Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Chinese New Year 2010!
Well well well, look who's back. ME!
I reached home from Kelantan yesterday night. I went there for 5 days and 4 nights. If it sounds like a vacation it's not. It's a celebration! Chinese new year oh yea!
This year I was hesitating to go back or not. After much consideration, I've decided to go to my father's hometown anyway. And I think it was the right thing to do!
Day 1: Set off at 6.06am. After about 11 hours of tormenting-ass-hurting-nerve-wrecking-car-ride, reached Kota Bharu, was kinda late, had dinner at Pizza Hut. Bought two new clothes. My only two new year clothes -.-
Day 2: Down to KB. Meet some friends and family. Cousins of course. Had dinner at Noodle station. Yum. Finally got to use Wi-Fi but realise that there wasn't much to do online anyways.
Day 3: Played pool and bowling. Great experience. Still, I never knew the difference between pool, snooker, and billiard. Stayed with cousin Shaun and the rest for dinner while my rest of my family had a barbecue and my dad's friend's. Things were kinda slow and dinner ended only at 10+pm. And when we got back, it's card time. I don't like to call it gambling, I prefer to say that we're encouraging cash flow. LOL. Won a few dollars. Nothing to big of a deal. Got to chat with cousin Alina and Mei Shia. I always thought it was Michelle. Thought wrong I guess. And of course Zi Yan Zi Wei Zi Qing was there to have fun too. They were um, energetic. Haha.
Day 4: Lunched with everyone. Cousin Shaun, Brenden, Aaron, Dan, Dean, went back to Singapore. Right after that I stopped by An Lok Coffeeshop to have a game of chess with the old elderly there. He's my grandmother's sister's husband's brother. Whose surname is also Au. Or is it Aw.. I think Aw. Anyways, he's kinda well known in Kelantan's chess league so yea it was definitely an honour playing who I would call a master. Lost the first two, won the third, lost the fourth, drew the fifth. Kinda crappy on my part but it was great fun. During night time, played cards with Chee Hong and Mei Shia and my sister who eventually quit because of 'financial difficulties.' It was awesome.
Day 5: Home sweet home. Right after another 12 hours in the car.
I just realised something, we went there five days and actually spent one whole day in the car. That sounds really really stupid. Hope to go by plane for the years ahead. Still, not my decision. Happy Chinese New Year people =)
I reached home from Kelantan yesterday night. I went there for 5 days and 4 nights. If it sounds like a vacation it's not. It's a celebration! Chinese new year oh yea!
This year I was hesitating to go back or not. After much consideration, I've decided to go to my father's hometown anyway. And I think it was the right thing to do!
Day 1: Set off at 6.06am. After about 11 hours of tormenting-ass-hurting-nerve-wrecking-car-ride, reached Kota Bharu, was kinda late, had dinner at Pizza Hut. Bought two new clothes. My only two new year clothes -.-
Day 2: Down to KB. Meet some friends and family. Cousins of course. Had dinner at Noodle station. Yum. Finally got to use Wi-Fi but realise that there wasn't much to do online anyways.
Day 3: Played pool and bowling. Great experience. Still, I never knew the difference between pool, snooker, and billiard. Stayed with cousin Shaun and the rest for dinner while my rest of my family had a barbecue and my dad's friend's. Things were kinda slow and dinner ended only at 10+pm. And when we got back, it's card time. I don't like to call it gambling, I prefer to say that we're encouraging cash flow. LOL. Won a few dollars. Nothing to big of a deal. Got to chat with cousin Alina and Mei Shia. I always thought it was Michelle. Thought wrong I guess. And of course Zi Yan Zi Wei Zi Qing was there to have fun too. They were um, energetic. Haha.
Day 4: Lunched with everyone. Cousin Shaun, Brenden, Aaron, Dan, Dean, went back to Singapore. Right after that I stopped by An Lok Coffeeshop to have a game of chess with the old elderly there. He's my grandmother's sister's husband's brother. Whose surname is also Au. Or is it Aw.. I think Aw. Anyways, he's kinda well known in Kelantan's chess league so yea it was definitely an honour playing who I would call a master. Lost the first two, won the third, lost the fourth, drew the fifth. Kinda crappy on my part but it was great fun. During night time, played cards with Chee Hong and Mei Shia and my sister who eventually quit because of 'financial difficulties.' It was awesome.
Day 5: Home sweet home. Right after another 12 hours in the car.
I just realised something, we went there five days and actually spent one whole day in the car. That sounds really really stupid. Hope to go by plane for the years ahead. Still, not my decision. Happy Chinese New Year people =)
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Sins quiz
| Greed: | Medium | |
| Gluttony: | Medium | |
| Wrath: | Medium | |
| Sloth: | Medium | |
| Envy: | Very Low | |
| Lust: | Very Low | |
| Pride: | High |
The Seven Deadly Sins Quiz on 4degreez.com
Fated to be eighth. 8 f8.
Yeap it's another boring post about another chess tournament I took part last weekend. Represented my school in MSSD. Great experience. It was most fun.
Day 1 started quite well. Reached school early in the morning, and soon enough my new downloaded ipod app chess clock was in use. Practiced a few rounds with my buddies and set out. Said to start at eight. But this is Malaysia, we all know very well, so it wasn't a surprise when the first game started at about 10am.
First round was against a malay dude, Imran. He played well, but not well enough. A win for me.
Second round was Siqit. Another malay guy. I noticed that Malays have the tendency to push their pawns only one sqaure forward in the openings. I'm not racist. He was better than Imran. Mated him in 37 moves.
Round 3 was Aliff. ANOTHER MALAY. Why? No idea. Same school with Siqit. He said that he plan to avenge Siqit. In a friendly tone though. Haha yea chess makes people friends. This one was interesting. He was good. The opening was a verosov by him. For your information the verosov is currently my favourite weapon as white. So yea it was fun tasting my own medicine. And it was sweet. LOL. He made tactical blunders and got mated in 21 moves.
Last round of day 1, round 4. Opponent, Haikal. DON'T ASK WHY. Got to a position that favours me, kudos verosov. He's definitely by far the best I've faced in the tournament. I castled queen side and had the edge. I was confident in claiming victory but for strategical reasons, I offered a draw and of course he gladly accepted it. We continued playing on just for fun and he lost in about 5 moves. LOL. Still, it was a draw.
Reason : At the time I was at table 6 if I'm not mistaken. By the way, the tables represents ranking. Meaning that table 1 had the top ranked player and table 62 yea the weakest. So if I were to win that game, I would go up to maybe table 3 or 4. Which will lead to a tough opponent, and probably losing the game. So by drawing I might stay around table 7 but I'm very comfortable with it. Hope the draw doesn't jeopardize my chances of winning.
Day 2 yay! Last day as well. Three more rounds. Round 5, table 6 was against Chan Chun Yi. I played black. Sicilian defence. My cup of tea. It was really a dynamic game. He wasn't that sharp. And gave me lots of opportunities to play crazy moves and blow some tactical shots. Gave up a few pawns but mated quickly in 15 moves. Really glad about this one. A beautiful game.
But joy ended in game 6. I rose up to table 4. My opponent was Leslie. Who's leslie anyway? He's a superb player that has quite a name in Johor's chess league. Many label him as a national player. I played white and tried the verosov as well. He avoided it and fianchettoed his bishop. I missed a move and he got a pawn out of that. I went on losing the game. Ugh. He clearly outplayed me. Great game. Ouch though.
Last and final game at table 7. Notice that I dropped from table 6 to 7 because I've lost the game before. So my ranking will drop as well. I once dropped from table 2 to table 30+ in a tournament. That time I lost to a guy who was also in this event.
Anyways, last round versus Vivendran. So far, I had never lost a final game. Hope it'll be the same. Queen' gambit declined was played. Not bad but he was nothing fresh, people read too much books. I overpowered him through combinations and eventually won the game.
So in the end, I had a score of 5.5. 5 wins. 1 loss. 1 draw. SM 4. JE. 4.5. Great job guys, especially JE, first timer. SM said that he has no more tissue. haha. You guys probably don't know what I mean. Bla bla bla. I got eighth place. Like I did last year. =) Didn't get a chance to represent JB though, still, had lots of fun.
* Renitha (from the last post) won 1st place in female under 18 category. Won all 7 of her games. Scary huh. haha.
* We spent some time with En Chow. Got to know more about him. Really really interesting teacher. Haha. Fun.
Day 1 started quite well. Reached school early in the morning, and soon enough my new downloaded ipod app chess clock was in use. Practiced a few rounds with my buddies and set out. Said to start at eight. But this is Malaysia, we all know very well, so it wasn't a surprise when the first game started at about 10am.
First round was against a malay dude, Imran. He played well, but not well enough. A win for me.
Second round was Siqit. Another malay guy. I noticed that Malays have the tendency to push their pawns only one sqaure forward in the openings. I'm not racist. He was better than Imran. Mated him in 37 moves.
Round 3 was Aliff. ANOTHER MALAY. Why? No idea. Same school with Siqit. He said that he plan to avenge Siqit. In a friendly tone though. Haha yea chess makes people friends. This one was interesting. He was good. The opening was a verosov by him. For your information the verosov is currently my favourite weapon as white. So yea it was fun tasting my own medicine. And it was sweet. LOL. He made tactical blunders and got mated in 21 moves.
Last round of day 1, round 4. Opponent, Haikal. DON'T ASK WHY. Got to a position that favours me, kudos verosov. He's definitely by far the best I've faced in the tournament. I castled queen side and had the edge. I was confident in claiming victory but for strategical reasons, I offered a draw and of course he gladly accepted it. We continued playing on just for fun and he lost in about 5 moves. LOL. Still, it was a draw.
Reason : At the time I was at table 6 if I'm not mistaken. By the way, the tables represents ranking. Meaning that table 1 had the top ranked player and table 62 yea the weakest. So if I were to win that game, I would go up to maybe table 3 or 4. Which will lead to a tough opponent, and probably losing the game. So by drawing I might stay around table 7 but I'm very comfortable with it. Hope the draw doesn't jeopardize my chances of winning.
Day 2 yay! Last day as well. Three more rounds. Round 5, table 6 was against Chan Chun Yi. I played black. Sicilian defence. My cup of tea. It was really a dynamic game. He wasn't that sharp. And gave me lots of opportunities to play crazy moves and blow some tactical shots. Gave up a few pawns but mated quickly in 15 moves. Really glad about this one. A beautiful game.
But joy ended in game 6. I rose up to table 4. My opponent was Leslie. Who's leslie anyway? He's a superb player that has quite a name in Johor's chess league. Many label him as a national player. I played white and tried the verosov as well. He avoided it and fianchettoed his bishop. I missed a move and he got a pawn out of that. I went on losing the game. Ugh. He clearly outplayed me. Great game. Ouch though.
Last and final game at table 7. Notice that I dropped from table 6 to 7 because I've lost the game before. So my ranking will drop as well. I once dropped from table 2 to table 30+ in a tournament. That time I lost to a guy who was also in this event.
Anyways, last round versus Vivendran. So far, I had never lost a final game. Hope it'll be the same. Queen' gambit declined was played. Not bad but he was nothing fresh, people read too much books. I overpowered him through combinations and eventually won the game.
So in the end, I had a score of 5.5. 5 wins. 1 loss. 1 draw. SM 4. JE. 4.5. Great job guys, especially JE, first timer. SM said that he has no more tissue. haha. You guys probably don't know what I mean. Bla bla bla. I got eighth place. Like I did last year. =) Didn't get a chance to represent JB though, still, had lots of fun.
* Renitha (from the last post) won 1st place in female under 18 category. Won all 7 of her games. Scary huh. haha.
* We spent some time with En Chow. Got to know more about him. Really really interesting teacher. Haha. Fun.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Ready set go home!
And it was a beautiful saturday morning. Minus the fact that I had to wake up like 7 in the morning for a chess competition. Still, who could resist the temptation of checkmates? This time round it's the Rakan Muda open tournament 2010. I received a call a while ago from Mr Nara, the president of the JB Chess Club, an invitation to take part in the event. Sure enough I agreed to it, but one guy seemed a bit too lonely perhaps? Ah yes, how could I have forgotten my dear buddy Soon Ming!
So uh my mum dropped both of us at the Rakan Muda club house thingy. Walked around and saw that the event will be taking place in a air-conditioned room! yay, how pleasant. Too bad there wasn't a jacket with me, which there normally would be. So after waiting a while we registered and sat down. Oh yea by the way, Soon Ming looks like a pauper.
Nara talked a lot crap. Lalala I supppose. Only started first round at 10.10am. My first opponent was a little kid. Was at table 6. He lasted for about 20 moves and was no more. LOL. Soon Ming won his first match as well. Claps.
Round 2, fight! Um...a young malay girl as well. I think this is really unfair. They let all the young kids compete in the same category. There was no category at all. So there's like a 16 year-old bullying a 8-year-old. I feel guilty. Still, the kid could be the next Kasparov. Or not. She was gone in about 15 moves. SM did well too. Killed it..
Then another 8 year old girl. Oh my.. to my surprise, she is fantastic for her age! At first I was like, hmmm another one I see.. but I when I saw her playing the queens gambit. I started to sweat! No way, this lil girl isn't a pushover, she knows her opening well. Though she made a fatal blunder. Checkmated her. Yikes. And so Soonming won as well. 3 points for both of us.
Oh my god, round 4. RENITHA. If you look back at my post on the Tebrau Open 2009, you will know that she beat me once in that event. It was harsh. A literal checkmate that I didn't saw coming. So this time of course I was nervous, by that time she was at table 1 every round, switching seats for black and white. So when I got up to the table, the first thing I said to her is... HI =). Haha yea, acting calm I guess. She definitely did a lot of studies on chess books, so I planned to take her out of her realm, I chose an unorthodox opening, Verosov. It was a success, I got to a position which I like a lot, and things didn't look bright for her. Although there wasn't an material inequality, I felt that I had a slight edge of the game. I played well and kept on pushing pushing, got her really shaken. All was well until the last few moves. I was a pawn ahead and I hadn't calculate the endgame well. One wrong move, I was gone. She penetrated my position and wiped out all that was left. Ugh... 2nd lost to her. The same person. Wasn't a great feeling. Soon Ming drew his game to a primary school kid. hahaha. So its 3 for me and 3.5 for him. I had to make a comeback.
After we lunched, it was round 5. I was up against a malay guy. I was kinda frustrated so I played quickly and agressively. I did won the game but I thought that he could've exploited my weaknesses at a few points of the game. He wasn't easy but was clearly outcalculated by me. Victory. SM drew his game again. 4 for both of us.
Soon it was the last round, if I was gonna get a spot in the top 8 I had to win this round. My opponent was um.. Hafiz I think. He beat the older brother of the 8 year old girl which I played in the earlier rounds. His brother was clearly strong, and Hafiz beat him. So I know I was up against a biggy. Um I chose the Verosov once again and it served me well. I had a few tactical blows on him and soon he went down. Wasn't that tough I guess. Mr Ng aka Latuk won his last round as well. Oh yea I was at table 5 and he was at 4 at the time. So in the end it's 5 points for both of us. 5 wins and 1 loss for me, 4 wins and 2 draws for SM.
In the end, I got 4th place and SM got 5th. We both received RM30. Wasn't much but yea it was not bad. Considering my first tournament in getting the 4th place. The actual fact is that all the good players weren't here. Kulai-er, skudai-er all absent. So wasn't really proud as well. And of course, Renitha got first place. I got so close to beating her that some were surprised that I made a mistake in the end cause they had left the table when they saw a winning position for me. Still, things happen. No hard feelings. Guess I'll have to hope for a chance to trounce her next time. =)
MSSD this weekend! Yay, no school for me. Rentas desa? So long !
*I wanna upload photos but my pc can't sense my phone!!!*
So uh my mum dropped both of us at the Rakan Muda club house thingy. Walked around and saw that the event will be taking place in a air-conditioned room! yay, how pleasant. Too bad there wasn't a jacket with me, which there normally would be. So after waiting a while we registered and sat down. Oh yea by the way, Soon Ming looks like a pauper.
Nara talked a lot crap. Lalala I supppose. Only started first round at 10.10am. My first opponent was a little kid. Was at table 6. He lasted for about 20 moves and was no more. LOL. Soon Ming won his first match as well. Claps.
Round 2, fight! Um...a young malay girl as well. I think this is really unfair. They let all the young kids compete in the same category. There was no category at all. So there's like a 16 year-old bullying a 8-year-old. I feel guilty. Still, the kid could be the next Kasparov. Or not. She was gone in about 15 moves. SM did well too. Killed it..
Then another 8 year old girl. Oh my.. to my surprise, she is fantastic for her age! At first I was like, hmmm another one I see.. but I when I saw her playing the queens gambit. I started to sweat! No way, this lil girl isn't a pushover, she knows her opening well. Though she made a fatal blunder. Checkmated her. Yikes. And so Soonming won as well. 3 points for both of us.
Oh my god, round 4. RENITHA. If you look back at my post on the Tebrau Open 2009, you will know that she beat me once in that event. It was harsh. A literal checkmate that I didn't saw coming. So this time of course I was nervous, by that time she was at table 1 every round, switching seats for black and white. So when I got up to the table, the first thing I said to her is... HI =). Haha yea, acting calm I guess. She definitely did a lot of studies on chess books, so I planned to take her out of her realm, I chose an unorthodox opening, Verosov. It was a success, I got to a position which I like a lot, and things didn't look bright for her. Although there wasn't an material inequality, I felt that I had a slight edge of the game. I played well and kept on pushing pushing, got her really shaken. All was well until the last few moves. I was a pawn ahead and I hadn't calculate the endgame well. One wrong move, I was gone. She penetrated my position and wiped out all that was left. Ugh... 2nd lost to her. The same person. Wasn't a great feeling. Soon Ming drew his game to a primary school kid. hahaha. So its 3 for me and 3.5 for him. I had to make a comeback.
After we lunched, it was round 5. I was up against a malay guy. I was kinda frustrated so I played quickly and agressively. I did won the game but I thought that he could've exploited my weaknesses at a few points of the game. He wasn't easy but was clearly outcalculated by me. Victory. SM drew his game again. 4 for both of us.
Soon it was the last round, if I was gonna get a spot in the top 8 I had to win this round. My opponent was um.. Hafiz I think. He beat the older brother of the 8 year old girl which I played in the earlier rounds. His brother was clearly strong, and Hafiz beat him. So I know I was up against a biggy. Um I chose the Verosov once again and it served me well. I had a few tactical blows on him and soon he went down. Wasn't that tough I guess. Mr Ng aka Latuk won his last round as well. Oh yea I was at table 5 and he was at 4 at the time. So in the end it's 5 points for both of us. 5 wins and 1 loss for me, 4 wins and 2 draws for SM.
In the end, I got 4th place and SM got 5th. We both received RM30. Wasn't much but yea it was not bad. Considering my first tournament in getting the 4th place. The actual fact is that all the good players weren't here. Kulai-er, skudai-er all absent. So wasn't really proud as well. And of course, Renitha got first place. I got so close to beating her that some were surprised that I made a mistake in the end cause they had left the table when they saw a winning position for me. Still, things happen. No hard feelings. Guess I'll have to hope for a chance to trounce her next time. =)
MSSD this weekend! Yay, no school for me. Rentas desa? So long !
*I wanna upload photos but my pc can't sense my phone!!!*
Monday, February 1, 2010
Aikido Intensive Training after-math
The intensive training was in 2009, it lasted for 1 whole week. Along the way we took videos hopefully to see some improvement from viewing the before and after footages. I had to say, the DVD sensei made didn't look easy at all, I guess it's all effort and the wonder of mac. There's practice footages of all of those who took part in it.
Was at dojo to watch those goodies last saturday. Just back from Rakan Muda chess competition. As a result, damn freaking tired. My brain is partially asleep. Or unconscious. I will blog about that in a future post. Gonna be a long one.
Before everyone had arrived. Enjoyed some interesting videos, mostly funny ones. Then when everyone settled down, we shared our opinion on the intensive training and what we have gained from it. It was interesting look at some people just standing there speechless while others just couldn't stand still, scratching nose, hands in pockets and so on. Still, everyone got a chance to voice out their perspectives.
And the we ate. It was quite a feast, um there was like 50 chicken wings, two pizzas, spaghetti with sauce and CHEESE, currypuff, and a whole bunch of titbits. I hadn't had time to take dinner at home so yea I was in for a treat.
Then we have magic time! Yay, my time. I hadn't had time to plan much for what I was performing, so I just kinda went a long with the 'feel'. Started of with stranger's gallery, crowd was rather cold. LOL. tough crowd I see. Then um jazz aces but done with tens. Which was a really really bad idea. Ten, eights, and nines looked alike. Agh. I bet half of them had no idea what was I conjuring. A few more then I asked for a request trick. Sensei proposed ace assembly. So uh I did repro retro, I think it went well, considering it the first live performance of that trick. Then um ambitious card routine. Wow, a real challenges. I wasn't doing that trick for a quite a while. So I had to made up stuff but I thought that overall it was okay, at least there were sounds of ' eh??!!' and 'huh?!!'. Finally, displayed my creation, yeap. Did it right. Still a bit unsmooth though.
And of course there's always the audience who went 'TEACH US ONE !'. And so I did. The easiest one. I bet there isn't any trick that is easier and one might say good? So If anyone wants to learn one decent card trick that doesn't require much practice and in fact just using 2 cards, this is the one for you!
Gah, tired. Slept. Slam my face on my bed.
Was at dojo to watch those goodies last saturday. Just back from Rakan Muda chess competition. As a result, damn freaking tired. My brain is partially asleep. Or unconscious. I will blog about that in a future post. Gonna be a long one.
Before everyone had arrived. Enjoyed some interesting videos, mostly funny ones. Then when everyone settled down, we shared our opinion on the intensive training and what we have gained from it. It was interesting look at some people just standing there speechless while others just couldn't stand still, scratching nose, hands in pockets and so on. Still, everyone got a chance to voice out their perspectives.
And the we ate. It was quite a feast, um there was like 50 chicken wings, two pizzas, spaghetti with sauce and CHEESE, currypuff, and a whole bunch of titbits. I hadn't had time to take dinner at home so yea I was in for a treat.
Then we have magic time! Yay, my time. I hadn't had time to plan much for what I was performing, so I just kinda went a long with the 'feel'. Started of with stranger's gallery, crowd was rather cold. LOL. tough crowd I see. Then um jazz aces but done with tens. Which was a really really bad idea. Ten, eights, and nines looked alike. Agh. I bet half of them had no idea what was I conjuring. A few more then I asked for a request trick. Sensei proposed ace assembly. So uh I did repro retro, I think it went well, considering it the first live performance of that trick. Then um ambitious card routine. Wow, a real challenges. I wasn't doing that trick for a quite a while. So I had to made up stuff but I thought that overall it was okay, at least there were sounds of ' eh??!!' and 'huh?!!'. Finally, displayed my creation, yeap. Did it right. Still a bit unsmooth though.
And of course there's always the audience who went 'TEACH US ONE !'. And so I did. The easiest one. I bet there isn't any trick that is easier and one might say good? So If anyone wants to learn one decent card trick that doesn't require much practice and in fact just using 2 cards, this is the one for you!
Gah, tired. Slept. Slam my face on my bed.
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