Monday, September 27, 2010

Ben sees red as match-fixing scandal resurfaced

This year's Singapore Polytechnic Chess Open once again ended in dramatic style.

A volcanic Benjamin Tan burst out of the tournament room and went straight home before the last round, the Singaporean leading chess star refused to entertain the host further when his suspicious of the match-fixing scandal exceeded its limit.

A year ago in this very same event Ben raised the same complain, but any allegation was quickly denied by the organizer. This year Ben's suspicious grew when he found out that Singapore Polytechnic are using a tie-break system to protect their player from the top spots, at the same time feeding them with "easier opponents". He also found out that the organizer delibrately send three leading foreign players from NTU to "take him out".

Said Ben just before his dramatic storm off "those three (NTU) players are not going to affect me too much, but it certainly forces me to take the longer path to victory as compared to that SP guy who had a considerable more comfortable time, also the tie-break system they adopted is specially designed to benefit their own players and target me, you call that fair ? very clearly SP are trying to protect their own player, and I as an outsider has no say, forget it ! If they wants to win so badly so be it, I'm done with what I have to say goodbye".

Ben also vow not to come back to this tournament ever again.

A fury Ben promised to follow up in this issue and might even call in the World Chess Federation for further investigation if neccessary.