Magic Moulthun AT THE WORLD OPEN

Youngest Ever Australian Junior Champion
It's possible that there's a chess player somewhere in Australia who hasn't heard of Moulthun Ly. Possible, but not very likely.

Moulthun Ly

Moulthun was the youngest ever Australian Junior Champion when he won in 2005 just two months after his thirteenth birthday.

He failed to retain the title this year but there was a very good reason—he contested the Australian Juniors and the Australian Championship simultaneously. With a workload that most players would consider impossible, Moulthun played two tough games each day while his opponents had the comparative luxury of playing only one.

With such a schedule it was necessary to take some short-cuts and Moulthun was reported to be playing virtually rapid chess in the Juniors to conserve energy for the tougher battle to come. Angela Song, who won the event to become the first female Australian Junior Champion, said that Moulthun had seemed tired during their game. She said that he missed some opportunities in their eighth-round draw. It may well have been the difference between winning the title and finishing third, as Angela and Justin Huang tied for first with 8.5 while Moulthun was only half a point behind on 8.

So how did this pocket dynamo fare in the senior event while all that was happening at junior level? He finished with six points, a full three points behind the winner, GM Ian Rogers. That placed him in a five-way tie for 8th-12th position. He was level with GM Darryl Johansen, IMs Steven Solomon and Zong-Yuan Zhao and promising junior Raymond Song. He finished ahead of a host of titled players, including George Xie, Igor Bjelobrk and Alex Wohl. Not bad, young Moulthun, not bad at all.

The World Open
Americans have a love for world titles and will promote events as world events whether they are or not. The World Series is a competition for American (and more recently Canadian) baseball teams; the Hawaii Iron Man has vied for the title with an "official" World Championship held at Nice; there was a "world record" set for a bike race between Houston and Dallas—and so it goes on.

It follows then, that when they promote a chess tournament as a "World Championship" the rest of us can assume it's nothing more than hyperbole—and we'd be right! But, apart from the title, let's take nothing away from this super tournament. Played at the Philadelphia Hilton, it was enormous.

Prizes were enormous too, and would need a completely separate report to do them justice. Enough to say that prize money totalled $500,000 with $40,000 to the winner, $20,000 second and $10,000 third. Rating prizes were equally generous with even the Under 1000 prize set at $3,000. And remember, those are US Dollars!

Of course the entry fees were high too, varying from about $US350 to $US400 (approximately $A465 to $A535) depending on early entry discounts. If we asked those entry fees in Australia there would be no tournament but there are different motivating factors in the USA, perhaps based on the well-known US mission statement: "In God we tru$t." In total there were 1461 entries and, of those, 237 were in the Open section in which Moulthun played.

Some Moulthun Magic
Moulthun scored 6/9 finishing only one point behind the winner, GM Gata Kamsky.

Nine rounds were not enough to sort out such a big field so there were multiple dead heats. Kamsky won on tie-break after a nine-way dead-heat for first. Ten more players finished half a point behind, then Moulthun featured in a 21-player dead heat for 20-40th positions. He shared the position with ten GMs (including W.S.Browne and Alex Stripunsky), 4 IMs, 5 FMs and one other untitled player.

In Round 1 Moulthun lost an exciting game to GM Giovanni Vescovi (2631), before beating Philip Collier (2200), then FM Matthew Hoekstra (2397). That brought him back to grandmaster territory again and he lost to GM Alexander Shabalov (2671) in Round 4. He beat David Bennett (2177)in Round 5, FM John Bartholomew (2452) in Round 6, before losing again, this time to IM Emilio Cordova (2577) in Round 7. It was Moulthun's last loss of the tournament and he steamed home with wins against WGM Nisha Mohota (2387) and IM Andre Florian 2449.

After the event it was revealed that Moulthun had achieved his first IM norm. It was an outstanding performance.

Already a force to be reckoned with in Australia, Moulthun has now signalled that he can more than look after himself on the world scene.

Congratulations, Moulthun Ly. You're looking like a GM in embryo.

                              —Story:   David Evans