It's over. Will be packing and heading back home today. GM Dhopade ended up being the 2016 Malaysian Open Champion with a final round draw against IM Le Tuan Minh. Dhopade lead most of the tournament and the final round was thankfully not a quick 7 move draw unlike one of the games in the Open. Board one played till they had only Kings left!

It's over but my work is not done. One and a half round of Malaysian Open scoresheet to transcribe to PGN. In this age of electronic PGN game replays, I was hoping no one would be interested in buying the hardcopy printed bulletin so I could take my time finishing it. Unfortunately, there are already a number of people ordering it so I will have to complete it in a day or two.

Also pending is the picture report on the Astro team, DATCC age group tourneys. That will be posted later today when I get home :)

Overall, it's been a very good chess festival with over 1600 people being part of it! The organisation was stellar as usual. The only complaint I got was of course the tight placing of the boards because of the bigger number of players catered for this year. There was even a special disabled section which is unique and never before seen in Malaysian tourneys. It was definitely an experience.


My regrets include not having posted more on the events and getting better pictures. My DSLR camera was broke and wasn't repaired in time. Fortunately the event had an excellent cameraman in Mr Khong Wai Cheong whose photo will be used in a 2 part Chessbase article later on the festival.

After all this, this blog will probably go into deep hibernation until next year again. Will probably not be going for the Penang, Johor Open or any other tourneys unless specifically invited/sponsored to by the organisers.