Of Arbitering the National Junior - 5th Edition

The 5th National Junior Chess Championship 2012 attracted only a handful of players, probably one of the lowest turn out in recent years. There were 56 players in the Boys section and another 19 in the Girls section.

Top seed for the Boys is Perakian Fong Yit San followed by fellow state man Mark Siew Kit Tze. Aron Teh is next in line followed by Low Jun Jian as the 4th seeded player. 

For the Girls section, current National Champion WCM Nur Nabila tops the list followed by younger sister Nur Najiha. Former National Champion, Tan Li Ting occupied the 3rd seed followed by Nithyalakhsmi Sivanesan of Negeri Sembilan in the 4th seed.

This year's edition seems to lack participation from out of state players, most notably from Penang and Johor. For the Girls section, Azhar's siblings of Rifqah and Munajjah including Olympiad squad Camilia Johari are also missing from the annual junior tournament. With many events running back to back and other international events being contested around the same time, perhaps the players are having an overdose of chess events.

Round 1 in the Boys section saw an early upset when Low Jun Jian, handling the black pieces, lost to Ling Zhan Yang on Board 4. Another minor upset happened on Board 5 when the higher seeded Ahmad Afiq Afyfy drew with Daryl Wong Cheng Lim.

There were no major upsets in Girls section as most of the higher seeded player managed to breeze through their first round games.

All results and pairings can be viewed at Chess Results website

Round no 2 started at 3:00pm and the event will continue tomorrow with Round 4 Round 3 to start at 9:00am

The 9 rounds Swiss is scheduled to conclude on Saturday, at about 2:00pm, followed by a Blitz tournament and the prize giving ceremony at 5:00pm

Top seed Fong Yit San (left) up against Tan Yong Zhao (right) on Table 1 Round 2

Sarika Subramaniam (left) up against National Champion WCM Nur Nabila Azman Hisham (right) on Table 1

Second seed Mark Siew (left) playing against Lim Chuin Kai (right) on Table 2 in Round 2