are broken by this method  and I feel it certainly adds to the excitement of the events.

Only once in the history of the National Championships did the event end in a dead heat where 2 players were declared joint winners. In the 1957 Nationals, J.C. Hickey and Tay Kheng Hong (father of ex-national player Watson Tay) topped the field and had to face off in a 4 game playoff. A 2-2 score resulted and both players were declared joint champions. This was both Mr Tay's and Mr Hickey's 2nd National title and Mr Hickey would go on to win the 1958 event as well.

Now, how does one approach the playoff event? The time controls are faster, and the stakes are much higher and naturally, the tension is much more intense. Should one just go ahead and play his typical repertoire and get to the middlegame in familiar ground or should one just throw caution to the win and force the opponent to start thinking on his clock?

I had a look at National Championships playoff games and it seems that the players do take their chances in the opening in their attempts to annex the title of National Champion.

The 2004 Nationals saw Goh Wei Ming down 1-2 to Jason Goh in the play-off when he sneakily punted  the Veresov (1.d4 Nf6 2.Nc3!? d5 3.Bg5) in the final rapid game. I think Wei Ming has played 1.d4 less than 10 times in tournament play and usually goes for the most topical main lines. It didn't exactly worked to a T as Jason got a decent position but later blundered and lost. It took an Armagedon Blitz game which Jason finally prevailed to separate the two.

In 1999, things were even more exciting. NM Koh Kum Hong was leading the field with 7.5/8 and FM Ong Chong Ghee and IM Chan Peng Kong were already in the clubhouse with 7.5/9 awaiting the result of the final game between Steven Tan and Kum Hong. Pushed onto the ropes, Steven decided to offer Kum Hong a draw which basically would clinch the title for the latter. To his surprise, Kum Hong declined and went on to lose the game. In the 3 way playoff between Kum Hong, Peng Kong and Chong Ghee, Kum Hong was a spent force and lost both games, leaving the title decider to the final game between the other two. Due to his superior tournament tiebreak, Peng Kong only needed a draw to claim the title. Peng Kong sprang a huge surprise on Chong Ghee by wheeling out the Caro Kann defence. In the 90s, Peng Kong was well known for his adherence to the Siclian Defence and once in a while, he'll pull up the Alekhine's. He admitted it was a huge gamble as at that time he only had limited knowledge of the Caro. Chong Ghee played, in his own words "like a fish", misplayed the attack and flubbed two pawns. He finally decided to offer Peng Kong the draw and thus with it, the title. Peng Kong revealed that the decision to play the Caro Kann was based on the recommendation of FM Dr Goh Cheng Hong during a golfing session!

1991 and 1992 were also Championship playoff years. GM Wong Meng Kong and NM Lee Wang Sheng contested the playoff in 1991 and after the first 3 games failed to separate the two, Meng Kong decided to skip the opening theory and play a Rossolimo, Larsen opening hodgepodge line and develop sensibly. Although Wang Sheng did not lose ground in the opening, it proved to be a great practical choice as the younger contestant made a rash Kingside pawn rush which lost an important pawn. Meng Kong's relentless technique put an end to the contest.
The following year saw an even more nervy playoff. 10 time National Champion IM Tan Lian Ann (so Wei Ming, you got 5 more to go just to match up) was pitted against IM Hsu Li Yang. In the first game, Li Yang had was a clean pawn up when he outcombined himself by missing a critical check. Instead he lost the exchange and Lian Ann had no problems converting the win. In Game 2, Lian Ann sprang the first surprise by going for the Grunfeld instead of his trusty Nimzo Indian Defence. Li Yang definitely did not expect that. He then returned the surprise by playing the sharpest, most topical line possible, the Rc1 Exchange Grunfeld with h4-h5! I asked Li Yang about this as he is well known for playing safe and solid lines to lull his opponents to sleep. He remarked "Oh! That one was simple. We were at (FM Wong)Foong Yin's house a couple of months before the Nationals, and looked at his newest NIC, which had this line analyzed. So since I was down a game by then, I thought why not?". The choice paid great dividends as Lian Ann blundered early and Li Yang equalised the match. Round 3 saw a draw in the Exchange Ruy and once again Li Yang had the White pieces. Will he go for the theory hack again now that Lian Ann had the benefit of hindsight?
So different strokes for different folks. Peng Kong goes for an ultra-solid opening to win on "away-goals". Wei Ming and Meng Kong threw theory out of the window to get a playable middlegame and Li Yang goes for the big theory hack.

A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse! - by Junior Tay

The following games in local praxis show how a Knight outpost on e4 can often be a decisive factor, especially when the opponent fails to effect useful exchanges on the square, dislodge the Knight or play around it. In King's Indian type structures, if a Knight is left on e4 blockading the Black e5 pawn, the KID Bishop is frequently rendered impotent as in both games.

 At the 1975 World Junior Championships, Lim Seng Hoo, despite having fallen ill in Tjentiste, Yugoslavia, managed to score 8/13 to finish in a tie for 7th-8th positions behind Valery Chekov (10/13), Larry Christiansen (9.5/13) and Jonathan Mestel (9/13). All these players later became Grandmasters - as did two of Seng Hoo's victims, Praveen Thipsay and Murray Chandler. Seng Hoo, by establishing his Knight on e4, slowly but surely increased his space advantage calmly. Chandler tried trading heavy pieces but this only resulted in making Seng Hoo's Knight get stronger and stronger as the game progressed.
The following game helped me to get a point to earn my final ICCF Senior International Master norm. The whole White strategy revolves round the creation on the e4 outpost for the Knight by threatening the win of material and thus forcing unfavourable exchanges for Black. By the time the Knight got onto e4, the game was almost over and my opponent preferred to resign than let me finish with a flourish.

No quarter asked, none given....by Junior Tay

At the closing ceremony of the Public Service Teams, the MOE convenor Francis Lee remarked with a smile that MOE 1 had effectively ended the chances of MOE 2 finishing 2nd when the former beat the latter 3.5-0.5 in their 3rd round encounter. Indeed, no quarter was asked, and none was given. However, the result could have gone either way as MOE 2 had very good chances to take 2 points.

On Board 2, an incredibly tense slugout occured between MOE 1's NM Olimpiu Urcan and MOE 2;'s Seow Yong Li, a game which could have gone either way. Urcan by now needs no introduction and Yong Li besides teaching at Pioneer JC, is also an accomplist lyricist (You can check out one of his works here). There is nothing melodious about the game though. It's just plain brutal hacking by both sides.

 



We swing over now to Board 3, where Chang Cheng Hwee, the chap behind the highly successful Northland Primary chess programme, representing MOE 2 takes on National Junior College teacher Pok Wern Jian. Wern Jian, having represented Malaysia in various international events such as the 2002 World U16 Olympiad and Singapore vs Malaysia Challenge, was favoured to win but Chang matched him in terms of raw ferocity.

Ministry of Education retains the Public Service Chess title by Junior Tay

This year, Ministry of Education Team 1 (comprising Junior Tay, CM Quek Suan Shiau, NM Olimpiu Urcan, Pok Wern Jian, Ong Chuan Hock and Lim Chye Lye) romped home 4 points clear of the field after 5 rounds of play. Its perrenial rival, Ministry of Health failed to mount a strong challenge when  Professor IM Hsu Li Yang and Dr J Nithiananthan could not make it in time for the Round 2 showdown and the 3.5-0.5 win by the teachers virtually ended the challenge.

NUS were serious contenders this year with the addition of ELO 2208 Raul Munoz Gomez on Board 1. With Dr. Rajesh Rai scoring a magnificent 4.5/5 on Board 4, they pipped MOH to 2nd spot on tie-break.

Master Clash - Professor IM Hsu Li Yang  (MOH) squeezing out NM Koh Kum Hong (HDB)
by utilizing Kingside dark square pressure.

 

Dr Rajesh Rai (NUS) struggling to stem Lim Chye Lye's (MOE 1) nagging initiative. 

Rajesh succeeded in drawing eventually.

 

Dr Shashi Jayakumar (NUS) broke through  the Kingside of Pok Wern Jian's (MOE 1) 

French Winawer with a temporal Rook sacrifice on f7.

CM Quek Suan Shiau (MOE 1) had to show plenty of resilience to nullify the fine positional play 

of Raul Munoz (NUS).

I would like to show you how Suan Shiau made use of subtle tactical ploys to outwit Francis Teo in this final round encounter. 

The Strongest Open Swiss event ever in Singapore by Junior Tay

From June 16^th to 17^th 1990, SCF and Queenstown CC combined forces to form the Singapore Open cum Queenstown Open Championships to take advantage of the World Championships U16 and U18 event held from June 1^st to 15^th 1990. It was by far the strongest Open event ever held in Singapore with 2 future World Champions (Topalov and Kramnik), 1 future European Champion (Tiviakov), 1 future Russian Champion (Sakaev) and 1 Soviet Champion (Tseshkovsky).

The tournament was so strong that future GM Dimitri Reindermann withdrew after 4 rounds, after losing consecutive games to Jan Votava (now GM), Kramnik and a certain Mok Tze Meng. Already, my first 3 rounds' opposition looked like an outing at Reykjavik or Cappelle La Grande, I had Round 1 – FM Mohd Al Modaihki (now GM) – walkover, Round 2 – IM Peter Wells (now GM) – draw, and Round 3 – IM Rene Stern (now GM) – draw. Really got my dollars' worth by just paying for the entry fee of a CC event.

The Singaporeans who did best were IM Wong Meng Kong and FM Teo Kok Siong, who both scored 5/7 for a tie from 7th to 13th, half point away from the eventual winners. Meng Kong remained unbeaten throughout the event and even beat GM Vitalk Tseshkovsky in Round 4. Kok Siong, on the other hand, was on 50 percent after Round 4, but put in an incredibly strong finish to win the next 3 rounds. Of note is that another 5 pointer in this event is none other than Vladimir Kramnik who was bogged down by a loss to  another 5 pointer (in Round 5), IM Rogelio Barcenilla (now GM)!  The top performing Malaysian was Mok Tze Meng, who made 4.5 points for a tie from 14th to 20th.

Anyway, all the top players showed their professional side when in the final round, almost all the players (except 2385 rated Russian Alexander Malevinsky who had to beat Peter Wells to join them) who topped the table drew their final round games!

On tie break IM Andrei Luikin won the event from Topalov, Sakaev, Tiviakov, Votava and Malevinsky. Lukin was then coaching Sakaev who had won the World U16 event the day before. Lukin had since been credited by GM Peter Svidler as his greatest chess influence in his career.

In the Challengers section, Tea Lachava (who had won the World Under 16 girls event) finished 1.5 points clear of Kataryna Lewandowska, Yulia Levitan and Chin Chee Shun.

Top results: 5th Singapore Open cum 19th Queenstown Open 1990. (Directed by Lim Chye Lye)

1st to 6th position: IM Andrey Lukin, IM Vesselin Topalov (now GM) , Konstantin Sakaev (now GM), FM Sergei Tiviakov (now GM) , Jan Votava (now GM) , Alexander Malevinsky – 5.5/7

7th to 13th position: IM Rogelio Barcenilla (now GM), Vladimir Kramnik, IM Wong Meng Kong (now GM), FM Craig Laird , Janusi Zyla, FM Teo Kok Siong, Gocha Ikebughava – 5/7

14th to 20th position: FM Alphonsus Chia, GM Vitaly Tseshkovsky , IM Peter Wells (now GM) , Wojciech Gryciuk, Rene Stern (now GM) , IM V Ravikumar, Mok Tze Meng (now IM) -4.5/7

21st to 32th position: Jonathan Parker (now GM) , Hsu Li Yang (now IM) , Bozidar Krsnik, Andrew Webster (now IM) , Dimitar Pantaleev, Wong Meng Leong, Ang Choon Yong, Henris Luc, Henry Jamals, Tomasz Markovski (now GM) , Mark Tan Keng Yew, Tan Shan Ho  -4/7

33rd to 39th position: FM Chia Chee Seng, Petko Atanasov (now IM) , Mark Lim, Jens Uwe Maiwald (now GM) , Lee Wang Sheng, Wong Foong Wee and J Nithianathan  -3.5/7.

How's this field for a local chess event?

Missing out on the Hong Bao...by Junior Tay

At the recently concluded Hong Bao Rapid, an extremely off form Tan Weiliang had to dig in hard to make 3/3, overcoming Heng Zheng Kai in an absolutely drawn Rook and Pawn ending thanks to the clock and even managed to smoke out Marcus Chen from a totally lost position. He proceeded to allow Sarawakian veteran Lim Kian Hua a one mover Knight fork which snared his Queen (Weiliang was two pawns up at that juncture). And yet, in Round 5, he had to face a tough opponent in Jarred Neubronner and here Weiliang decided that enough was enough. He eschewed a draw and launched quite an astounding attack. (Annotations from Weiliang). After a clinical and careful victory over Reinhart Sellmair in Round 6, Weiliang once again (like in the Kickoff Rapid 2013 final round) set up a juicy encounter against IM Luis Chiong again for a winner takes big 'angpow' game. A hard fought tussle ensued and just when the game was about to peter into a likely draw (see Weiliang's annotations), disaster struck... One thing to note about Weiliang's curiously patchy performance was that the day before , he had spent half the day on chess training. Hence his poor form came as a big surprise to him. After all, we should get better from more training, shouldn't we? I guess there's such a thing as 'over-training' which cost Weiliang his Hong Bao last week....

Singaporeans vs the World Champions by Junior Tay

 FM Wong Foong Yin (right)  playing NM Koh Kum Hong in a casual blitz game last year.

NM Olimpiu Urcan had, through his correspondence with former World Champion Vesselin Topalov, received some old gamescores from the 1990 Singapore-Queenstown Open. One of which was the following encounter with Singaporean FM Wong Foong Yin in which he featured in his blog.

 
Some time ago, I had done some digging into the old archives to see if any Singaporeans had personal encounters with World Chess Champions and well, IM Tan Lian Ann had played Smyslov and Spassky before.

 A picture of Tan Lian Ann in the 60s.

Here is Lian Ann's excellent draw against Boris Spassky (who was still in the World's Top 5 in 1976).