Malaysian Women In Chess - part 2

As promised, I present some of the interesting point in my personal collection of game against the female chess players in Malaysia. Let me begin with Alia Anin Azwa Bakri who became the 1st champion of sukan wanita in 2007 and I must consider this as the greatest achivement as this event carries biggest number of participants of female chess players. Even in National closed, the largest number of participants, as far as I concerned from my involvement since 1999 to 2006, had never achieved more than 16 players!

[Event "Merdeka Rapid"]
[Date "2007"]
[Round "6"]
[White "Alia Anin Azwa PUTERI MSIA"]
[Black "Rizal A Kamal NUSA MAHKOTA"]

I achieved a very comfortable position after as in the left diagram after
1. d4 Nf6 2. e3 g6 3. Nf3 Bg7 4. Bd3 O-O 5. O-O d6 6. c4 Nbd7 7. Nc3 e5 8. dxe5 dxe5 9. Qe2 Re8 10. e4 c6 11. h3 Nc5 12. Bc2 Qc7 13. Be3 Ne6 14. Rad1 Nh5 15. Qd2 Rd8 16. Qc1 Nd4 17. Ne1 Be6 18. Bd3 Rd7 19. Nc2 Rad8 20. Ne1 Nf4 (D)

Here Alia tried to free herself a bit by exchanging one of my menacing knights
21. Bxf4exf4 22. f3 Qe5
The black Queen suddenly burst into the scene


23. Nc2 Qg5 24. Kh1 Qh5 25. Ne2 Nxe2 26. Bxe2 Bf8
The subtle retreat which Alia only realized the real point of it after 27. Rxd7 Rxd7 28. Rd1 Bxh3 29. Rxd7 Bxd7+ 30. Kg1 Bc5+ 0-1



About 10 years before the above game I have a nice win against the Uzbek's WFM Irina Gorshkova (at that time FIDE rated 2115) considering at that time, I was unrated.

In the diagram, I had just played 20..f6 with the intention of giving the black square Bishop a route to retreat to e8 if needed and stopping any possible invasion via Ne5. To my surprise, she played the horrible 21.b4 which I prompted reply with 21...Nc3 winning white's Queen. Seeing this, Gorshkova resigned immediately.












Another nice victory was against Khairunnisa Wahiduddin. The Event was Merdeka (Rapid) 2005. I still remember that my opponent was quite surprise when I took out scoresheet to record this game, considering it is only a rapid game. But it was a rapid with increment! Therefore, why should hurry?

After 25. fxe5 fxe5 26. Re1 we reached a very critical point (D)
26...exd4!
I confess that, during this game, I had seen the combination right up to the end, thus I ignored my knight

27. Rxe4 dxc3+ 28. Kf1 b5 29. Rxa4
This was what I had been anticipated.
29...c2! not 29... bxa4 30. bxc3 and white may play on

After 29... c2! the forced sequence of the winning line is 30. Rc1 Rd1+ 31. Ke2 Rxc1 32. Kd2 bxa4 33. Kxc1 Be3+ 34.Nd2 Bxd2+ 35. Kxd2 c1=Q+> Seeing this coming, Khairunnisa stopped the clock to avoid further blood spilt and prefered to hand over her Kingdom instead!


In my encounter against Khairunnisa's elder sibling, I faced the rare (in Malaysian chess scene) Mac Cutcheon of the French defence. The event took place in Merdeka Rapid 2007, in Round 9.

After the start 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 Bb4 5. e5 h6 6. Bd2 Bxc3 7. bxc3 Ne4 8. Qg4 black blundered in the opening with 8..Nxd2 Correct were (8... g6) or the dubious but quite playable (8... Kf8). Therefore I took the g-pawn 9. Qxg7 The game continued 9...Rf8 10. Kxd2 Qh4 11. g3 Qg5+ 12. Qxg5 hxg5

Nurulhuda must be relieved with the Queens swap, but after 13. h4 Rh8 14. h5 the flame of the attacking fire is far from being extinguished. She tried 14...c5 15. Be2 Nc6 16. Ke3 Ke7 17. Rb1 c4

And now came the paradoxical knight move ala Karpov 18. Nh3! f6 19. f4 gxf4+
20. Nxf4! (Diagram left)

Afterward, Gregory Lau, who was watching this game expressed his impressive feeling about this capture to me.

27..Kf7 21. Ng6 Rg8 22. Rhf1 f5 23. g4 Ne7 24. Nxe7 Kxe7 25. gxf5 exf5 26. Bf3 b6 27. Bxd5 1-0
After this fork, black has nothing more to show












Before I stop, (I may continue with Malaysian Women In Chess - part 3) I present here my only encounter against our most outstanding WFM. At that time, she was only an NWM, but she was already very strong.

The event was the Malay Masters 2000 [Round "5"] which I participated for the first and last time, as this was no longer exhist in our local chess calendar. (Some other tournament whic had also reached the extinct status are: Malay open, Dato' Sabbaruddin Chik (Sactor) team open (organized by UIAM), and Labour Day team tournament (used to be Arab-Malaysian Labour Day) )

In this occassion, Siti Zulaikha answered my 1. e4 with 1.. e5, already a small surprise considering that Ismail Ahmad used to tell me, Siti had never played anything else except what he taught, the modern / pirc defence.

After 2. Nf3, I was even more surprise to the reply 1...Nf6. I still remember that, during that time, I had extensively studied the Petroff due to my anticipation of facing the strong Azhari Md Nor who, during that time employed the Petroff regularly. (We did met in the last round, but he switched to the Sicilian and we agreed for a short draw)

After 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nf3 Nxe4 5. d4 d5 6. Bd3 Bg4 7. h3 Bh5 8. O-O Siti Zulaikha played the weird 8...f5 After the game I told her, normally black plays f5 with the bishop on e6

After 9. c4 c6 10. cxd5 cxd5 11. Qa4+ Nd7 12. Ne5 a trap was set. Here Zulaikha played the natural 12...Bd6 and to her dismay, discovered that after 13. Nxd7! (D)

she had to lose a piece as 13..Qxd7 was not possible due to the pinning 14.Bb5 winning black's Queen.
Our game continued with 13.. Kf7 14. Ne5+ Bxe5 15. dxe5 Re8 16. Qd4 Kg8 17. Nc3 Bf7 18. Re1 Qh4 19. Re2 Qd8 20. Be3 h6 21. Rd1 b6 22. Bb5 Nxc3 23. bxc3 Rf8 24. Red2 Rc8 25. c4 Rc5 26. Qd3 Rc8 27. cxd5 f4

Siti Zulaikha tried her best to win back some material, but from this point I had seen the coming 2 pawns marching theme.
28. Bxf4 Bh5 29. Bg3
I just ignore the Rook and keep my small material edge
29...Bxd1 30. Rxd1 Rc5 31. d6 Qc8 32. Qb3+ Kh7 33. e6 Rc3 34.
Qb1+ Kh8 35. e7 1-0

At the end, black decided she had enough.



(c) Rizal Ahmad Kamal 2010