Chess In Malaysia - Introduction

Malaysia is a fairly small country in the South East Asian region where chess is becoming more popular among its populace. Currently, it is ranked 67th in the world in terms of its average rating of its ten most highly ranked players.It is behind Philippines, Vietnam and Singapore in this respect. While Malaysia is ahead in ranked when compared to countries like Thailand, Myanmar, Brunei and South Korea. Surprisingly, Malaysia does not have a grandmaster yet, though it does have 5 International Masters, 7 FIDE Masters and 18 titled players amongst its rank.

At the moment, Indonesia could not be located on the fide.com listing, though I have a feeling that Indonesia should be ranked above Malaysia as it has a number of grandmasters amongst its chess fraternity.

The Malaysian Chess Federation is the leading chess organisation in Malaysia that is spearheading activities in Malaysia and has the Dato' Arthur Tan Chess Centre (DATCC) as its nerve center for chess activities. Nevertheless, the various state and club chess associations do conduct their own activities and tournaments in their own states or area. At the same time, one will find quite a few of the sprouting chess academies in Malaysia are also conducting their own chess tournaments and training for the benefit of the chess fraternity. There is a strong need to satisfy chess lovers and enthusiasts with some weekend activities in order to satiate their appetite for playing chess.

I am among the many that has been hit by the chess bug and an ardent follower of the various sprouting chess activities in the country. Chess is gradually snow balling into a bigger sport with more and more chess activities appearing by the day.

I hope to capture that spirit of enthusiasm for chess in the coming months on this blog and report them as it happens for the benefit of Malaysian chess lovers.