Second leg of Penang Age Group was held at SJKC Peng Bin, the participants are a lot lesser compare to the First leg which was held at Tanjung Bungah Beach Hotel. (See PAG 1st Leg Report, to check out how the 1st leg winner fair in 2nd leg) The absent of some major top players from Penang Island is due to their participation in various chess tournament held in Kuala Lumpur. Nevertheless, the excitement in this tournament is not any lesser to the first one.

The tournament has slight change of pairing due to insufficient participants in certain age group, that is, 1 pairing for boys and 1 pairing for girls. This change has pros and cons to certain players but we see it as good exposure to the young one because if they were to maintain their billing, they have to fight against the older one. Beside, in the absent of top players, the young one has good chance of producing some wins against the “not-so-top” older players.

Details the event is available at Penang Age Group Chess Championship 2007 - 2nd Leg.

PAG 2nd Leg’s venue, SJK(C) Peng Bin.

PAG Second leg, start off with a delay of 10mins due to wrong arrangement of table in the hall. The pairing handler is Mr. Tan Eng Seong, while Mr. Lim Poay Sim is the arbiter for the boys section and Mr. Tan Eu Hong is the arbiter for girls section. (All are from Penang Chess Association).

Correct way of hall arrangement

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First round about to start, but still has got 2 players wondering around… taking final glance on some variation?

Boys section favorite and top seed, Keok Kai En, National Rating 1344

And in girl’s section, pretty, favorite and top seed Tang Kar Khei, National Rating 1331

The results, round by round, is very unpredictable. This is quite natural as younger kids(under 10) are more inconsistent. But then they did produce some important upset : 8-year-old Kelly Lim beat 15 years old Koay Hui Yin with the black pieces in round 4 while in round 5, 7-year-old Teoh Ern Sheng checkmated 11-year-old Daniel Yeap in 10 moves!

Some interesting scene in PAG :

This girl in full of concentration...	Distracted!? (Yew Yun Han, U8G)
“I remember my coach asked me not to resign…” (Lau Jun Wei vs Ang Zhen Wei, round 2)	At round 4, surprisingly it is ‘old’ vs young  : Table 1, Koay Hui Yin U16G vs Kelly Lim U8G, Table 2, Tang Kar Khei U12G vs Fairuz, U10G, Table 3, Fatin U12G vs Tan Jia Yun U8G. Result : 2-1 favours ‘old’
It’s lunch time!!	It’s time to think again… (Gan Leong Sitt, U12B)
“aiya… no eye see liao…” (Tan Jia Yun, round 5)	“Hmm... never see this position before...” (Janet Tan, round 5)
“She stops my scholar’s mate…my queen is safe, what about the bishop?” (The youngest participant, 5 years old Khaw Ker Shean vs Oo Zhi Ling, round 6	The critical round 6 : Table 1, Lim Xiang Jian vs Keok Kai En(0-1) and Table 2, Teoh Ern Tek vs Cheng Zai Chern(1-0).
“Isn’t this a draw position?” (Cheng Zai Chern vs Lok Jian Ming, round 7, in a R+B vs R endgame)	sms result to my mother… from left : Lok Jian Ming, Chong Shao Hong and Keok Kai En.

13 years old Keok Kai En lived up to his top billing throughout the tournament. He wins all with perfect 7/7. In girls section, 11-year-old Fatin Masyitah emerge overall champion with 6.5/7.

Since there are insufficient players in some category(especially in boys section), the organizer decided to take a little more time, to sort out the prizes as logical as they possibly achievable, to give out all the prizes. Despite this, and in addition to printing the certificate of Achievement/Participation with players name, we managed to end everything at 5.10pm (which is 30 minutes earlier than the scheduled time). A well organized tournament! (Syabas PCA!!) The return trip, however, was a bit slow due to massive jam at the Penang bridge tol area. PCA bus manage to reached PFS bus stop around 6.10pm and this ends everyone trips happily...

The winners are :

Some more photos :

Keok Kai En is the overall champion with perfect 7/7.	Father and son? Just joking la... Third placing Bryan Ooi, U08B with Mr. Tan Eu Hong
Janet Tan Jia Yin is the U16G champion on both PAG 1st leg and 2nd leg. Is this the best one can achieve? Please see Kelly Lim	8-year-old Kelly Lim is U08G champion in first leg and upgraded to U10G champion in second leg! (overall, 3rd placing)
Teoh Ern Tek came back strongly to take the U10B champion after a poor outing at PAG 1st leg	Lim Xiang Jian shows improvement in his play and wins U12B category with only lost to Keok Kai En.
Girls category overall Champion, Fatin Masyitah bt. Masud, 6.5/7	Teoh Ern Sheng shows great fighting spirit and creating some cunning traps – an important phase in development of chess and a totally deserved U08B champion
All U08 category winners with Mr. Tan Eu Hong (in white) and Mr. Tan Eng Seong (in blue)	And bye-bye, see you next year!

Thanks to Mr. Lee for sponsoring the medals and SJKC Peng Bin for providing tournament hall and arranging the tables.

And also special thanks to Mr. Teoh Siang Chye and Mrs. Tio Ah See, for taking good care of all young participants in the bus.

Complete result is available at the official website of Penang Chess Association

Winners || Boys' Result || Girls' Result

About Author

PS Lim is a chess enthusiast. He is also a successful coach in Penang, having produced two U12 Penang champions for two consecutive years in 2006 and 2007. Before becoming a coach in 2006, he was active in competitive chess for many years. His "retirement" from competitive chess has not stopped him from investing his time and efforts in the development of chess in Penang, especially in guiding young players to become successful chess players.