8th MBSSKL Open Chess Tournament: Update#1

This event had saw a combined turn-out of 163 players for the seven categories organised. As usual, Under-14 Boys had attracted a total of 67 players where majority of them are children below aged 12 y.o.

The pre-tournament favorite is none other than 9 y.o. Lye Lik Zang with NR 1708 (July 2013 release). This ranked him @ a spectacular 32nd position among 6700 children below aged 20 y.o. with National Rating.  There are 3 other players within 110 rating points range that can poised a treat to stop him from being the youngest player to win U-14 title. The hosting school is hoping Darrel Yap, the defending champion but is seeded 2nd for this edition, can bring honour for the school.

As for the U-17 Boys, the school is relying on top seed Shreyes Subramaniam (NR 1811 - Ranked 20th in Msia among children 20 y.o. and below) and third seed Tan Wei Hao who had just won 2nd The Summit Juniors U-16 title on last Sunday so that they are able to continue in keeping-up with the tradition that this title remains at MBSSKL.

While in the U-23 Boys, the hosting school can rely on Defending Champion to deliver the title just like last year.

All-in-all, the hosting school can bet on at least two titles.

In the U-14 Girls, the hot favourite to win this category is Nithyalakshmi Sivanesan with NR 1700. She had 229 points advantage over her nearest rival, Melanie Koo Wei Wei. It should be loop-sided affair.

In the U-17 Girls, the two favourites to win are Pavitranayagi Jayamurthey (NR 1666) and Rosamund Koo Wei Xin who are just separated by 84 rating points.

As for the U-23 Girls, there isn't any clear favourite as the players are either unrated or have a low ratings. Just like the U-23 Girls, there is also no favourite among the 9 contestants in the Special Education Category.