Lim Zhuo Ren Chess

Last weekend, I participated in a friendly team match vs Kaltim, a team who travelled all the way from Indonesia with the likes of FM Rusdin Hamdani and WIM Chelsie Monica. There were 4 teams, 3 from Malaysia and 1 from Indonesia. I was playing top board for 17CC Team A. The first day of the friendly was a double round robin Blitz ( 5 minutes ). The second day was a rapid (25 minutes each). My training partner, Wee Zhun decided to join as well to determine our progress. I will be showing you 2 of my blitz games where I played using positional understanding and general ideas instead of calculation. I scored 6/6. Wee Zhun also sent me 2 of his games in the rapid, vs IM Mas Hafizul and one of the Indonesian FM. Wee Zhun whose FIDE rating is only in the 1700s manage to draw with Mas and missed many wins against the Indonesian FM. A really slendid performance by him. Click here for Lim Zhuo Ren vs Iqro Moesa (2130) Click here for Lim Zhuo Ren vs Zaidan Zulkipli (2137) Click here...

This is a puzzle from GM Preparation: Positional Play. The puzzles in this book are generally not play and win. They are like normal games where you have to think and come up with the best way to continue, maybe you think   1. Where are my opponent's weaknesses?   2. Which is my worst placed piece? and you go from there to try and formulate a course of action. It is important to spot the idea here. I saw it in a few seconds because asking those questions have become 2nd nature to me, so much so that my brain does it automatically. After I spotted it then I just check some lines. See if you can work it out. See below for my thoughts/thinking process on the position. White to move What are my opponent's weaknesses? When I saw this position, I immediately saw that c6 was weak. You have Qa4/Ne5/Na5/Bf3 to attack it. But if it comes under too much pressure, black can simply play c5 (Important to fix a weakness). Then I saw that black could play c5 no...

Black to move This link takes you to a video of my friend and I discussing the position. If the audio isn’t clear, below is a gist of the discussion. You will see us move pieces towards the end of the video. The first move I see is Rxe4 because I don’t like Ng5. Also coz the theme is bringing all your pieces into the attack. After 1….Nh4 2.f3, no more attack. You have to take drastic measures, can’t make quiet moves. This Knight can defend the White King. Basically use your Rook to eliminate one defender. Then you have a Knight and Queen against what looks like a lone king. I’m actually looking at 1…..Bb4 now. If 2.Qe2, then I have 2…Nh4 3.f3 forced take, take and win your exchange back with err some attack. But after 1….Bb4 2.Nc3. Don’t see anything. What if 1…Re4 2.de4 Bb4 3.Qe2 Nh4 4.f3 forced, then take on e1, 4….Bxe1 5.Rxe1 Nxf3+ 6.Kf2 Nxe1 7.Kxe1 Qh1 wins e4 pawn. If 7.Qxe1, then simply 7….Qe6 fork the pawns. Black is a pawn up with better winning chances...

Here is a game I played in 2015 vs IM Yap Kim Steven from the Phillipines. I have annotated it. I basically describes my thoughts during the game. I try to keep variations to a minimum as an engine can do it better than me. Instead, I focus more on the subjective thinking and more 'human' approach. Click on IM Yap Kim Steven vs Lim Zhuo Ren

How I added to and improved the method The 2012 method, I am just passively learning. I am not pushing myself when I play through a game. The most I push myself is when I replay the game without looking at the book. What I have been doing for the past week are solving the puzzles in the Grandmaster Preparation series: Attack and Defense, endgame, Positional play, Calculation and Strategic. What I like about the puzzles is not that they are taken from real 2600-2700 GM games (which is awesome), but that a lot of the positions are not play and win in the sense that you win a piece. They are more like play and get a better position/good winning chances. Some puzzles are just like choose the best continuation. And all this mirrors a real game. What I do with my friend is we set up each new puzzle on a board and we think, actually really think and we sit opposite each other as though were playing a tournament game. This is to simulate tournament conditions. I really recommend these boo...

The training is more about constant repetitive practice. In any sport, the athletes train, run, do practice drills to keep themselves sharp and always ready. Similarly in chess, we must keep ourselves sharp by going through chess games and improving every aspect of chess (endgame, positional chess, endgame, etc). I did that using chess books. 1.        I played through chess games from Kramnik’s best games of chess, Anand’s best games, my system. You can use any book you feel will help you the best (could be Tal’s or Fischer, anyone). The idea is that you see 3-4 or more full GM chess games a day so that you would get accustomed to moves made by GMs so when you face one, you will be less nervous/afraid. You get the point right? The words I use to describe it is you see 3-4 GM games a day, in 6 months u see 200+, you don’t feel like the GM is doing anything special except maybe for a few moves here or there. After I go through each game, I will put the ...

This is my first post. Ever! I think a good way to start is to tell you how and why I decided to start writing a blog. I have 2 main reasons. Number 1 is to help you improve as a chess player. I will tell you how I got an IM norm and how you can too (Obviously if you are an IM or GM, I would learn from you). Number 2 is to help people (more applicable to kids) learn good values and lifelong character building lessons (e.g., you only fail when you fall and don’t get back up) by sharing my experiences from chess. This is something most Malaysian children find hard to experience in the classroom. I am going to combine reason 1 and reason 2 with a story now. I found out I was selected to go to Olympiad in early 2012 (around Jan). I was in University in the UK during that time. This was the ‘Opportunity’. I started training (I will tell you how I trained) every day, one session in the morning before 9 am class and another session at night before bed. I did this every day, even while ...