JULY 21 ― Close to the end of 2006, the huge success of Intchess in Singapore convinced the owners to expand to Malaysia. That Malaysian outpost evolved over the years to become KL Chess Academy which today is still in Desa Sri Hartamas, Kuala Lumpur.
At its peak, Intchess enjoyed almost total domination of the market. It had as many as 50 trainers and contracts with something like 200 schools. It could also organise tournaments for as many as 300 players on its premises while running classes concurrently on weekends.
Three years later, the boom was over; a case of perhaps expanding too widely while not being able to successfully replicate its success overseas.
I cannot speak for what happened in Singapore but in KL there was already a large number of people doing chess for a living. Teaching chess was a mainstay with all too many and while almost all were keen to join the Intchess branch in Malaysia, they all found it difficult to give up their independence and be subject to the discipline of regular work and a boss!
As the local director for the KL branch, I ended up with ownership and immediately turned over the day-to-day business of running it to a partner. It was hoped that this would be the first of a chain of Polgar Chess Asia chess enrichment centres.
When the KL Chess Academy, as it has now been rebranded, first started some 10 years ago, the one successful chess business in the city then was probably the Datuk Arthur Tan Chess Centre (DATCC) located in Wilayah Complex in Kuala Lumpur. It was run by Malaysian Chess Festival tournament director Hamid Majid with the backing of billionaire chess patron Datuk Tan Chin Nam.
There were others; mainly one-man shows without a place you could visit although some had access to a school cafeteria.
Recently there have been attempts to set up a chess business that can sustain itself around chess training. The highest profile one in Kuala Lumpur was the short-lived White Knight Academy in Mid Valley Megamall which was fully underwritten by the same Datuk Tan and headed by Jimmy Liew and his friends Colin Madhaven and Chan Kwai Keong.
But even with the dream financial and corporate support given, just three months later it closed.
There is rather more success in Penang and although most coaches there still operate as one-man businesses, using their homes or by going to the homes of their students, there is one I know of who has a business model involving renting space in tuition centres near major schools to do his teaching.
We, of course, also have Filipinos and a Russian working for long periods of time on social visit passes. Then there are the Indonesians, Chinese and Indians and of course the occasional visiting European master in between tournaments.
One very new chess business that has impressed me is AB Chess Resources (ABC) based in Putrajaya and what they are trying to do is sure to impact the future of chess in Malaysia.
Like the KL Chess Academy, ABC is run by professionals and in the case of the latter, more so as young entrepreneurs. They all have a love for chess but also bring business and organisation skill sets together with significant non-chess work experience.
ABC's founder is Noor Hafiz Bin Mohd Nor, winner of MAKSAK chess and a FIDE arbiter, and in a short time he has shown that chess has a place in the education industry.
This month, Hafiz brought on four more partners to complement what he can do himself as ABC, in its four months' existence, has already over a thousand customers using its services which includes chess event management, “live” game broadcasting, supply of chess equipment, and of course teaching through holding classes for both groups and individuals, adults and kids, and running chess camps for school children.
Besides DATCC, which is a beneficiary of Datuk Tan's largesse, only Cerdik Catur Enterpise which was founded five years ago has successfully made event organising a core business and now they have a challenger!
Perhaps it is time the Malaysian Chess Federation (MCF) and some of its less active state affiliates look to the energy of these young chess entrepreneurs and work with them.
I have long advocated that MCF, as a national sports association, in the absence of any direction, build and support our national team as that is one of the pillars of its very existence.
With a few exceptions, both MCF and its state affiliates have done nothing to promote chess in their jurisdictions, let alone organise events. Now that there are those who are willing and can do so, those in MCF and its state affiliates should at least let these real lovers of chess do their work for them!
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
