Chennai, preamble

This year's Chess Olympiad starts today in the Indian city of Madras. Except that Madras has now been renamed as Chennai. Two days ago, the Malaysian men's and women's teams flew off to play in the Chess Olympiad. I wish them all the best in their games. 

The two teams are actually among the youngest at the Chess Olympiad but they are being anchored by two quite experienced chess players in Fide Master Lim Zhuo Ren (men's team) and Woman International Master Dr Siti Zulaikha bt Foudzi (women's team).

The Malaysian men's team is ranked in 80th position among 188 teams while our women's team has been ranked 52nd among 162 teams. Our teams' composition:

80. Malaysia (MAS / RtgAvg:2261 / TB1: 0 / TB2: 0) Captain: Subramaniam, Sumant
Bo.		Name	Rtg	FED	FideID	Games
1	FM	Lim Zhuo Ren	2318	MAS	5702488	1,0
2	FM	Wong Yinn Long	2381	MAS	5707684	1,0
3	CM	Tan Jun Ying	2191	MAS	5710413	1,0
4		Poh Yu Tian	2118	MAS	5734088	1,0
5	FM	Subramaniam Sumant	2152	MAS	5702720	0,0

52. Malaysia (MAS / RtgAvg:2038 / TB1: 0 / TB2: 0) Captain: Mok, Tze-Meng
Bo.		Name	Rtg	FED	FideID	Games
1	WIM	Foudzi Siti Zulaikha	2188	MAS	5700965	1,0
2	WIM	Azhar Puteri Munajjah Az-Zahraa	2018	MAS	5709040	1,0
3	WFM	Azhar Puteri Rifqah Fahada	1940	MAS	5702879	1,0
4	WCM	Sim Jia Ru	2005	MAS	5716110	1,0
5	WFM	Chong Kai Ni Agnes	1909	MAS	5722071	0,0

Lye Lik Zang was supposed to join the men's team but I didn't see him in the group photograph when the contingent departed for India, and he has been substituted by Sumant Subramaniam who is doubling up as the team captain. As a Penangite, I am proud to see so many Penang faces in the two Malaysian teams. In the men's team, there are Wong Yinn Long (a former national champion), Tan Jun Ying (the current national champion) and Poh Yu Tian (hopefully, a future national champion in the making). In the women's team, we have Sim Jia Ru and Agnes Chong Kai Ni from Penang.

Today is the first round of the Chess Olympiad and Malaysia will face the United States Virgin Islands in the men's competition and Eswatini in the women's competition. And talking about Madras being renamed as Chennai, Eswatini is the new name of the African country known as Swaziland previously.

Schedule. Rounds One to Six will be played daily from today till 03 August 2022 from 5.30pm (Malaysia time) and Rounds Seven to 10 will be on 05-10 August 2022 from 5.30pm. The final round (Round 11) will be played on 11 August 2022 starting at 12.30pm. Live games for both the men's and women's Chess Olympiad can be viewed at this https://chessolympiad.fide.com/live-games-open/ website.

My coverage of the Chess Olympiad will be rather patchy as I shall be away from my computer from the third to the fifth of August, thus missing the sixth and seventh rounds and will be forced to play catch-up later when I'm back in Penang.

{To be continued]