Mini Training Tournament For MERDEKA 2008

The Players

Mohd Saprin Sabri organise a 4 player double round robin closed tournament in UNITEN Bangi Food Court , today. The tournament is part of their preparation for the upcoming 2008 MERDEKA team tournament. The players playing is NM Kamal Abdullah, Mohd Fairin Zakaria, Zambri Shariff and Mohd Saprin Sabri himself. The game starts at 9.30 am and end about 2pm. The time control is 10 minutes with 10 second increment.


Mohd Saprin Sabri (right) the organiser own two computer shop at Bandar Baru Bangi. My friend Aziz Shukor tell me that he has registered to play in the upcoming DATMO.

Back to the mini tournament, the final results is Mohd Fairin Zakaria emerged as the Champion with 4.5 points followed by the dark house - Zambri Syariff ( 3 points)- 2nd, Mohd Saprin Sabri ( 2.5 points) - 3rd and NM Kamal Abdullah (2 points) - 4th. The price for the champion is Kaspersky Anti Virus 2009 and for 2nd prise won a SAMSUNG Thermos. Prices were sponsored by the organiser- Mohd Saprin Sabri.

Below are excellent annotated games by Zambri Syarif who create an upset by beating the eventual winner Fairin Zakaria.

Mohd Zambri Mohd Shariff - Fairin Zakaria [B22]
Mini Training Tournament for MERDEKA 2008, 10.08.2008

analysis by Mohd Zambri

1.e4 c5 2.c3

( Hairulov : The Sicilian Alapin or ayah pin as Zambri like to called it ! ) 2...d5 3.exd5 Qxd5 4.d4 Nf6 5.Nf3 Bg4 6.Nbd2 cxd4 7.Bc4 Qd8?

[7...Qd7 8.Qb3 e6 9.Ne5 White has a slight plus due to development and bishop pair] 8.Qb3 Attacking both f7 and b7 [8.Ne5!? this move is suggested by Fairin during the analysis 8...Be6 force since the Queen is taboo 9.Bxe6 fxe6 10.Qa4+ Nbd7 11.cxd4 Nd5 12.Ndf3 N5b6 13.Qb5 a6 14.Qb3 with a clear positional plus, but indeed this is just a matter of taste and style.] 8...e6 [8...Bh5? 9.Ne5 e6 10.Qxb7 Nbd7 11.Nc6 Qc8 12.Ba6!] 9.Qxb7 Nbd7 10.Nxd4 Rc8 In a difficult position, he tried to complicate matters 11.Qxa7 I saw a pawn, why not? I took it [11.h3 Bh5 12.0–0 Bc5 13.Bxe6!! (suggested by Rybka)] 11...Bc5 12.Qa4 Qb6 Here, I give him the pawn I took coz I got to find a way to exchange Queen 13.0–0 Bxd4 14.cxd4 Qxd4 15.Bb5 Qd5 16.Bxd7+ Qxd7 17.Qxd7+ Exactly as what I have calculated when I played 13.0–0 17...Nxd7 18.b4 Rc2 19.a4 Ne5 20.b5 Nd3 21.Ne4 Be2 22.Be3 Bxf1 23.Kxf1

23...Ra2?? Actually he resigned here, the move executed was just a joke[23...f5 Amazingly when analyzed with Rybka, black still have counter play though it still favours white 24.Ng5 Ke7 25.Nf3 f4 26.Bd4 Rd8 27.Ra3 Rc1+ 28.Ke2 Nb2 29.a5 Rc2+ 30.Ke1 g5 31.Rc3 Rxc3 32.Bxc3 g4] 1–0

Zambri joked to me after the tournament end that if this tournament is FIDE rated, he will gained many rating points from the other players! :)

Below are some of the photo taken by me. I drop by for about 5 minutes to take photo's and a have a little chat with the players.

The Champion - Mohd Fairin Zakaria

The Dark Horse and runner up - Mohd Zambri Syariff in deep thought!

NM Kamal Abdullah in 4th place - if you watch carefull there's banana in his left hand and yes...the players are allowed to eat,drink, smoke and use the mobile phone !?