2nd Asian Indoor Games: Macau 2007

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Information

[ Basic data | Tournament review | Best board results | Interesting games ]


Basic data

2nd Asian Indoor Games
Date: 26th October - 3rd November 2007
City: Macau, China
Venue: Macau International Shooting Range
Tournament Director: Mr. Igantius Leong (SIN)
Chief Arbiter: IA Casto Abundo (MEX)
Teams participating: 21 (each team was eligible to field up to six players [3 men and 3 women] - teams to have at least two players were allowed to participate)
Players participating: 102 (including 21 GMs, 10 IMs, 7 WGMs, 6 WIMs, 10 FMs, 5 WFMs and 1 WCM)
Games played: 240 (including 36 forfeits and 12 mutual forfeits)
Competition format: Four board nine round Swiss.
Final order decided by: 1. Match points; 2. Game points; 3. Direct match
NOTE! Two match points were awarded to a team to score at least 2½ points in a match and one match point was awarded to a team to score 2 points in a match. Due to numerous forfeits match win/loss account was abandoned.
Time control: 90 minutes per game + 30 sec. increment after each move
Official logo: MACAU 2007
Web home page: http://www.maigoc2007.com
Other Web sites: Official results: classical time control, rapid, blitz.
Downloadable game file: 07asiaind.zip


Tournament review

View at the game hallThe Asian Indoor Games are the brand new competition held biennially. The premier edition took place in Thailand in 2005, but chess was not part of the games. The 2007 games were hosted by Chinese autonomous region Macau. There were three team competitions scheduled for different time controls: classical, rapid and blitz as well as men's and women's individual blitz competition.

The classical chess event was a six round Swiss. Each team had right to field up to three men and three women with each match being played at two men's and two women's board. Unfortunately a lot of teams weren't able to field necessary number of players, this resulting in numerous forfeits that spoiled the spirit of play a bit. The competition was very strong with more than 20 GMs aboard. China and India were two strongest sides. Chinese team saw GMs Bu Xiangzhi, Ni Hua, Xu Yuhua and prodigy WGM Hou Yifan. India's team consisted of four superb players: GM Sasikiran, GM Ganguly, GM Humpy and IM Harika.

Indeed, these two combatted for gold. With a thumping 3-1 victory in round 4 China paved their way to gold. India took silver while bronze went to Vietnam who got back to game after 3-1 loss to Qatar on round two. Vietnam's two 2-2 ties vs China and India on the last day let them keep the podium position won on tie-splitting vs Malaysia, Kazakhstan and Indonesia. Third seeds Qatar played extremely bad chess to finish in miserable 12th. Best individual results were obtained by Chinese Ni Hua and Hou Yifan — 5½/6.

Teams, classical time control
1. China
2. India
3. Vietnam

Teams, rapid time control
1. India
2. Vietnam
3. Iran

Teams, blitz time control
1. China
2. India
3. Kazakhstan

Men's individual blitz
1. Sasikiran, Krishnan (IND)
2. Kazhgaleyev, Murtas (KAZ)
3. Bu Xiangzhi (CHN)

Women's individual blitz
1. Zhu Chen (QAT)
2. Humpy, Koneru (IND)
3. Phạm Bích Ngọc (VIE)



Best board results

Men's boards
no. name code pts gms %
M1 GM Kazhgaleyev, Murtas KAZ 6 75.0
M2 GM Ni Hua CHN 6 91.7

Women's boards
no. name code pts gms %
W1 GM Zhu Chen QAT 5 6 83.3
W2 WGM Hou Yifan CHN 6 91.7


Interesting games


It was better to transfer White Knight from f4 onto d3-c5, wasn't it?
Sasikiran, Krishnan (IND) - Bu Xiangzhi (CHN) 0 - 1

White's treatment of the opening wasn't certainly standard one.
Ni Hua (CHN) - Ganguly, Surya Shekhar (IND) 1 - 0

White King was trying to escape from checking zone at any cost, but...
Wong Meng Kong (SIN) - Kojima, Shinya (JPN) 0 - 1