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Chess 4 Life! 
By Candidate Master Collin Madhavan

When they come prepared! (Part 1)

The Pearl of the Orient, Penang or Pulau Pinang, is a beautiful island just off mainland Malaysia. This island paradise, quite apart from being a tourism haven (who can resist their tempting hawkers' food) also churns out many good chess players. This tradition of producing top players has continued to this day. And one of their main reasons why they do so well in Chess is (I think) because they work together as a team.   

This, I learnt the hard way.

At the 1981 National Championships, I was paired to play against Eric Cheah of Penang in Round 8. Here's what happened.

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bg5 e6 7. f4 Be7 8. Qf3 Qc7 
9. 0-0-0 Nbd7

The main line of the Sicilian Nadjorf variation. Here Eric chose a line that was in vogue at the time. 

Collin 

Eric (to move)

10. Bd3 h3 11. h4!? Nc5 

Taking it would have been a mistake. Eric had used 28 minutes while I used only 1 minute. Little did I know what was in store for me. 

12.f5!  .......

A novelty! I was to find out a few months later that this new move was given in Informator 21 (?), the same issue that Eric was carrying around during the Nationals. Eric was always working at his openings and  managed to get the latest games faster than most other Malaysians. And  was stumped at the board.

12 ...... hxg5 

I took 19 minutes to decide on this move. 

13.hxg5 Rxh1 14.Rxh1 Nfd7 15.Rh8+ ..........

Collin (to move)

Eric 

So far so good. I managed to solve most of my problems over the board but that was not enough. So now, do I play 15 ..... Bf8 or 15..... Nf8?

15 ..... Nf8 

This turned out to be the losing move!

16.f6 Nxd3+ 17.cxd3 gxf6 18.gxf6 Bxf6 19.Qxf6 Qe7 20.Qh6 Bd7 21.Nf5 exf5 22.Nd5 Rc8+ 23.Kb1 1–0

Eric's win was clinical. It was a nice attacking game. He had used 35 minutes compared to my 37 minutes to play the whole game. In the meantime, I was a broken man. Feeling really empty. It was as though I had to give up playing this line, as I was completely busted somewhere midway through the game. As I was making my way back to my room, my new found friend from the previous round, stopped and asked me to analyse my game with him. 

This was new to me because from where I come from (the State of Perak), we didn't do things like that, I mean, sit down to analyse positions together! But ......

We will continue this in the next issue!

Cheah - Madhavan