EXCERPTS FROM THE TOURNAMENT BULLETIN

Preface: On behalf of the Organising Committee, I bid you a warm welcome to the 10th Asian Team Chess Championship.

We are fully aware that the accommodations provided by us this time is not of the usual international standard that Malaysia has been well known for. We do apologise but we hope you will take into consideration the difficulties that we are encountering when organising a tournament of this size and at such short notice. More so now with the Federations of Zone 3.4 joining us.

It is no excuse, but to ensure that Chess players in Asia have a tournament of its own, we were prepared to risk the criticism that some countries have levied on us. We hope that these countries will one day in the new future undertake to host an Asian Team Championship, perhaps than they will understand the problems faced by organisers.

It was mentioned that since the Chief Arbiter was a Malaysian, members of the Appeals Committee will not include a Malaysian representative. GM Eugenio Torre of the Philippines was elected the chairman.

Once again we were fortunate to have FIDE President Campomanes gracing the occasion. The opening was a simple one and the five VIPs were invited to play the customary first move for five of the matches.

With seven Grandmasters (Nenashev and Zagrebely — Uzbekistan; Torre and Antonio — Philippines; Adianto — Indonesia; Ye — China; Vladimirov — Kazakhstan) and nineteen International Masters the organisers could not have asked for a more interesting field.

Although twenty teams were officially registered Myanmar arrived an hour before starting time. There was still no sign of Bangladesh or Iran although both have confirmed that they would be participating.

Round 1: The first round started without Iran and Bangladesh although both had confirmed participation. Myanmar, who arrived an hour before the start of the Tenth Asian Team Chess Championship was paired against the Junior team. There was however no panic in their play and the Juniors came out of their first international battle with a mere half of a point from Ooi. Both the Malaysia "A" and "B" teams did not fare any better with Peter Long and team earning half of a point against Philippines. The "A" team also finished with a half of a point from their match against India.

China had a fright against Tajikistan and managed a 2½—1½ victory. Indonesia also managed to win 2½—1½ against New Zealand. Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Singapore and Vietnam won all their four games.

The Iranian team arrived in the evening (after round 1) and due to their long flight and the "odd" number of teams were given a bye.

Round 2: The Malaysian Juniors created the first upset by beating the National "A" team by 2½—1½. The "B" beat New Zealand. Tajikistan, who took 1½ points from China in round 1, beat the strong Indonesia team. This four men CIS team have played two of Asia's best teams and would be the team to watch.

After two rounds indications of the CIS states replacing both China and Philippines as the Kingpins are there. It is still too early to pick a winner. The top four teams meeting in

Round 3 saw the entry of Iran into the competition and they finished the day with a 3—1 victory over Bahrain. The highlight of the round was the clash between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. There was no respect shown to the silver medalists from the Manila Olympiad as Kazakhstan drew three games and won the fourth game.

The only adjourned game involving Peng of PRC and Rodriguez will go into a second adjournment. Indonesian recovered from its second round set-back to beat Japan. Of the three Malaysian teams, only the "A" team to secure some pride for the boys.

Believe it or not the Malaysian Juniors are actually ahead of both the senior teams. Personally I don't think they are that good even though they have beaten the "A" team but to get one and a half point from two National Champion who have participated at Zonal tournament either spells a future for these Juniors or a terrible future for our senior players. Anyway, no matter what people say it is now history that the Junior beat the "A" team and also inflicted a 4—0 win over the Brunei national team.

Round 4: China played Kazakhstan and all four boards were drawn. Philippines shared the points with Uzbekistan with two games drawn and one win each. Indonesia, with the New York Champion leading the team hammered India 3—1.

Singapore and Tajikistan shared the points. It is rumoured that the new Singapore President has promised his players a trip to the World Team Championship if they finished in the top three. Vietnam, Myanmar and Japan scored convincing victories over their opponents and it was left to the little boys to be the only team to have a perfect score for the round.

After five rounds the big boys and the small boys have identified themselves. There were some red faces and a few surprises. Kazakhstan, the early leader was brought down to earth by a determined Indonesian team. Three draw games and a win by Barus over Seredenko was enough for a win. Philippines leapfrogged over the rest of the field with a 4—0 whitewash of the Singapore team. This result was not expected as the young boys from the FINE country were doing very well.

China suffered her first defeat at the hand of Uzbekistan and with this defeat the Chinese must realise the need to bring their strongest team including seasoned campaigners Xu Jun and Ye Rongguang.

Japan, especially Watai San continued her climb upward with a win over the Malaysian Juniors. India beat Tajikistan which is playing with a 4 man team. We do hope that India with both Anand and Barua absence will one day decide to bring these two Grandmasters around. This is an Asian Team tournament and players must sometime put the country ahead of self glory.

After six rounds it is still unclear who the next winner of the Asian Team Chess Championship will be. Philippines entered the last round with one full point ahead of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Indonesia. China the defending champion were three points behind. In round six, Kazakhstan beat the Philippines by 2½ to 1½ points and the tournament was once again thrown wide open.

Indonesia with a 3—1 win over Uzbekistan became the new leader. China beat India 3—1 and moved up closer to the leaders. Surprise of the round was the Vietnamese 4—0 win over Japan. Singapore recovered from their 4—0 mauling by Philippines to beat New Zealand 2½—1½. The Juniors continued their good run by scoring another win and this time without their top two boards.

Round 7: With just two rounds to go it is still anybody's guess as to which country will be the Champions. After the first round, four teams, Singapore, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Vietnam had perfect scores. After the second round, two teams, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan had seven points each. On completion of the third round, Kazakhstan was the sole leader with nine and a half points. Kazakhstan remain as the leader for one more round and the Philippines then took over. In the sixth round, the Philippines lost to Kazakhstan and Indonesia became the new leader. Following the top of the table clash between Philippines and Indonesia, the 2½—1½ win by the Philippines was enough to give Philippines the lead back but this time Kazakhstan joined them on 18 points.

China, the defending Champion has never been in the lead and even though they are only one point behind, they have an uphill battle to retain the title. Over the last two rounds, India have lost twice with 3—1 margins. They are now out of contention together with Tajikistan. Even though 2 points separate the first seven teams, the winner is likely to be Indonesia, Philippines, China, and Uzbekistan or Kazakhstan.

Vietnam and Myanmar are not going to win but they can be party spoilers. The three Malaysian teams and the three Gulf teams together with Japan have their private battles at the other end of the table. Each is capable of beating the others but when paired with the big boys, a 4—0 hammering can also be expected.

Japan was going pretty well until the last two rounds when they lost 4—0 to Vietnam and Iran. The Malaysian Juniors lost 4—0 for the first time but still managed to avoid the Bye.

Round 8: Because of the early departure of the three CIS teams, the ninth round will be brought forward to the Rest Day (24.6.93). Games will start at 2.00 pm following by adjourned games in the evening. Further adjournments will be from 10.00 am the following morning and this will be to the finish.

Both Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan scored 4—0 victories over their opponents and it is likely that together with Philippines, these three will occupy first three places. China scored a 2½—1½ win over Indonesia but it is unlikely either will be able to win the Championship as it will mean they have to win well and the top three teams will have to lose. The other surprise of the round was the win by the Malaysian Juniors over the National "B" team. With this victory, the Juniors have achieved a unique double by beating both the Senior teams.

Round 9: [added by WB] On the last day it was an indirect clash between the top teams. Kazakhstan dropped two draws vs Tajikistan but still a 3—1 win was ample to take the gold by the small margin. Uzbekistan beat Vietnam 3½—½ to finish second while the Philippines came third. China ruthlessly wiped out Qatar 4—0; nonetheless they finished fourth a half of a point behind the Philippines. Fifth place went to Indonesia who secured their position with a brisk 2-2 draw with Myanmar. India beat Malaysia "B" 4—0 only to find it was not enough to climb up.

Summary: [added by WB] The competition was very tight (there was just one and a half point between the first and the fourth team in the final table) and no team managed to avoid match loss. The top seeded China fell short of expectations missing the podium. Kazakhstan's win was based on excellent play by Nesterov (board 3) and Tkachiev (board 4). Uzbekistan were another ex-Soviet team to win a medal, mainly thanks to Iuldachev (6/7) and Nadyrkhanov (5/6). The silver medal winners from Manila definitely could have done even better, hadn't they only lost 3—1 to Indonesia in round six. Least but not last, the only women in the competition, Ms. Miyoko Watai achieved a plus score (3/5), something that turned to be too hard task for more than half of participating men.