Chess sojourn at Cititel Midvalley

After weeks of sometimes frustrating planning, my team-mates and I were finally at the Cititel in the Midvalley Mall for the 15th edition of the Malaysia Chess Festival. The Old Frees' Association team would be taking part in the Merdeka rapid team open tournament for only the second time. Our hopes of winning anything from this event were not high; in fact, we were more interested in just taking part and playing chess. Playing well would be another matter.

In the end, we finished in exactly the middle of the table. In the 53rd position out of 104 teams. Out of the nine opponents we played with, our team won four matches, drew a match but also lost four matches along the way. Not to say that we didn't put in the extra effort but there were no easy opponents. Not even in the first round.

First day of the competition, on 17 Aug 2018

Brimming with confidence before the start of the second round

Third round, still on the first day of competition

Second day of competition. Finally, we get to wear our, erm, colourful T-shirt

That's me with Zhu Chen, former world women's chess champion from 2001 to 2004. She now represents Qatar, having married Qatari grandmaster Mohamad Al-Modiahki

And that's me stealing another selfie, this time with Arkady Dvorevich who is vying to become the next FIDE President. He's obviously here campaigning and I believe the Malaysian Chess Federation is supporting his candidacy. Wikipedia says he was Deputy Prime Minister of Russia in the Dmitri Medvedev government until 17 May 2018 but I was told that in Russia, there are three of four deputy prime ministers at the same time and they get changed very frequently. So its not a very big deal. Except that this one was also involved in the organising of this year's football World Cup in Russia. Perhaps that counts for something? Anyway, there were several policemen at the tournament hall during the prize giving ceremony. Looking out for these fellas, I suppose...