The significance of today

It happened exactly 194 years ago today...

Phenomenal pandemonium of a pandemic

I've never seen one of my friends, a private medical practitioner in Penang, feeling so emotional before but I don't blame him at all. We are living in extraordinary times and any right-thinking man would feel this way too. In a Whatsapp message to my schoolmates, he said, 

"India is facing the 3Ps, Phenomenal Pandemonium of a deadly 2nd wave Covid-19 Pandemic. From a drop of Covid-19 cases from Oct 2020 till Jan 2021 there was a lull before a storm when thereafter emerges a massive unprecedented surge of sick Covid-19 patients and deaths till now.

There was basically ignorance, over-confidence and poor, lackadaisical attitude towards proper basic SOP of social distancing, wearing masks and sanitisation. There was utter callousness with over-excited religious congregations, election rallies, big farmers' protests being allowed publicly. Caution was thrown to the wind and this disaster most probably culminated with a new Covid-19 virulent variant.

Is this familiar with Malaysia, letting loose and letting her guard down in Ramadan, impending GE15, emergence of new Covid-19 variants thereby triggering a fourth wave of 3Ps like India?? Scary even just thinking about it...."

Chess possessions

On occasions over the past few weeks, I've been going through the storeroom and cupboard to take stock of my chess possessions collected since my schooldays. It's going to be a long haul, this process. But at least, I've now taken stock of my stack of the Batsford chess books...and there are quite a lot of them. Not yet even considering the other chess books too. 

There is also an incomplete pile of chess magazines, newsletters and bulletins that I've removed from the cupboard. All stacked up on the floor. I have better do something to them fast before my wife starts complaining about the mess. 😅 The question is what am I going to do with the books and magazines eventually? 

Match of the century, 1970

An absolute blast from the past: a picture posted by the Association Internationale des Echecs Francophones (AIDEF) on their facebook page. The picture was taken during the so-called Match of the Century, played in Belgrade of the old Yugoslavia in 1970. It was quite remarkable that there were six former or reigning world champions featured in this picture, possibly the only time that so many had congregated at any one time. 

I can't figure out who was that seated on the far left but he was no world champion. Moments earlier, the chair was empty and he was standing behind it. Could be that he was asked to occupy the seat for the photograph. But the others on their chairs were the world champions who were, from left, Tigran Petrosian, Mikhail Tal, Boris Spassky (who was then the world champion in 1970), Max Euwe and Vasily Smyslov. So who was the sixth world champion in the picture? He was not seated but he was standing in the background. But I shall get to him later. 

Among those standing were, from left, Wolfgang Uhlmann, Leonid Stein, (unknown), David Bronstein, Bozidar Kazic (side profile), Borislav Ivkov, Samuel Reshevsky, Mark Taimanov (?), Viktor Korchnoi, Bent Larsen, former world champion Mikhail Botvinnik (looking sideways), Paul Keres, Svetozar Gligoric (partially hidden), Lev Polugaevsky, Miguel Najdorf, Milan Matulovic, Effim Geller and Fridrich Olafsson. Rather inconceivable why they couldn't get Botvinnik into that chair on the far left.

Oh yes, the elephant in the room was missing. Bobby Fischer also took part in this Match of the Century, but he was missing in this picture. 

Decision-making

There is an endless debate in one of my Whatsapp chat groups comparing the Perodua Ativa and the Proton X50 which brings to my mind an incident in Hongkong decades ago. I can't remember when exactly, could be in the early 1990s but it was a team chess event there and the Penang Chess Association had sent a team there. 

One of my team-mates was Ng Weng Kong and we were walking around in Kowloon's Nathan Road. Inevitably, we came across a Haagen Daas outlet. At that time, this particular brand of ice cream wasn't available in Penang yet. We had a debate for quite some time whether or not to buy the ice cream. We walked up and down the store front and finally, we decided, what the heck, let's enjoy ourselves. 

Later, we had a good laugh over our indecision and the time we took to finally make the decision. A wealthy man wouldn't think twice about going into the shop to buy his ice-cream. It's only the ordinary man-in-the-street, where every penny counts in his life, who would think and re-think carefully about spending good money needlessly. Weng Kong turned out to be one of my closest non-Old Free friends, chess or otherwise.

Philip and Penang Free School

Some people may still remember the visit of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip to Penang in 1972. When they arrived on board the Britannia at Swettenham Pier on 8 March, they were whisked away to visit the Supreme Court building and the newly constructed Dewan Sri Pinang. During their brief 11-hour stay in Penang, the royal couple were also taken to Penang Hill, Batu Ferringhi and the Botanic Gardens. I remember being one of the people lining Dato Kramat Road to try and get a glimpse of the famous couple but the motorcade went by so fast. I had hoped that I had seen them, but maybe not!

What is lesser known is that on 31 October 1956, Philip had made an even shorter, six hour-long whirlwind visit of Penang as part of his tour of the Commonwealth countries in the Far East, including Australia and New Zealand. In this trip, he was not accompanied by his wife. He was supposed to visit Singapore but that part of his itinerary was cancelled following some riots there earlier. However, his visit to Malaya proceeded as scheduled and thereby, chalked up a milestone in the history of Penang Free School. 

In the Penang Free School Magazine of 1957, it was written that a police escort rumbled into the school grounds with Philip's Rolls Royce and a few other cars following hard on their heels. Philip, Sir Donald MacGillivray (the British High Commissioner) and RP Bingham (the Resident Commissioner in Penang) together with some unobtrusive plain clothes men emerged from the cars. To everyone's warm approbation, Philip was a most cheerful personality, although attired in sombre blue.

The headmaster then was JE Tod. After their arrival was recorded in the Distinguished Visitors Book, they proceeded to the school field where Philip planted a casuarina sapling near the flagstaff. He then walked up to the assembled masters and had a brief chat with them. As he was leaving the school field, the School Captain led the School in three rousing cheers. 

The school magazine added: "Turning back, the Duke waved and then noticed some English ladies and gentlemen who were standing near the parapet of the first floor of the school building. Thereupon, the Prince smiled at them and upon his waving his hand again, a lady fell off her chair." 

So what has happened to this casuarina sapling? Unfortunately, it did not survive and there is no longer any trace of it on the school field. In the meantime, below are some illustrations of Philip's visit to the school. (Note: This story originally appeared in my other blog, https://activeknights.blogspot.com but by some inexplicable reason, facebook had flagged it as inappropriate and not allowed it on their platform.)

(Source: The Straits Times of 1 November 1956.)

NEW! (Source: Anonymous Whatsapp image)

(Sources: Penang Free School Archives and Let the Aisles Proclaim)

(Source: Private collection of David Hwang Hong Shi, a former member of the teaching staff at Penang Free School)

(Source: Private collection of David Hwang Hong Shi, a former member of the teaching staff at Penang Free School)

(Source: Private collection of David Hwang Hong Shi, a former member of the teaching staff at Penang Free School)
  

Faker, masquerader

What I can say at this point of time is that yesterday, a faker was trying to pass himself off as me on social media. This person had created a phony instagram account using my name and profile picture. Luckily, he couldn't take over my username and had to use another. Anyone who did not know better would have thought that this fake account belonged to me.

At about 11.30pm last night, I was alerted by my nephew to ask whether I had tried to contact him on instagram. He even sent me a screenshot. Though half asleep, I replied that no, I had not posted anything to him on this social media platform. 

By now, I was awake and my mind was whirring. My presence on social media was being compromised. Immediately, I sent a message to my friends and relatives on whatsapp and facebook to warn them against accepting any message from this spurious account. 

In the morning, I reported the incident to instagram, asking them to block and remove that fake account. This evening though, another of my facebook friends in the Philippines told me that she had also been contacted through this spurious instagram account, but having been warned by me, she had ignored the message. 

This is not the first time that either my wife or I have found ourselves in this situation. Many years ago, someone had tried to clone a facebook account with my wife's name. That fool, however, had chosen to use a war-time Germany-related picture as the profile picture. Once I had reported the incident, facebook immediately removed that fake account.

Ten Thousand Prosperities (萬興利) - Part 4

I've been spending the past week staring in awe at the printer's press proof copy of my forthcoming book, Ten Thousand Prosperities, looking through every page and every illustration that're going to appear in the book. Except for some of the pictures which are of some sub-standard quality, the rest of the book is good to go! Why they are sub-standard is because these images were reproduced from previously printed material like newsletters, books and postcards. At best, the reproductions can only be as good as the sources they were taken from. I would have used the originals if I could get them, but it was not possible. So tomorrow, I'm returning all these press proofs and after the layout artist makes the finishing touches to the pages, I'm hoping for the printing to begin soon. 👍👍

Finished with Cheng Beng

Well! Finally, I've finished my obligations for this year's Cheng Beng worship two days ago. By a coincidence, the exact day for Cheng Beng, the tomb sweeping festival, fell on Sunday, the fourth of April this year, and thereby allowed my son to come back in the morning to participate in the worship. Nothing elaborate in our household, actually, because all we prepared for the worship was to buy several types of fruits and cakes. Despite not going to the cemeteries and temples this year owing to the coronavirus pandemic, there was a bit more variety purchased. The worship table was full. 

But although my family did not go to the Batu Lanchang and Wat Pimbang On cemeteries this year, we did arrange for the tomb sweepers to clean up the graves of my two pairs of paternal and maternal grandparents. Guess that was the least I could do for them. As for my parents and aunt, their ashes are in the Batu Gantong columbarium. We don't normally go there and instead, we would always remember them at the Triple Wisdom temple where their memorial tablet is located. Since last year though, the temple is also closed to visitors due to the virus.

In the non-cultural sense, Cheng Beng marks the start of the Chinese seventh solar term, incidentally called Cheng Beng (清明). 

There are altogether 24 solar terms which are determined by the positions of the earth in the ecliptic, that is, the orbit of the earth around the sun. The start of each solar term corresponds to a certain position of the sun every time it moves 15 degrees on the ecliptic. According to the Chinese luni-solar calendar, the sun would have crossed the celestial 15˚ longitudinal line on the ecliptic on the fourth of April this year. I've written about this before, which can be read here, 

First Asian grandmaster chess circuit, 1978

From my personal archives, I pulled out the daily tournament bulletins for the fourth leg of the first Asian grandmaster chess circuit which was played in Penang in June 1978. After the first Asian team chess championship in 1974, this was the second international-level tournament that the Penang Chess Association had hosted on behalf of the Malaysian Chess Federation.

The Asian grandmaster chess circuit was the brainchild of Florencio Campomanes who was then the Deputy President of the World Chess Federation, FIDE. He wanted to organise a chess circuit to allow for players in the FIDE Zones 9 and 10 to qualify for their grandmaster norms. At that time in the 1970s, there were hardly any grandmaster from an Asian country. But Eugene Torre was Asia's first chess grandmaster, and his participation anywhere would be greeted with a lot of pride and enthusiasm.

There were to be at least six legs in the 1978 chess circuit when proposed. As the initiator, Campomanes had arranged for Baguio City to host the first leg in March. The circuit then moved to Wellington for the second leg in April and then to Jakarta in May for the third leg. Campomanes had a good friend in Tan Chin Nam and the latter agreed to host the fourth leg with Penang asked to do the honours again. From Penang, the circuit moved to Tiruchy in India for the fifth leg in August. Tehran hosted the sixth and final leg possibly in September. It was a turbulent time in Iran because months later, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, had been shoved off his Peacock Throne and the Islamic Republic of Iran was established to replace the Persian monarchy.

Behind the scene, the Malaysian Chess Federation had an uphill task to find three grandmasters to play in the Penang tournament. Without three grandmasters, the minimum required under the FIDE regulations, it would not be possible for anyone to qualify for a grandmaster norm. Torre was a certainty to play, Campomanes had assured the MCF, but Miguel Quinteros the Argentine grandmaster could no longer continue playing in Asia. 

Luckily, Alberic O'Kelly de Galway (or to use his full name, Count Albéric Joseph Rodolphe Marie Robert Ghislain O'Kelly de Galway - he was a Count, descended from nobility), a grandmaster from Belgium, was found as a substitute for Quinteros. There was an expectation that Rosendo Balinas Jr of the Philippines could play as the third grandmaster but it was not to be and a last-minute replacement could not be secured. In the end, the Penang leg proceeded as planned but it could no longer be a grandmaster event despite being billed as one. The players, especially those grandmaster aspirants, understood the situation. It qualified only as a Category Three international master event with the International Master norm set at a 70 percent score, or 10½ points.

There was also the problem of finding a final player to turn this into a 16-player tournament. The international master Dr Max Wotulo was also a last-minute replacement for someone - I can't remember who - and it was by good luck that he agreed to play. As a member of the teaching staff at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, he was already based here. Thus, it became only a matter of him obtaining leave from his university to play in Penang. Nevertheless, he had to postpone his first three games of the tournament while waiting for the clearance from his employer. His postponed games were played later during the rest days.

Although the venue was touted to be the Dewan Sri Pinang, the tournament was not played in the auditorium. It stood to reason, of course, because unlike the first Asian team championship with 40 players and countless officials, including from FIDE who had turned up for the Jubilee celebrations, this was a more low-key event. The players were only representing themselves and nobody else; they were playing for individual honours and not that of their country. Thus, the three meeting rooms on the lower ground floor, which had collapsible walls to open up the space for the tournament was used. Spectators were not allowed into the playing hall, if I remember correctly, and the organisers had placed demonstration boards outside the hall to display the top games. Sad to say, there were hardly any visitors in those early days of chess in the country and the boards were dismantled after a few days into the tournament.

For the record, Fang Ewe Churh was the chief arbiter for this tournament, He was then the president of the Penang Chess Association and the first vice-president of the Malaysian Chess Federation. The two arbiters were Gong Wooi Mau and Laurence How, while Tan Kai Ming was appointed as the chief tournament director with Cheah Hooi Seng, Joseph M Doss and Fong Foo Khun as his deputies.

In the background, I was placed in charge of the daily bulletins. Fong Foo Khun, Lam Leong Yew and Ooi Gim Ewe were in my team and together, we prepared the bulletins for printing every day. Those were the days before chess database programs even existed. In fact, those were the days even before computers were seen in any home or office. So, the bulletins were all typed up on stencils and then cyclostyled. The typing introduced lots of errors into the game scores but that was the way it was.

As the chairman of the bulletin board, I was obliged to write something at the end of the event for inclusion into the bound copy. Looking back at my comments, they gave a pretty good insight into the tournament proceedings. I'm reproducing them here, with a few minor changes:

The Malaysian leg of the first Asian grandmaster chess circuit has come and gone. While this leg of the circuit could not be considered for a grandmaster norm because of the non-availability of a third grandmaster, it nevertheless did not lack in excitement.

The fight for top honours was as keen as ever and indeed, the results were not certain until the end of the very last round. Iranian international master Mehrshad Sharif drew his game with New Zealander Craig Laird and left it to Filipino grandmaster Eugene Torre to catch up with a win over Indonesian Ardiansyah in the last round. The Philippines' Rico Mascarinas, fresh from obtaining his second international master norm in the third leg in Jakarta the month before, caught up with the two leaders with a fine win over Belgian grandmaster Alberic O'Kelly.

For Iranian Kamran Shirazi who joined the trio at the top, this tournament gave him cause for a double celebration. Apart from receiving US$712.50 as prize money, Shirazi obtained his first international Master norm with a win over Indonesian Arovah Bachtiar.

The tournament had its share of critical moments. Shirazi nearly faltered near the finishing post when he came down with food poisoning three rounds from the end. He had to postpone his game with Indian International Master Manuel Aaron, which he eventually won, but suffered an ignominious loss to Malaysian Tan Bian Huat in the penultimate round as he pressed his position too hard for his much-needed half point for the norm. But all's well that ends well.

Indonesian international master Max Wotulo gave rise to some initial concern when his first two games were postponed but he did eventually arrive from Kuala Lumpur to play. Torre struck a bad patch halfway through the tournament when he could only draw his games and even suffered a defeat against Wotulo. The reason did not become known until later when  it was learnt that his father had passed away in the Philippines at about the same time.

Our local players finished creditably but nevertheless predictably also. Only Jimmy Liew managed to win two games: against international masters Wotulo and New Zealander Murray Chandler, while Christi Hon achieved a win against Craig Laird, and Tan Bian Huat defended well against Shirazi's suicidal attack. They have played against other FIDE rated players, which is good. Hon already has a FIDE rating and if Tan and Liew continued to play in other international events Malaysia will soon have its share of rated players.

So after Penang, where else? Hopefully, we will hear more of them in the next leg of the first Asian grandmaster chess circuit at Tiruchy, India in August.

(An update: The fifth leg in Tiruchy was actually held in September, which meant that the sixth leg in Tehran was played much later. Despite Iran being in turmoil, Sharif said that the sixth leg was held. But he could not remember when.)