GM Ziaur Blazing Through......

The DATCC organizes its Razzmatazz Weekend Rapid on 1^st of August and the event was well attended by a lot of chess players and enthusiasts. GM Ziaur Rahman headed the list of 52 players who took part in the event which also included CM Fadli Zakaria, Kamaluddin Yusof, Muhd Nabil Azman Hisham and sisters, Nur Najiha and Nur Nabila, and MCF VP Haslindah Ruslan. Despite missing some of the more regular rapid players like Ian Udani and Abdullah Che Hassan, the tournament did not lack the nail biting and intriguing match ups and duels between some of the top ranked players. It was also one of GM Ziaur more challenging outing having to face tough oppositions from the young Puteri Munajjah in the first round of the game, Nur Nabila in the 4^th round and Kamaluddin Yusof at the last round. According to Ziaur, this was one of his tougher events in recent outings and he was impressed with the strong showing by some of the junior players notably Tan Jun Feng, Puteri Munajjah, Low Jun Jian, and siblings Nur Nabila and Muhd Nabil Azman Hisham.

After the smoke cleared, GM Ziaur prevailed and came out on top with Low Jin Jian tight at his tail at a close second, followed by Muhd Nabil, Kamaluddin Yusof and Tan Jun Feng rounding up the top 5. CM Fadli Zakaria donated 2 chess sets which were presented to Puteri Munajjah as the best U-12 girls and Amier Hamzah Muhd Zuhri as her counterpart for the boys section.

UPNM (University Pertahanan Nasional Malaysia) showed up in strong support for the event with 12 aspiring players, half of the team whom has never played in a rated event before. At their request, in response to their support, a special prize was allocated for the best UPNM player which went to Mohd Izwan Idris.

Other notable winners were Nur Nabila Azman Hisham as the Best Lady player, Haslindah Ruslan for the best player with a rating below 1600, and Vinton Wong Hsien Loong for the best player below a rating of 1400. Mohd Raimi Rahim bagged the best unrated player.

The final table and list of winners are as follows:

Final Ranking	Seeding	Name	Rtg	Pts	BH.	Placing
1	1	Ziaur Rahman	2550	7	34½	First
2	5	Low Jun Jian	1740	6	33½	second
3	2	Muhd Nabil Azman Hisham	1918	5½	30½	Third
4	3	Kamaluddin Yusof	1870	5	34	Fourth
5	7	Tan Jun Feng	1713	5	33	Fifth
6	6	Nur Nabila Azman Hisham	1732	5	31	Best Lady
9	17	Haslindah Ruslan	1508	5	25½	Best U1600
10	22	Sim Chung Seng	1441	5	24	Second U1600
12	27	Puteri Munajjah Az-Zahra Azhar	1403	4½	30	Best U-12 Girls
13	12	Puteri Rifqah Fahada Azhar	1604	4½	27½	Second U-12 Girls
14	21	Mohd Izwan Idris	1441	4½	24½	Best UPNM
16	30	Vinton Wong Hsien Loong	1356	4	26½	Best U 1400
17	16	Amier Hamzah Bin Mohd Zuhri	1523	4	25½	Best U12 Boys
19	32	Hemant Sathish	1355	4	25	Second U1400
22	35	Cheong Yi Yao	1276	4	18½	Second U12 Boys
25	47	Mohd Raimi Rahim	0	3½	27½	Best Unrated

The event was well managed as it started and ended as per the tournament schedule with the first round at 10:00am and prize giving ceremony started exactly at 6:00pm. DATCC will be organizing another Rapid Weekend sometime after Hari Raya i.e. late September, and another one sometime in December with a Rookie Tornado event scheduled in between the two rapid events.

Those who would like to learn more about events and happening at DATCC, including the upcoming Malaysia Chess Festival 2010 scheduled to start on 28 August until 8 September, do contact Najib Wahab at +6016 338 2542, or write to najib.wahab@chess-malaysia.com