Chess observations

I have an invitation to attend the closing ceremony but unfortunately,
I won't be able to accept it this year

In the last few editions of the annual 10-day Malaysia Chess Festival, I had made it a point to travel down twice to Kuala Lumpur for the event: once to participate in the Merdeka rapid team tournament with my chess friends from The Old Frees' Association and a second time to attend the closing ceremony. Not this year though. I am unable to travel down to KL for the closing. Thus, I shall be missing out on the excitement of the last day's play in the main Malaysia Open event. 

Who shall be the new Malaysia Open champion? As I write, the tournament is taking a breather between yesterday's fifth round and tomorrow's sixth round. The competition at the top is still wide open but I am very happy to see one of Penang's top players, 14-year-old Poh Yu Tian, a FIDE Master, still holding his own against the main contenders. I shall continue cheering for him and urging him forward in his quest to get a first International Master norm. I hope he gets it from this tournament.

The main problem of playing in only the rapid team tournament is that one gets too engrossed in one's own games until there is no time to observe the goings-on during each round. As every player is required to play all nine rounds, there is no opportunity for anyone to sit out during a round.

Luckily, or unluckily enough, I had a meltdown in the eighth round which left me enough time to wander around the tournament hall and take a few snapshots of the participants on the top boards.

On the right are the Penang "A" team, led by Wong Yinn Long on the first board, Poh Yu Tian on the second board, Tan Jun Ying on the third board and Ooi Zhi Yang on the fourth board.

The PKM Parlimen Shah Alam team which comprised, from right, Yeoh Li Tian, Nicholas Chan, Marcus Chan and Nik Farouqi

Another look at Penang's top two players, Wong Yinn Long in the foreground, and Poh Yu Tian in the background. Both of them, together with Tan Jun Ying, are also playing in the main Malaysia Open tournament

A chess pasar malam

I should mention that concurrently with the Merdeka rapid team tournament, there were other junior chess events going on as part of the Malaysia Chess Festival. Thus outside the tournament hall, it was a real pasar malam situation with parents and family members setting up camp while their children were competing. As pictures speak louder than words, I shall let these pictures do the talking. Who says chess is not a popular game?

Friends (朋友)

The occasion was the Ban Hin Lee Bank reunion dinner at the Eastern & Oriental Hotel on 19 August 2023, which had brought together about 250 former staff. As the vast majority of us hadn't seen one another for at least five years, this particular Alan Tam song, Friends (朋友), brought back unforgettable memories of the best times we had in the bank.

As usual, we had to have Lee Soo Hock sing this signature song. He was an aspiring singer in the 1990s and jokingly - we had worked in the same ATM Centre - I told him then that if he ever turned professional, I would apply to be his manager.

Well, it turned out that he did earn himself a recording contract and had appeared semi-professionally on television but by then, I was planning to leave the banking industry and looking elsewhere for my career change. However, managing a singer was no longer within my list of things-to-do. Soo Hock went on to conclude his career in CIMB Bank, retiring very recently. By the way, he sang two songs on our reunion night. There's also Shanghai Beach featured here in this video.

By the way, I also made a third video recording of Teik Kean singing his ever popular version of The Room at the Top of the Stairs but I was struggling with a problem with my mobile phone and can't find it any more. So, Teik Kean, if you are reading this, my apologies for being unable to upload it to YouTube for everyone's enjoyment.

OFA at Merdeka chess

Eight of us from The Old Frees' Association travelled down to Kuala Lumpur last Friday for this year's Merdeka rapid team chess tournament at the Cititel MidValley. This year, the two-day event has a new sponsor in SMS Deen Jewellers. When I cornered the boss, Sirajudin, on Saturday, I told him, "hey, now you can really call this event as my tournament." He simply gave a chuckle. 

But seriously, everyone is thankful to Siraj for coming to the rescue of this long-running Merdeka rapid chess team tournament after the old sponsors terminated their interest. SMS Deen Jewellers is located at 52 Jalan Masjid India and is open throughout the week, including Sundays. Their sole business is the sale of 916/22K gold jewellery for all occasions such as weddings and engagements, and their range naturally extends to daily casual-wear too. There's even a branch in George Town, located at 106 Penang Street.

Anyway, our two teams took part in the tournament and the first team, which we named as OFA Young Penang Boys, played brilliantly to finish in 19th position. It should be noted that there were quite a number of achievements against a number of titled players. 

Ing Kiat drew with local IM Jimmy Liew and beat WFM Khadijah Qurota’ain from Indonesia. Colin Chong drew with FM Mahmud Syarif from Indonesia. Tay Aik beat FM Robert Gibbons from New Zealand and WFM Millyena Legowo Parahita from Indonesia. Terry Ong beat CM Helen Milligan from New Zealand and drew with both local FM Dilwen Ding and CM Paul Spiller from New Zealand.

The second team, OFA Youngest Penang Boys, fared slightly below par and ended in joint 56th position. Nothing notable to report on the players except to say that Chian Min and Peng Seng were the star performers of this team. I had a very torrid time playing on the first board and wasted a lot of chances. Only in the very last round did I find a little bit of redemption but by then it was already too late. And I know too that Hun Pin also found his opponents tough.

All these ups and downs are just part of the game. Win some and lose some. But one thing for sure....we should be back for next year's edition, come what may. 

Eighth student leadership workshop completed

This is only a brief post to say that we have completed the eighth Student Leadership Workshop at Penang Free School. the second weekend of the workshop was held last weekend at the Pinhorn Hall with 21 boys in attendance. There was one each from Upper Six and Form Five but the rest were all in Form Four. Having completed with this batch, we are now looking forward to the ninth workshop for the Sixth Formers which we hope will kick off at the end of September.

Thank you to the Headmaster, Syed Sultan, and the Senior Assistant, Leonard Selva, for making the workshop a success. Thank you to the coaches - Lean Kang, Sue, Cheng, Ben and Ugenthraa for their invaluable time. 

BHLBank's 88th anniversary

A few months ago, word got out that there would be a reunion of the former staff of Ban Hin Lee Bank (short form: BHLB or BHLBank) in August this year. An organising committee had been formed and through our facebook page, everyone with connections to the old bank were invited to sign themselves up for the occasion. 

Of course, I was among the very first ones to pay up for myself and Saw See. There was no way that we were going to miss this reunion of the old Ban Hin Lee Bank family and in fact, we hadn't missed any of the previous reunions. It has been far too long since we all got together to relive the good ol' days. And according to Khoo Khay Seang, the organising chairman, the last reunion was held five years ago in 2018. Time certainly had flown; all of us, five years older! 

The attendees were initially capped at 200 because of concerns over the capacity at the Eastern & Oriental Hotel but because of the rush of the last-minute sign-ups, there were eventually almost 250 names on the dinner list. I dare say if the list had remained open till the reunion's eve, we could have had 300 to 400 people signed up! 

Of course, topping the guests were the former directors of the bank and here, we had Goh Eng Toon, Stephen Yeap Leong Huat and Yeap Lam Yang stepping out of the lifts to much attention around. People were really very happy to see this trio and their families. Neoh Choo Kean was also present but unfortunately, not Tan Kuan Hai. Among the oldest among the former colleagues was Khoo Boo Hean, now 92 or 93-years old.

Coincidentally, this function could have also marked the 88th anniversary of Ban Hin Lee Bank, if it were to still exist. The bank was established in 1935: the date of incorporation was 17 September 1935 although the actual start of operations was on 01 November 1935. But by 30 June 2000, Ban Hin Lee Bank had ceased to exist, swallowed by Southern Bank, and thus became one of the casualties of a national corporate merger exercise pushed by the Government of Malaysia. Very few of the locally-incorporated financial institutions were spared the cull. 

How about a closer look at this remarkably crazy group of people?

Here come the guiders

 

It's the start of a brand new project at Penang Free School. On and off, Siang Jin and I have been working on this project during the past year and with the School's Speech Day just round the corner, it has become imperative for us to have this project launched before the big day.

We are calling this the Free School Guide, which is an innovative interactive guide to the heritage of Penang Free School. There are more than 200 years of history here, which we have distilled into the Free School Guide.

It is still far too early for me to say more but I can disclose for the moment that we are starting to train a bunch of the students to be the Guiders. They'll be able to take visitors around the Free School and narrate stories to them. Be proud of your school and be proud of your history, that's what we have told them.

Therefore above, we have a group picture of all of us together, save for one student, at our inaugural workshop. Cikgu Zahidah was the teacher who helped to coordinate everything. So, thank you to her! 

Left of banner: Lim Siang Jin, Agilan Sastriyar a/l Sivaraman, Muhammad Adriez bin Reza Azlan, Avinaash a/l Selvanathan, Cikgu Zahidah

Right of banner: Muhammad Danish, Nicholas Lew, Lim Jing Fuh, Jayden Chee, Yashodev, Allan Albert, Nordin Hilman Visser, Marvin a/l Mohgan, Nurul Fazilah Hanim, Dhevisri a/p Vasu, Heng Yee Keat, Fatimah Al-Zahra, Quah Seng Sun

The workshop at the Lecture Theatre in the Sixth Form Block went off very well with 17 students present. Halfway through the morning session, the Headmaster, Syed Sultan, came in to address them. He has always been very supportive of our programmes, including the Student Leadership Workshops through the years, and this fine gesture showed how keen he was to have this Free School Guide implemented. Here are some pictures:

In case anyone wants to know whether I've made a mistake with my half-past-six English, here is some food for thought regarding the difference between the words guide and guider. First of all, "guider" is a valid word, though it is not as commonly used as its synonym, "guide". Both words refer to someone or something that provides direction, assistance or leadership. I chose "guider" because I didn't want the students to be known as "girl guides" or, horrors, "boy guides".

"Guide" is the more standard and widely recognised term. It can refer to a person who leads or directs others, as well as to something that offers instructions or information.

"Guider" is less common but still correct. It can be used as a noun to indicate someone or something that guides. For example, in some contexts, "guider" might be used to describe a person leading a group through a forest or a tour, similar to how "guide" is used.