Penang open 1979

This picture came into my reckoning today and I was asked by a friend to identify the people in it. First, I must say that this was taken in 1979 at the Hooi Lye Association in Kimberley Street. The occasion was the prize-giving ceremony of that year's Penang open championship, organised by the Penang Chess Association. 

At that point, it was quite possible that the tournament was already held using Swiss system tournament rules. Pairings were all done manually as there wasn't any computer pairing system yet. In fact, there weren't any laptop or desktop computer to speak of in the first place. Pairings were slow and made manually using pairing cards. I remember a few of us working together to ensure we made no mistake! 

Where the running of the tournament was concerned, the long table at the Hooi Lye Association served our purpose very well as we could fit five or six chessboards on it in a row. Other chess boards were arranged by the sides of the playing hall. Prizes were very modest and we were quite happy to have the likes of Christi Hon and others coming up from Selangor to compete with the Penang chess players. 

The only problem was the risk of the Penang chess champion title slipping out of the hands of the Penang players, which of course happened not only in 1979 but also 1978 when Craig Laird of New Zealand won the tournament. Our local champion, Jimmy Liew, had a huge rivalry with Christi in those days, and he could only finish second to his great rival in 1979.

Back to the picture, we had from left to right: Cheah Hooi Seng (possibly the tournament director), Lee Wai Meng, Chuah Heng Meng, Jimmy Liew, Leong Sit Chew (PCA vice-president), Datuk Low Hooi Seah (PCA patron), Fang Ewe Churh (PCA president), Christi Hon, Christopher Lee, myself (possibly the PCA secretary), Ooi Gim Ewe, Bobby Ooi and Tan Kai Ming (possibly the PCA treasurer).

Christi, Christopher and Bobby came all the way from Selangor to play in Penang. Completely lost touch with Bobby but at least can still catch up with Christi and Christopher occasionally. As for Jimmy, I am not sure whether he was still living in Penang or already moved down to Selangor in 1979. But we have always considered him a Penang-lang.