Brunei's Yee Soon Wei (2nd L) in
action against Yemen's Ali Nasser
Al-Zandani during their match at
the 4th Asian Indoor & Martial
Arts Games yesterday. Picture:
Courtesy of Tahir Vakhidov
Yee Soon Wei can look back at a successful 4th Asian Indoor & Martial Arts Games (AIMAG) campaign after the country's top-ranked chess player finished with 3.5 points out of a possible seven in the men's classical event.
His sole competition came to a close at Yonsei University's International campus yesterday where he won one match and drew the other for a total of three wins, one draw and three losses in his seven-match, four-day tournament.
The World Chess Federation/FIDE Master (FM) started the event ranked 34th but will end 28th in the field of 50 players, no mean feat considering the world-class opponents he has been going up against here in Incheon.
Five other players finished with the same amount of points but Yee finished 28th after a tie-break.
Though he might have moved up six spots in the tournament ranking, his world ranking of 2234 remains the same.
"Our target was three points (so) 3.5 is very good result," said national coach Tahir Vakhidov.
"He was only half a point away from many Grand Masters (GMs).
"He played the same way throughout the tournament but the last round against the International Master (IM) was very important," added Vakhidov of Yee's draw against Ali Nasser Al-Zandani Zendan.
Yee won yesterday's first match against Nepali Candidate Master (CM) Prachanda Man Malakar in the morning before facing Ali Nasser in the afternoon.
Yee started off on Sunday with a loss to Uzbekistani Grand Master (GM) Dzhumaev Marat, bounced back on Monday by beating Maldives' CM Hassan Mohamed but would lose his second match to Indonesian IM Farid Firman Syah.
He then took down Macau CM Joel Celis Chang with a checkmate in what he called his "best game of the tournament" on Tuesday morning, but lost his afternon match to Qatari IM Husain Aziz Nezad in a match that Yee and Vakhidov agreed should have ended in a stalemate.
China's GM Yu Yangyi won the event on 6.5 points, with United Arab Emirates' Salem Abdulrahman Mohamed Saleh taking silver on 5.5 and China's Ding Liren bronze on 5.0.
