Round 1 of the 2011 SEA Games selection kick off today!

The first round of the 2011 SEA Games selection will kick off today (7PM) at the DATCC.

The list of  players in the men section tournament looks  interesting. In the men section, we have four  IM’s,  two NMs and for untitled players. In term of age, we have 5 seniors players and 5 juniors players.  All the seniors players have played  in the Olympiad before.  Among the juniors, only Sumant have  experience playing in international tournaments abroad.

If I’m not mistaken, it’s have been more then 10 years since our country held a single round robin tournament for the top players. It will be interesting  to see our IMs – Mas, Jimmy, Mok and Yee Weng battle against each other in this  round robin tournament.  In 2009, we saw the  top players playing in the same tournament -  Malaysian Master which use the  knock out system. The tournament   was won by our numero uno – IM Mashafizul.

Let see if our junior  headed by newly crowned National Master – Lim Zhou Ren together with Sumant and co.  can produce a worthy challenge against the old guard. 

IM Mashafizul vs Sumant Subramaniam at Maverick Rapid last February.

In the women section, there is 5 title players ( NWM Nurul Huda and Tan Li Ting, WCM Fong Mi Yen, WFM Nur Najiha Azman and WCM Nur Nabila Azman ) and also 5 untitled players ( Sarika Subramaniam, Camilia Johari, Tang Khar Khei, Puteri Rifqah Azhar and Puteri Munajjah Azhar). The only senior player in the list is  NWM Nurul Huda Wahiduddin. In term of age, there is  at least 20 years gap between Nurul and the other juniors. 

All the best to all the players!