Interschool weiqi competition attracts record 350 students

Students taking part in the 4th Malaysian National Interschool Weiqi competition at Central i-City.

MORE than 350 local and international participants from 85 schools across Malaysia, South Korea, Japan and China took part in the 4th Malaysian National Interschool Weiqi competition.

The competition, co-hosted by Central i-City Shopping Centre and Malaysia Weiqi Association (MWA), garnered the largest number of participants since the competition was first held in 2016.

Central i-City had been working with MWA since August last year to prepare for the competition, by sponsoring 100 primary and secondary school students from Klang and Shah Alam across 10 schools to undergo a four-month series of intense professional Weiqi classes.

The classes are meant to equip participants with techniques, skills, strategy and guidelines on the art of Weiqi, a board game for two players that is known as Go in the West.

Weiqi is believed to be the oldest board game in the world, tracing its history back some 2,500 years ago in China.

“I’m pleased to announce that the participation rate for this year has increased by 500% compared to last year,” said MWA president Tiong Kee Soon.

”It is a breakthrough in the history of MWA. I also believe that the popularity of Weiqi will increase.”

Kuen Cheng Independent High, SMK Seksyen 3 Bandar Kinrara, SJKC Hua Hsia and SJKC Lick Hung emerged champions in their respective categories.

Tiong said the champions of each category will be seeded for the upcoming year-end Confucius Cup International Weiqi Competition 2019, where the top three finalists will represent Malaysia internationally as part of the Youth Weiqi team.

Central i-City’s representative Alfred Chua said: “Central i-City hopes to be the centre of life to the people of Klang and Shah Alam, by introducing and sponsoring more educational and inspiring programmes as well as events to enrich the lives of our next generation.”