SS Quah's Anything Goes: Penang chess at Sukma 2024

Over the past week, my friends and I have been avidly following the results of the chess competitions at this year's Sukma Games in Sarawak. It was actually the first time that chess had been included in the Games, so there was a lot of anticipation around how the Penang chess contingent would perform. They didn’t disappoint at all. The entire contingent delivered. If not Gold, then Silver; if not Silver, then Bronze. Every chess player representing Penang at the Sukma Games came back with a winner's medal. This says something positive about our strategy for Sukma, and I’m thrilled for the players' achievements. In doing so, the chess team played a key role in pushing the entire Penang contingent past their target of 40 Gold medals. The final tally was 41 Gold medals, securing Penang an impressive fourth place in the standings. But let’s get back to chess, as that’s where my real interest lies.

We had our newly minted International Master, though not officially ratified by the World Chess Federation yet, Poh Yu Tian, leading the charge with three Gold medals. He secured these in the men’s Rapid individual event, the men’s Rapid team event (teaming up with Lim Wei Yang), and the men’s Blitz event. It's pretty unprecedented for a player to sweep all three Gold medals available. A benchmark has been set for future Sukma Games. If the format stays the same, the challenge is now out there for others to match this achievement. Penang’s other Golds in the chess competition came from Chua Jia Tien, who won the women’s Blitz event and the women’s Rapid team event (alongside Sim Jia Ru). Both Jia Tien and Jia Ru are Woman Candidate Masters.

In the Standard Chess category, Nurul Akma bt Quzaina Khairolhisal clinched the Silver in the women’s individual event and, along with teammates Agnes Chong Kai Ni, Janice Lim and Divyadarrshini Loganathan, also bagged Silver in the women’s Standard team event. On the men’s side, Loo Pin Xie, Yeoh Yuan Hui, Eshwant Singh and Ferris Lim Feng Wei secured Silver in the men’s Standard team event, with Loo Pin Xie adding a Bronze in the men’s Standard individual event. Overall, a pretty stellar achievement, especially considering the chess target, as mentioned by Penang Chess Association President See Swee Sie, was initially just four Golds.

UPDATE: I need to add an update. While browsing the results on the chess-results website, I noticed that the organisers had used the players' FIDE IDs in the competition for seeding purposes. Was this competition thus registered with the World Chess Federation for FIDE ratings then? Apparently not. I was informed that, no, the chess events in Sukma 2024 were not registered with FIDE. To me, this is odd and frankly incomprehensible. Given that Sukma is a top-tier competition in the country, the organisers should have made sure that all the chess events were FIDE-rated as well. It’s a missed opportunity for chess in Malaysia.

All the pictures below are from Buletin Mutiara.