FIDE Arbiter Seminar concluded successfully.....

The FIDE Arbiter Seminar concluded on Sunday with great success for all the participants involved. Whilst MCF target of achieving a 100% passes fell slightly short of its target, all the attendees agreed that they had gained a lot of knowledge, experience and valuable insights that were provided by the lecturers - IA Bunawan of Indonesia and IA Ignatius Leong of Singapore who is also the FIDE Secretary General. IA Leong hands on experiences especially in relating to his involvement and rationale in proposing some of the rules and regulations used by FIDE today provided an eye opener and depth for the participants as they now understand why certain rules and regulations were created and enforced.
The seminar was attended by 23 aspiring arbiters from all over the country - from as far as Sabah and Sarawak, including those form Kelantan, Pahang, Selangor, Penang and Perak. The biggest group were from Johor with 4 representatives. There were also 4 lady participants taking part in the seminar including MCF Vice President, Haslinda Ruslan, and Yip Chin Chin from Sarawak. The seminar also had one Filipino participant in Josephine Berago.During the 4 days session, participants were taught on the Swiss Pairing and the concept and methodology behind the system, FIDE Rules of Chess, Rating and Tournament Regulations including Title Regulation and tips and pointers on organizing and managing FIDE rated events.

In his closing speech at the end of the seminar, IA Leong was impressed with the active and lively discussions and debates that were going around between all the participants, including some which involved him as well. He commented that this was one of the better seminar he had conducted because of the input provided by some of the participants, and the level of interest and eagerness displayed by most of the attendees.

Local arbiter Najib Abdul Wahab came up on top of the class followed by IM Mok Tze Meng and Kelantanese Nik Ahmad Farouqi Nik Aziz. Other notable passes includes Khairunissa Wahiduddin, Haslindah Ruslan, Nik Azrihan, Hamdan Osman, Narayanan Krishnan and locals Collin Madhavan and Jax Tham. All who attended the seminar received a Certificate of Attendance given out by IA Leong himself.With the success of the FIDE Arbiter seminar, MCF is now in talks again with FIDE to conduct the FIDE Trainers Seminar and a similar Arbiter Seminar at the National level to create more competent arbiters who are interested to learn more about organizing, managing and running chess events and tournaments.