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.)