The Beginning Of The End

My apologies to those of you who are getting sick of this strawman issue. I am going to settle this once and for all. Ever wonder where this assertion of everyone trying to attack FGM's ASEAN initiative comes from?

"They attack anything new. Even a training program for our Junior's before International Tournament."

Let us take a step back in time. It all began with Rationality's allegedly "slanderous" post:

Read here:


And then a few days later, Jimmy had a post that shared the link to Rationality's post:

I pretty much resolved that I will no longer respond to Mr Siew's postings - unless he starts to malign me again or attacking those things that I care about. One of this was when he said that there was a thrown game by one of the Malaysians in the last olympiad.

Rationality beat me to it here. He pretty much said all I wanted to say - its uncanny how my thoughts and feelings match up with him. I do wondor if he is my Jekyll. Come to think of it, I did go to bed very early last night...

Read carefully. It says "pretty much", not "everything". So, first of all, Jimmy agrees with MOST of what Rationality had to say, but not ALL. So there is no real reference to the ASEAN initiative. Secondly, Jimmy made an initial reference to the "thrown game" in his first paragraph, which was what he was actually probably referencing to in Rationality's post:

It's so nice of you to only implicitly make a reference to me in your post with your attempt of (humourous? I hope not) irony attached to it, but anyway, the only thing I have to add is; it's not my fault that you used the wrong word. "Throwing a game" implies a deliberate action. The miscommunication caused is not due to an incorrect interpretation on my part, but by your use of such condemning phrases, ironically, "out of context". But fine. Let's forget this. Maybe it is my fault that you didn't know what it meant to "throw a game", since you obviously don't. So okay, maybe I'm sorry.

Now, then on the same day, I shared the post:

There are two things that are missing on Rationality's blog currently. First, there has to be a "Like" button on your blog. How else are readers going to "Like" it when you write something that makes sense?

Secondly, you should also enable sharing so that users can also "repost" and share your posts.

Since I am unable to do both of the above, I suppose the best I can do is to link it:

PLEASE READ THIS !!!

P/S: You should probably allow comments as well.

Yeah, all I did was recommend a link. I did not even say if I agree or disagree with what he said. I did not even say that what he said was true or not. So where is the attack on the ASEAN initiative by Jimmy and me?

Now, for the BIG FINALE.

Check out this post. In case he deletes it, I am going to quote him here:

Good video by Jimmy
Here.

............ blablabla...... the rest you can read it from his link. Not important. So I won't waste your time with it.

Yes! He does the same type of recommendation. He even said "Good video by Jimmy". Then he gives you the link. So, by his standards, does he mean to say that EVERYTHING in the video is true? If you have not watched the video, then you really should. Because Raymond condones it, that means everything inside the video is true. It means he supports every single message in the video. Because that is exactly what he thinks when Jimmy and I recommended a link on our blogs.

Now, do you TRULY see where the "attack" BY JIMMY AND FRIENDS on the ASEAN Initiative and Air Asia and whoever the heck else is from? Who is the BIG FAT STRAWMAN here?

Oh by the way, in the first place, it is on the onus of the accuser to prove guilt. Never the onus of the defendent to prove innocence. So, stop calling for frivolous investigations unless you have even a single shred of evidence. Using coffee shop talk as a basis for investigation is time-wasting, inefficient, and plain STUPID.

If you hear "stories" from parents, it is your initiative to question the parent on WHERE DID THEY GET THEIR STORY FROM? Not cry to your daddy (MCF/Greg) every time someone says something is amiss. Oh by the way, the only person who is telling the MCF to do anything, is Raymond Siew:

"Investigate this, investigate that"

He doesn't think it is telling the MCF to do anything. It is only a request. A request is UNLIKE many of the suggestions that I make. Because suggestions are equivalent to asking MCF to do something.

"For some reason Jimmy and friends think that they own chess and they also own MCF. So they keep telling MCF what they should do or not do."

Show one instance that anyone has asked MCF to do anything. Also, if Jimmy and friends OWN MCF, they DON'T need to tell MCF what they SHOULD do. If I own something, I will just make it do what I want. I don't actually need to make suggestions. If I own my car, I will drive it wherever I please. If I own my house, I can rent it to whoever I want. So anyone with half a pea brain will know that Jimmy and friends do not own MCF and has never thought so. What is wrong with making a few suggestions? Is it so different from your requests? How about, think of those suggestions as "requests to try an idea". What does it sound like now?

Raymond Siew, go back and learn some humility and live by your own standards.

By the way, I don't care if you dignify this or not. I write this FOR YOUR BENEFIT. If you choose not to listen, it is simply your loss.

1st Step to GM

By now, I am sure that everyone is tired of reading about how to become GM by mere rhetorics:

1. Chess is about decision-making (No kidding)
2. Chess is a mental sport, so we must free the mind (Wow, spoken like a true expert)
3. Chess requires analyzing opponents (And we didn't know that?)
4. Think on it
5. No, seriously, think on it
6. Think on it again

I could go on all day. As I said before in a previous post (Why First GM is Stupid), getting the whole country to want a GM is a stupid idea. It is a very Mahathirist frame of mind, where the success of one person can represent the success of everyone. It is like saying, America has Steve Jobs, or Bill Gates, we should all be happy, because America Boleh (Or in Obama's words, Yes, We Can (although he was speaking in a totally different context)). In Malaysia, we always want things like the tallest buildings, sending people to space, climbing Mount Everest, and in the chess scene, a GM.

As I asked before, what use is a GM in Malaysia if the chess environment doesn't improve? In Singapore, for many years after Wong Meng Kong attained his GM title, chess in Singapore was relatively stagnant. It is only recently (last 10 years or so?) when they started opening up their borders to chess talents that the level of chess exploded from the doldrums.

Anyway, I digress. The main issue I want to talk about is simple. The first step to becoming a GM starts from yourself. If you start expecting the chess federation or whoever to support you in your efforts to become a GM, then it will remain a dream forever. The two REAL questions (as opposed to useless rhetorics) that you must ask yourself are:

1. Do I want to become a GM?
2. How badly do I want it?

I think if you ask yourself these two questions daily, and provide yourself with honest answers, you can accurately assesss how close you are to become a GM. The second question is probably the one that is the most important. How badly do you want it?

Of course, asking yourselves questions is never enough. The above questions are guiding principles. In fact, they apply to everything we do. Success is achieved through personal motivation. We don't expect our bosses to give us a high-paying job, but we work to deserve it, because we want it. And how hard we work depends on how badly we want it. Simple as that. For some of us, we want big cars, big houses, comfortable lives etc. We slog day and night for it. Why do we do that? Now, imagine yourself wanting to become a GM as much as you want a big house, or a big car. Are you willing to give all that up?

We don't expect our spouses or children to automatically love us. The same goes for chess. We should not expect anything from the MCF or whatever F there is.

The question is simply how badly do you want it?

Right...

So this is the MCF's "reply" to my previous post.

I suppose no one can really fault them. I suppose it really is in accordance to the selection criteria. Let's see:

1.2 Selection for the National Squad will be based on the following criteria:

Performance in the Malaysian Master Championships (Current)
Performance in the National Closed Championships (Current)
FIDE rating (Top 10) (Current list)
Performance in National Open / State Affiliate Open Fide Events (Current)
any other factors which the SC may determine from time to time

SC reserves the right to exercise final discretion in the selection of players for the National Squad.

I suppose that is the criteria they were using. Back to square one?

And the next section?

Selection for

• The Chess Olympiad

• Asian Team Championship

The Criteria 1) Top 4 from Malaysian Masters Men and Women Championship. (Current list)

2) One (1) choice to be at the discretion of the President

3) In the event when one player decides to pull out from participation after selection, SC reserves the right to exercise final discretion in the replacement.

EDIT (28 March 2011):

Selection for
• Asian Cities Team Championship
The Criteria 1) The Champion Team of Malaysia’s Inter-State held (current)

Apologies as I missed out this paragraph earlier. I guess this begs the question, what is Malaysia's Inter-State tournament? When did Penang win it? Even if they did win it, does the exact same team get selected, or is the PCA allowed to select whoever it chooses to represent Penang (not necessarily the same team that won the Inter-State)?

OK, I suppose I was wrong. There really is a selection criteria. I guess I should clarify that we hope for a TRANSPARENT selection criteria.

SC = Selection Committee

The Forgotten Tournament

While all the focus was on the National Closed as a pseudo-selection to represent Malaysia in the SEA Games in Palembang, Indonesia, there is one other international tournament in Indonesia that seems to have received no coverage at all in Malaysia.

The tournament is the Asian Cities Chess Championships, which is to be held from 21-29 April 2011 in Jakarta. By virtue of encompassing a larger region, the Asian Cities is arguably a more prestigious event, with the first prize being USD10,000. More details here. But to highlight, only one team is provided free lodging, while additional teams have to pay for their own lodging.

From several sources, I was informed that Malaysia is indeed sending a team to the Asian Cities. Typically, in these events, Malaysia will send several teams that are represented by several states. Since free lodging is only provided for one team, there must be some kind of a selection criteria for this. I was searching high and low for this tournament in the MCF blog and found nothing. Not a word is mentioned about this event, except in the MCF Chess Calendar 2011, where they show you the date of the tournament. So clearly, the MCF is aware of such a tournament, way in advance, considering the calendar was posted on 3 Jan 2011.

So where is the selection for this tournament? Some comments and clarification from the MCF officials are welcome. Even so, this is not really just about the selection. The lack of any action to publicize this event is irresponsible. Is this the attitude of the so-called reformed MCF?

Coincidence?

It's funny how so much can change in a matter of a few months. Mas is playing in rapid tournaments, selection criteria, etc. Someone said that the MCF is changing.

So much is probably true. But before we jump the gun, let us think about what caused this change? Is it all the shouting that is done by chess bloggers?

Or could it be something else? Some people may say it does not matter.

The correlation between the turning point and particular events that have occured is very glaring but left unsaid.

Does anyone else see the correlation between the "revolution" and the fact that Hamid has left the chess scene, with new faces being given a say in the MCF?

Or is this purely coincidence? Or is this because of the voice of a blogger and parents?

Regardless, kudos to Najib for the refreshing change.

Nothing Else Better To Do

In economics, we learn about this idea of specialization and comparative advantage. For those of you who are unfamiliar, the above two ideas stem from real world occurences where a group of people (labor) can produce more when they are "assigned" to tasks that they do best as a part of a production chain.

This idea was implemented on a massive scale when Henry Ford used it to mass manufacture cars for the first time which completely revolutionized manufacturing. I leave it to you to read more about it here.

So, why bring this up?

This brings us to FGM's latest hoo-hah. Let us see what he said (about me):

(I have decided not to link his blog because he has shown the tendency to edit the things that he has said and twist his meaning later. So I am just going to paste what he said here. The comments in parentheses are mine)

First let me explain what was/is going on at Chess Ninja's site. He first appeared on my site as a new blogger. In the beginning he was all out against Hamid. We had a long discussion on that. Then he urged me to use my influence on MCF. I told him I didnt have anymore than the next person and asked him to present his own ideas like everyone else. Then he started talking about selection criteria and challenged me to state mine. (Up until this part, it is not too far from the truth that I need to challenge it.) And of course it all went down hill after that. (Now, you can ask why this is so. How did this first go downhill? FGM decided to start his name-calling (remember poisonous snake?) and went berserk and attacked pretty much anyone who disagreed with him.) He just needs to attack something or someone.

(Any 12 year-old can tell you that this statement is ludicrous. Do I sound like someone who has nothing else better to do than to attack someone for the sake of attacking them? For someone who tries to sound intelligent and claims to be intelligent (aka a man of reason), Raymond shows very little reasoning power.

Why do I have the need to attack you? You are self-deteriorating into kingdom come. You are fighting invisible demons. No one is in kahoots to get you. I have not mentioned a single thing about you for the past week and now you decide to drag me into the mud with you. Perhaps you are the one who has nothing better to do.)

Here is the next paragraph:

So what is the point? The point is us talking about the details of the selection criteria now is a waste of time. We are not MCF and so we must know our role. I have said that we can urge MCF to come up with written criteria. If that happens we will have something we never had before. That is step 1. From there the criteria can only improve. But getting dragged into the details of something that doesnt exist yet is just a diversion. Coffee shop talk. They talk like they are MCF when they are not. So the focus should be on step 1. Get something written first. Then step 2. Improve on it. In that order of move.

This brings us back to the part where I talked about specialization and comparative advantage. You are right. We must know our role. What I do best is to discuss ideas and to provide a space to everyone to express their views and opinions. I do not believe in censorship because I respect my readers' intelligence. They have the responsibility and intellect to discern right from wrong. Why belittle their intelligence?

Plus, if you read the newspaper, especially financial newspapers like the Financial Times or the Wall Street Journal, you will see numerous economists giving their opinions and ideas on what policies to implement to curb the financial crisis. You might as well say the same thing about them. Why are these economists pretending to be lawmakers? They have no power to implement any policies. So are they wasting their time? Do they spend their time writing in to the government about every single small idea that they have? My role is to share ideas and to provide whatever little insight I have from my experience in chess.

Once again, I have my share of ideas and I am more than willing to contribute them. But I am not the least bit interested in the politics of chess. I have had my share of dealings with the MCF and I think it is safe to say that I am more than happy to let someone else who has the energy to deal with them to actually do it. I would rather focus my energy on what I am good at. I am exercizing my comparative advantage.

If you claim to be so great at finding sponsors, then continue exercizing your comparative advantage. What you suck at, is obviously communicating your ideas. It is always easy to blame the whole world when everyone disagrees with you. Perhaps you can find it within you to examine yourself for just one second. What if the problem really lies with you? I guess you will never allow yourself to think that way, because you would consider that imagining your fears. Practice what you preach. Be self-aware.

I leave you with some hopefully inspiring quotes:

"If you are standing upright, then you do not have to worry that your shadow might be crooked"

"If you think you are too big for small things, then you are too small for big things"

"Effort is not how much you speak for your work, but how much your work speaks for you"

A Chess Federation That Does Its Job

Read here.

Here is a national chess federation that openly accuses its players (including a GM and an IM) of cheating during the Olympiad. I sure hope they have proof on such matters, or else they may be slapped with a case of libel. Oh, in that case, I might even be implicated for "promoting" this story.

On another note, I was just curious about some accusations with regards to PICA and match-fixing. I wonder if PICA is able to sue someone for blatantly accusing them for match-fixing when he is unable to prove it, given there is no crosstable.

Yet, he is allowed to accuse people openly without proof. I believe it is the accuser that has to furnish the proof of guilt, rather than the accused to show proof of innocence. Perhaps this could be slander/libel as well?

Food for thought.

Full (Almost) Analysis of Senior vs Junior

(Edit: moved this post up to the top, since some fools have been complaining about the lack of counter proposals. Everything mentioned below is based on reasoning and argued with logic. There is no personal attack here. There is no personal vendetta. There are no threats of police report. There are and have been no slanderous remarks. This is pure logical argument that is not taken out of context by some idiots who love to focus on name-calling and labelling others to shoot down their ideas. There is no bullying in the Chess Ninja's website. Everyone is free to post comments here. Everyone even has the right to vote!!)

Since it is the in-thing these days to weigh in on the senior vs junior issue for a place in the Olympiad, I will attempt to apply an ounce of my critical ability to explain why such an idea is not useful.

1. In an already very divided chess environment, categorizing players as "juniors" and "seniors" are extremely divisive. There will be questions that need to be answered, such as, when does a player stop becoming a junior and move on to be a senior? Who gets to determine who are the junior players and who are qualified to be considered senior players? It is a fact that chess is not a game where seniority determines ones abilities. This is clearly seen with the World No. 1 being Magnus Carlsen, aged 20, and the World Champion, Vishy Anand, aged 41, more than double Carlsen's age. Vassily Ivanchuk, turning 42 this March, is easily one of the most active chess players in the World Top 10. His "old age" does not seem to be slowing him down.

So why divide our players into 2 camps? This would be akin to establishing a caste system which appears to be granting special privileges to elite groups. It would give the impression that "junior" players will stay as "junior" players for many years to come. How does one move from a beginner to "junior" player status? Can a player move into "senior" player status without ever being a "junior"? The question of social mobility then comes up.

2. This brings me to the second point. Such an event is at best, like a Gladiator fight in the Colosseum. Extremely exciting to watch, great entertainment, but serves almost no purpose otherwise. It totally takes away the spirit of meritocracy, especially when used for a selection. Organizing such an event to "prove a point", albeit a non-existent one, does not help chess at all, but divides the chess scene. Chess playing abilities are exhibited by consistent results, NOT one's fighting ability.

Just like football winners are determined by the team that scores the most goals. You can have a hardworking team that chases the ball all over the whole field without any real coordination and skill, but clearly that is a poor reflection of what competitiveness means. Competitiveness is much more than just fighting spirit on the board. It is just as much a fight off the board. What the juniors lack these days is the hard work off the board. Without consistent hard work, regardless of whatever system you use to select players, ANYONE will always be inferior. To bring the Gladiator analogy a little further, it would be like rounding up a group of peasants, throwing them into the Colosseum against an organized Roman army. Having a 3-5 day training camp isn't going to turn peasants into soldiers. Every player who wants to become strong has to hone his/her skills on a consistent basis.

3. I have and will always be against using one tournament as a basis for selection. In the past, I have already suggested the use of the National Closed, KL Open, Selangor Open, Penang Open, Malaysia Open etc as tournaments for selection. This would be an equivalent of the badminton's Super Series. The finer details would be the criteria to use. One suggestion would be to take the average score of players who play in at least 3 of the listed tournaments. Anyone who plays less than 3 of those tournaments automatically disqualifies himself from selection.

In ANY competition (or selection), there are 3 things that must be very clear.

(A) The Reward. This is easy enough. The reward is a place to represent Malaysia in the Olympiad.

(B) Rules. The selection criteria has to be very clear and transparent. What I suggested above is such a criteria. Of course I have yet to add in tie-breakers, but that can be arranged and be made clear. EVERY participant who wishes to represent Malaysia must have a clear idea on what behavior is "rewarded" and what behavior is "punished". Until today, I don't even know what is the actual selection criteria after playing chess for more than 20 years. One of my favorite descriptions is Ilham's comments on the 3-2-1 criteria (3 juniors, 2 seniors, 1 tourist).

(C) Referee. This is by far the most important requirement in ANY competition. Without an objective referee, the contest would fail. We need referees (and selection committees) who enforce the set rules and not change them every year or as and when they please. Any football fan can tell you the frustration of watching a football match with a biased referee. There should be minimal discretion in such matters UNTIL the MCF has regained its credibility. Then maybe we can consider something else.

The simple question I have is, why can't we use a merit-based system? What is wrong with using a circuit of tournaments to select players based on results and consistency?

Imagined Imagined Fears

If the concept of imagined fears is not confusing enough for you, try to think about imagined imagined fears. This means that you worry to much about your imagined fears that perhaps, you are imagining the fact that you have imagined fears. So, does this mean that your fears are real?

Anyhow, I feel obligated to say something about Raymond's latest post, especially since he pointed out to my blog suggestively about throwing around half-truths and what not. Let me just start out by saying that I have posted 3 comments on his blog requesting for clarification on his accusations of slander. Since he said that there is a law against slander, then I want to be on the right side of the law. If you are accussing me of slander, I deserve the right to know. But he deleted all 3 comments seeking clarification.

Why am I being so defensive? Let me pick out a few suggestive examples which I completely resent:

However in our Chess blog culture today we have many people hiding under the guise of pseudonyms or are simply anonymous. And under these guises they purport to be experts or have inside knowledge and then they cast aspersions on other peoples dignity and reputation.

While this statement may be true, the statement in itself is an accusation. Let me be clear about this. The Chess Ninja was not established as a means to hide myself. It is a means to represent the "voiceless" people in chess. It gives people the avenue to speak in a culture where speaking out is punished and not rewarded. Until that culture has changed, the Chess Ninja will always exist. Think of it as a club or association to speak out for the rights of chess players. This entity does not just belong to me. It belongs to all of us. The Chess Ninja is not a guise and I am not purporting to be an expert. I also do not want to hold the responsibility of having inside knowledge. What I do know is that I have had experience fighting for the victim before, and I am currently sharing that information to everyone so that this information is no longer "inside knowledge". It isn't inside knowledge anymore if everyone knows it, right?

I know that if anyone were to approach the MCF with such issues, their first and main stance would be to appear defensive and try to cover up their tracks. The Chess Ninja blog is meant to report facts as they are. It will not report anything if there is no evidence to back it up. It is on the onus of the MCF and other parties to show that they can run a clean and good business with the whole world watching them.

I have nothing to gain from exposing the wrongdoers and "casting aspersions" on their dignity and reputation. In fact, I feel obligated and responsible to tell the truth about the misdemeanors of the wrongdoers.

How can I sit back and let them get away with what they have done?

Here is another quote that seems to be directed at "some people" and no one in particular:

I think its about time this nonsense stops. All the lies, half truths and innuendos shot from the dark.

If you want to accuse someone of lying, then you come out and say it like a man. Point them out specifically. Raymond called for a stop of innuendos and that statement itself is a very suggestive innuendo and seemed to target at no one in particular. If you want to call someone a liar, you better be ready to prove it. Don't just lump a general group of people together.

So, Raymond, do not be afraid to let people speak out about you. You are truly afraid. Do not imagine your imagined fears. If you are on the right side of the law, then you have nothing to worry about. On the other hand, throwing cheap shots at my blog or any other blog is not going to get you anywhere. You have come to realize that less and less people are listening to you because you are afraid of being exposed for the fraud that you are. You are afraid that when it comes down to crunch time, you actually have so many gaps that you have left out, simply by connecting all the wrong dots.

This is what happens when you try to join too many dots too fast. Lashing out at other chess observers by deleting all their criticisms is just an expression of your inner child. Try to grow up a little bit. Don't just learn how to read and reason, but to accept criticism. It makes you stronger. Only when you see beyond your anger, you can grow. These are your very own preachings. Practice what you preach. Try to be a cook that eats his own cooking. Open your mind just as you wish others to open theirs.

The Culture of Success

Anonymous asked about what success would entail.

From the choices you listed, the answer would be all of them, and none of them. As strange as it may seem to you, Malaysia as a country has always committed the mistakes of having "absolute" goals. When you set targets like, having a GM, becoming a top ASEAN country, having X number of chilren play chess, etc., you are making a mistake of being myopic. Why? Simple, because once you achieve them, the question is, what next? Everything will stop there. You have to create new goals and so on and so forth. You may ask, what is wrong with that? The problem with these goals is that, they are very superficial and can be attained through artificial means. We do not just want to achieve quantitative achievements, but quality ones as well. Let me explain.

If your target is to get a GM, it can be obtained through many ways, some good and some bad. For example, in some way, Malaysia has made this mistake. They threw a lot of money on just one player in hopes that he becomes a GM, which he failed. This means that all the resources have been wasted. Compare this to implementing an incentive-based system where every player who reaches 2400 in rating is given RM2,000 travel allowance for each tournament, and players with 2500 in rating will get full sponsorships in tournaments. This kind of system creates a more competitive environment to fish out a GM. This is not to say, I agree with you that getting a GM can be considered a success. My point is this: You can set goals, but how you get there is at least as important as where you want to go. The quality of success is important. Compare the 2 methods above. The first method, if that chosen player fails to get his GM, then all the money would have been wasted. In the second method, the incentive-based sponsorship will at least create a chess environment that is full of strong players even if we fail to find a GM.

That's why to me, I consider Malaysian chess a success when we can implement a system that encourages sustainable improvement. So the goals that we set should be goals on periodical improvements, rather than absolute goals. For example, the target is to add fifty 2200 rated players a year, twenty 2300 rated players a year, and five 2400 rated players a year. This way, when we can achieve these goals we provide a strong sustainable base for success. If you can add more and more strong players every year, the pyramid will build itself. You will keep pushing the strongest players upwards. Of course, this has to be combined with a merit-based system where the best player is rewarded the most. There is no room for cronyism. This is the kind of system that can ensure long term and sustainable success. All the other goals like being the best in ASEAN, getting a first GM, etc etc etc will come automatically. You don't even have to worry about it.

However, the caveat is this. It is not what I think that matters. What I proposed above is just one idea. The important takeaway from this is that our goals must build on the quality of our success.

That is why, if you look at the Singapore Budget 2010, the Singaporean government has targeted a productivity growth of 1.5% per year for the next 10 years. Then you compare with Malaysia's Budget 2011. Malaysia only knows how to target an income per capita level of USD16,000 by 2020. The important way to get there is to through productivity gains, but Malaysia is on its way down the downward spiral by trying to implement mega-projects all over again. This difference will be even more distinct in the next 5-10 years. Singapore's ingenious leaders have long understood the importance in the quality of its economic growth. Malaysia is only interested in the quantity of growth. If you want to increase GDP by RM12 billion, it is easy. Just build a crooked bridge to Jawa, no matter how useless the bridge is.

Remember, it is the quality of your growth that counts.

How To Spend the Moolah?

Agree with most of what Anonymous says.

Bringing foreigners to Malaysia is one thing, but bringing them to win our money in a rapid tournament is not worth it. Bear in mind that it is a rapid tournament. Also, RM14,000 does not have to be spent on chess tournaments. I am personally not a fan of allegros.

So how should we spend this money? For example, the RM14,000 can be used to build a useful chess library. You know how many chess books you can buy with RM14,000? That is per year. Then you can make the chess centre a popular hang out place, where people come and spar and read chess books. Strong players may even gather there for discussion and analysis. The benefits could be multiplied and this investment is long term in nature. The RM14,000 "lasts forever" because the books will always be there, instead of being in some foreigner's hands and spent on something else. Heck, it doesn't even have to be RM14,000. It can be RM4,000.

The serious tournaments should remain. The Malaysia Open, KL Open etc. I am not against that. Malaysians have every chance to play against foreign players then. Why need so many rapid events for foreigners?

Other ideas include, "chess scholarships". Organize several strong junior tournaments over the year and use that money as a sponsorship to the best 3 performers in these tournaments to go play in other countries (such as Vietnam, India, China, Philippines, Indonesia, Australia etc.).

I am sure many other people can come up with much better ideas to use the money. My supposedly weak mind has limited ideas. But the idea to keep the competitive spirit alive among juniors and seniors is this thing called meritocracy. As long as everyone can see the goal, they will be willing to work towards it. The current situation is a result of people moving the goal post all the time. Deserving players are not selected. Our national tournaments are treated lightly by our "senior" players. Most of them don't even take part. If you employ a system where results matter, people will work for it.

As for the neighboring countries, John has hit it spot on. The difference is the hunger. I already wrote about it. I couldn't believe a Vietnamese junior player would hammer out 2.5 hours of chess to win an opposite colored bishop ending. I can assure you that these kids have a lot more to lose than Malaysians/Singaporeans. To them, chess is their ticket to freedom. If they fail, they will just be some guy. We can always fall back on studies and other such things. But, that said, still, if the goals are clear and attainable, there will be people who will be willing to work for them. Right now, hard work does not seem to pay in the Malaysian chess scene. So the simple answer is, reward hard work!

The Power of All

Replying to this.

When one person decides to protest the powers that be, it will be easy for the greater organization to just ignore that small fry.

I have time and again stressed that my goal is not to complain. I want everyone to know what is wrong in the chess arena. Because up until now, no one really knows. All they do is just play in "nice" tournaments. Raymond, to be honest, NO ONE knows about these fixed tournaments. How do we stop participating in them? Maybe it would be good if you can publish a list of fixed tournaments so that I do not make the mistake in joining them? By the way, that was sarcasm. I feel like I need to cue you when I am sarcastic now.

For change to happen, it definitely requires the support of more than one person. Heck, it would probably require the support of the majority. But the problem here is, the majority sees NOTHING WRONG with the current situation. Why? It is because they are not aware.

So if the majority does not see the need for change, whatever revolutionary ideas or what you call "wish-lists" will never go through. My goal is not to complain. Your narrow mind has led you to that conclusion. I am spreading information so that EVERYONE knows where the problems lie. The majority MUST know what is wrong so that we can fight for change, together.

Even if you were to be able to implement change, without the support of the majority, it will sooner or later revert back to the same old rot that we were once in. The people's mindset must change first. Unless you employ a dictatorship, which basically means you can do whatever you want without the permission of the people, nothing will ever change. Hey wait, that sounds familiar.

Your call for individual empowerment only makes you sleep better at night. You can tell yourself, I did my best, and that's the best a man can do. Wrong! I am sure I do not need to educate you on how a team of individuals can accomplish more than the sum of its parts. I am now collecting this sum. I have a plan, and there is a long way to go before the combination is fully played out. I am fully aware of my role. What I am doing now is putting the pieces in the right squares. You are just the distraction.

You are just fighting your own battle without a real plan. You look at your position and tell yourself that you have a good bishop, even though you are playing 1 rook down. If you try too hard to focus on what has been done correctly and ignore what is wrong with the position, you would have failed in objectively evaluating your position. You cannot just "forget" that you are 1 rook down and play along.

As any practical chess player would tell you, you must first acknowledge the threats to your position. If you ignore your opponent's king side attack, and try to go for an all out attack on the queen side and hope that you beat your opponent before he mates you, then you are just playing like an amateur.

We (I suppose I need to be specific here, since you tend to be confused with who I am referring to. By "we", I mean the chess community.) are all still at the stage of assessing where we went wrong. Only the minority have honestly tackled this issue. No one is dwelling on the past. Do you dare challenge the saying, "Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it"? What you now know as history is only 7 short years in a grand scheme of events. Even if you want to focus on what we have done right, there is a lot more history to be examined than just the past 7 years. If you study China's history and only look at the past 32 years, you would have only seen how China has reformed and emerged as an economic power despite the small glitch in Tiananmen. But China's history is more than 5000 years-old. China has been an economic power before. What happened? We cannot afford this myopia. We must always have the bigger picture in mind.

You are like a history student who just took a glance at the past 32 years and forgot about how the 5000 years has formed the Chinese people as we know them today. But you want to go ahead and conquer the future. That is of utmost danger to the chess community. If the Chinese leaders believe they can become a "super-power" again and forget that even the mighty China was brought to its knees not more than 500 years ago, they will be bound to repeat their mistake.

Let go of your imagined fears. Do not be afraid of admitting mistakes. Find the right dots to join. Don't just keep joining dots blindly.

Natural Selection

This is Malaysia's selection process. It is only natural. That's how it has been done for years.

Jimmy, I was trying to be fair. Let me explain the specific example to you, this time, with evidence. Have a look at the cross table below. It is from the tournament that I was talking about, the NAG 2010 U-18 Boys:

Now, let's just assume the first 2 players declined. There is a tie from 3rd-5th place, each player scoring 4.5 points. First of all, should Izz be offered the place? The 4th and 5th placed players might complain. There should at least be a play-off. There is no reason why Izz is better than the other 2 players despite having a better tie-break. He did not even meet the 1st placed player. Heck, he did not even meet Mark or Nicholas. Is it his luck?

Now, let's say Izz declined the offer. Does Greg have the right to offer Mark the place? Just look at the cross table. Mark drew with Nicholas Chong in the last round. If you were to use the results of this NAG alone, Mark has not really proved to be better than Nicholas Chong. What would have happened if Mark accepted the offer and Nicholas were to protest? Nicholas' tie-break was penalized because he was paired with the 1st placed player, Ken Wei in the first round. This is by virtue of seeding, which is probably luck.

If Mark was offered the place, then Nicholas should be offered too. At least a play-off of some sort should be held. Or am I wrong? I am only trying to be fair. I have nothing to gain from this. I just hope for a transparent and fair selection process.

Laughing Stock

When you do a bad parody, the joke will be on you. Here is one example of a bad parody. And below is my reply to it.

I am sure your second class attempt at humor is appreciated by all. You have completely missed my sarcasm in pointing out that Hamid is a Grandmaster and that WE are playing blindfolded. When I said WE, I meant everyone in the chess community who has refused to see or ignored the facts.

An impersonation is good only when it accurately portrays the character that is being impersonated. While I have singled out Hamid, I have also talked about the culture of meritocracy and competitiveness that is crucial to chess development. The reason I singled out Hamid is because I have identified the root of the problem. Have you? You are just asking us to try this and that until we succeed.

I have provided the simplest and easily, the fairest solution of all. MERITOCRACY. I have talked about this again and again. Your ignorance and closed mind has shut out my main point. Why don't you ask Greg to implement a fully meritocratic solution, since you talk to him so much? Maybe you can help me pass along this message to him?

Is it REALLY so hard to reward your players based on their results? ALL OF YOU must be so stumped. If you select players for international tournaments through chess results, not only do you get all the strong players to participate in these tournaments, but you give everyone a chance to succeed. 2 things will be achieved from this.

1. You get a wider base of strong players because now, your culture has allowed "ANYONE and EVERYONE" the chance to succeed.

2. You get a larger incentive for the top-tier players to improve. Because now, they MUST stay ahead of the pack, lest they do not qualify to represent Malaysia.

This is a win-win scenario. But meritocracy is hampered by vested interests who hold key positions, i.e. people who call the shots. I find it disturbing that Greg has offered a 4th placed player from ONE single tournament a spot to represent Malaysia. Firstly, everyone knows that usually, the 4th placing is inaccurate as it is typically determined by tie-break, which is subject to luck quite often (via pairing, Bucholz etc). Secondly, the result of 4th placing was just from 1 tournament, despite it being the Nationals. So if a player is first in MSSM (which is arguably a much stronger tournament), consistently performing well in other local tournaments, but was pushed to 5th place by tie-break in the National Age-Group, he would have been excluded from a place to represent Malaysia. That is why, we need to fix a group of tournaments and make it public so that all potential players will have a fair go at it. The most consistent player should be selected to represent Malaysia. Why is this so hard?

People who perform well at many tournaments are not being selected to represent Malaysia. The selection criteria changes EVERY YEAR. Why don't you think about things carefully and FIX a criteria and PROMISE to use it for the next 3 years. Allow people to succeed within a proper system. I guarantee you, Malaysian chess will see success within 3-5 years.

The reason all the strong players have "failed" as you pointed out, is that they were not allowed to succeed. Most of them just moved on to greener pastures which frankly, makes more sense.

So Raymond, I would appreciate it if you can just change "Hamid" to "lack of meritocracy" as the culprit. If this ONE simple thing cannot be implemented, then there is no hope for Malaysian chess, regardless of how many millions in sponsorship you can acquire. Try this ONE thing. Please, I beg you. Let the chess results speak for themselves.

Hiding in Broad Daylight: Transparency

Replying to mtheory:

Everyday I wish that what I said is not true. When little or no progress is shown for the past 20 years despite the "millions" that Raymond claims Dato Tan has showered the chess community, it is just too hard for me to swallow.

Replying to abdooss:

It is easy to suspect someone is on the take simply because of the lack of transparency. Granted, even the most prestigious auditing firms can be misled, but all necessary actions should be taken to prevent this. For example, publish the breakdown of the accounts on the MCF website.

Given what you said, I would like to point out that even the MACC's effectiveness is in question.
More importantly, many of the MCF's practices are "ONLY" borderline illegal but probably closer to unethical. Just to give you a few examples of the things that happen in broad daylight (never mind the under the table dealings yet):

1. Olympiad selection

The most obvious one is the Olympiad selection. Granted, super-sub Greg did manage to score a massive 66.7% but I am sure I do not need to say more about the shadiness of this year's Olympiad selection. Maybe Malaysia needs a really capable team captain. Mas and Mok are "obviously not qualified to be captains".

OK, maybe one slip-up is not good enough to bitch about the MCF. Let us examine some of the past Olympiads. In 2004, Malaysia was represented by Tan Vooi Giap (who?) who played a grand total of 1 game. In 2002, Greg was also playing. In 2000, there was Azahari Md Nor. In 1998, not only was Azahari in the team, guess what, Hamid too made it too!! In 1994, Sabar Hashim was in the team. I suppose it is a prevailing trend where the towel boys are included in the team list. I am almost sure someone will be quick to point out that in SOME years, we sent "legitimate" teams. For it to be truly legitimate, we need to lay out exactly is the criteria for the team selection? What must I do if I want to try to qualify? I am not talking about the lone spot offered by winning the National Closed. Even then, Evan Capel was not selected to play.

The fact that they can keep doing this again and again and again means that they are telling you, "You can't do anything about this!"

2. Free trip for officials

OK, this is a partial extension from No. 1. By virtue of selecting free-loaders, they get a free trip to whichever country. Now, what about the other international tournaments, especially the age-group tournaments? Often times, players are FORCED, I repeat, FORCED to fork out money to pay for the MCF officials to go along for the trip. I wish to emphasize on the word "forced" because the MCF officials will always tell you that you have two options. You can choose to pay the extra money for the officials, or you can choose not to go. How about I give you a choice? You can choose to show us the details of the accounts with your clothes on, or without your clothes on. How is that for transparency? And many times, these officials are plain tourists. Sometimes, the players only see them after they get off the plane and check into the hotel. After that, maybe you catch a glimpse of them once or twice during breakfast. Other than that, the next time you get to see them is when you check out and get on the plane to go home. Does that sound familiar to anyone of you? I suppose that is better than when these officials pretend to care about the games and "try" to coach the players. Oh wait, that happens too.

3. Hotel room allocation

In events like the Malaysian Open, we all know that the GMs and IMs are offered rooms at or near the playing venue. Now, I can't give you the exact number of rooms that were allocated, but let's just say that the number of hotel rooms were intentionally overbooked and the vacant rooms were "reserved" for God knows who. I was informed that these rooms were used as bargaining chips to gain "personal favors" among other personal benefits. I don't know about you, but is this even illegal? Probably not, especially this kind of thing is rampant in any organization. I suppose if that's the case, we can't blame the MCF. I guess I should thank them for not wasting the rooms. At least they put it to good use.

4. Over-billing

I guess this generally comes into the transparency issue. As Rationality pointed out, the exchange rate that the MCF has been using for the past few years has been USD1 = RM3.80. The exchange rate has not been USD1 to RM3.80 since 2005 when our 5th Prime Minister unpegged the RM. Just have a look at the chart. The data was obtained from the US Federal Reserve. Shocking? There are many other cases of over-billing but it is too unfortunate I cannot prove this without the proper accounts being made public. But neither can the MCF prove its innocence. I suppose everyone is innocent until proven guilty. I wonder how it works when someone hides the evidence.

So abdooss... what I have underlined here is really ONLY borderline illegal. Is it really wrongdoing? Hmmm... You tell me.

No Free Lunch

Replying to First GM.

It is NOT OK that the majority do not know what is going on. It is because of this lack of transparency that we are where we are today.

Let me share a personal story with you. For those in the know, you may know who I am after this story, or at least have some clue. I know a junior player, S, who obtained 2nd placing at the National Age Group some time back.

In the selection process for the Asian Junior tournament that year, the champion had declined to play for whatever reason, and the place was offered to the 3rd placed player, skipping out S who was actually tied for first place but only lost out in the playoff.

Needless to say, S' parents protested but by the time they had found out about it, the MCF had ALREADY submitted the registration and had "assumed" that S would not want to play because he had PMR exams coming. S had found out ONLY because one of the players selected for the Girls category had contacted S to ask if S was playing. S did not even know that the MCF was sending any players.

The joke of this is that the 3rd placed player was exactly the same age, and had PMR exams too. So clearly, the excuse was not valid.

Rumor has it, some MCF official or other (I will refrain from giving names since I have no way of proving this), and the parents of the 3rd placed player had a closer relationship (with a possibility of bribes involved (which may or may not be monetary, as that parent had let slip of such an occurrence during a conversation with other parents).

So now you see, whether they are the best tournament director or not, or whether they are the best secretaries or not, it doesn't matter when there is no integrity. How can a place to represent Malaysia be offered to someone discretely? Does this sound familiar to you? Did Greg tell the world he offered you and Mark a place?

To address what you said about Hamid and Greg being in positions that they are the best at, let me share a famous example with you. Remember Bernie Madoff? He is one of the most brilliant investors in our time. How did he cheat so many other brilliant people out of USD50 billion? This was made possible by his reputation of being great with money.

But just because he is good at what he does, does not mean it is good for everyone. What he lacked was integrity and the whole scheme was shrouded by a lack of transparency. No one knew what he was doing. None of his investors did. No one questioned him as long as he was promising great returns.

Back to Malaysian chess. Putting aside the argument that Hamid and Greg are doing a great job, how can you insist that they are still the right people for the job if there is a lack of integrity and transparency? This was clearly shown again in the selection for the Olympiad.

Now, to push it one step further, if you examine why they had shunned you when you requested for a post mortem as a sponsor, if you think carefully, and connect that dot, to this dot that I have just shown you, it will be clear as day.

You had "forgotten" to give them a cut of the sponsorship. That is why their attitude was utterly poor towards you. They got even more scared when you requested for a post mortem. Now do you understand? It is not because they are lazy to attend to your queries. People who have the capability to "single-handedly" organize the Malaysian Chess Festival have no room to be lazy. Now, the next question is, why do they bother working so hard? There is no such thing as a free lunch.

Now, if you can connect all the dots since the first time I posted on your blog regarding the Olympiad selection, I have always pushed for a system that will ALLOW our juniors to succeed, a system of meritocracy. You can get all the GMs in the world to train our juniors, but if their achievements are "overlooked", then our junior players will always be junior players.

If rent-seeking continues to be prevalent, NO SPONSORS will ever come in. Raymond Siew, do you see the whole picture now? Do you know why your sponsorship and efforts will NEVER be appreciated by these goons? Next time you want to sponsor the MCF, try offering to pay for the officials to follow along for the trip. Maybe add in a presidential suite booking. It could do wonders.

Gandhi's Checkmate

What passive resistance needs as called upon by FirstGM.

For the Gandhi gambit to work, there has to be 3 prerequisites.

1. Awareness
You cannot simply oppose for the reason of opposing. Your cause must be clear and agreeable to a significant group. Right now, "everyone" is complaining, but not everyone is complaining about the same thing. Some are complaining about the Olympiad selection, some about the gross mismanagement, some about the corruption etc. Someone needs to rally all these people under one umbrella.

2. A viable alternative

Once again, you can't oppose just for the sake of opposing. Say we throw out this current regime. What is our alternative? Who then will be in charge? What makes the new regime better than the current one? Even if there is an alternative, there will be doubts. The current administration has been there "forever". Will the new team have the experience to achieve success? What if the new team is worse?

To convince people, a structured and viable alternative has to be offered before you can kick out the old regime. No point kicking out the current leaders and leave a leadership vacuum in the MCF. If there is no one to take their place, then the old powers will simply return.

3. A win-win mentality

Right now, most people believe that there is too much to lose by opposing the authorities. For someone who has been suffering from this "oppression", it is easy to call for passive resistance. But you must be reminded that the majority of the chess community consists of "mediocre" chess players. The normal distribution applies to the playing level of all chess players. So, only the "high achievers" who hope to achieve something in Malaysian chess are upset by MCF's garbage.

The rest of the crowd, which I (for the lack of a better word) call "mediocres" simply play chess as a hobby. They do not seek to achieve more than the mere excitement of battling it over the black and white jungle. Why should they go and rile up the lion of the jungle and risk not being able to enjoy their past time. Do not ignore these people because they are the majority and this will be the group that can help kick out the old regime. The first and foremost question is, "What is in it for them?" If you cannot offer a win-win solution for this group (the majority), then passive resistance from a small group of people who can shout loudly, will be just pure noise.

This is why, opposing the MCF is a long and arduous process. These 3 prerequisites have to be fulfilled. This is why I have taken up the cause to rile up the public about the gross mismanagement that is going on. What I am doing is not mere complaining. Far from it. I am trying to raise awareness with regards to the rot that has been going on for too long in our backyard that now, it has stink up the whole neighborhood. I am trying to wake the neighborhood up.

Can you all wake up and smell the stink?

Lack of Hunger

This is in reply to John's comment. I find the message important enough to warrant a new post.

Totally agree that we lack the hunger. This lack of hunger in Malaysia is born out of 2 reasons. As you correctly pointed out, the first, is through complacency. That is pretty self-explanatory. On top of this complacency, Malaysians are also good at denying that they have fallen behind. All thanks to this spirit of Malaysia Boleh.

The second cause of this lack of hunger, is a more deeply rooted problem. This problem lies beyond the realm of chess, unfortunately. But to stick within the topic, I would like to point out that the lack of hunger is simply due to the complete absence of meritocracy. This socio-political issue has been going on for about 40 years and it has rooted itself in chess.

So much so that the powers that be have begun to believe that they can get away with anything. This is witnessed by the selection for Malaysia's Olympiad team. How dare the MCF select Gregory Lau to represent Malaysia in broad daylight. This is like rubbing mud in the chess players' faces and telling them that the MCF can select whoever they want, and there is nothing you can do about it.

You can play the best chess in the world, but I won't select you because I have my interests to take care of. So why should any of the chess players try, because their efforts may or may not be rewarded. Their fates are subject to the mercy of these almighty chess officials.

Let me recount a personal example. In my younger days, I had the great fortune of playing against a Vietnamese junior player and skipping all the details, we ended up in a position of opposite colored bishops with 5 pawns each. In any other case, it would have been a dead draw. I was really curious why he had refused the draw offer, and the game continued for another two and a half hours. Finally, I had succumbed to fatigue and overlooked a simple King penetration that led to my loss. Full credit to that guy's determination.

I was really curious as to why he had tried so hard for the win. Later, I found out that the Vietnamese government had promised USD1,000 to any player for a 3rd place finish, which could have only been achieved if he had won that game. I will always remember the hunger that was shown to me that day. I only wish that I had half the hunger in anything I do in my life.

The Harsh Reality

This is in reply to this and this.

Agreed. Let us also agree that we should not hide the harsh reality from the juniors. The obstacles that they are up against are brutally harsh. As if it is not enough that the competition is stiff.

The juniors need to understand that the local chess authorities are completely undependable. You should not expect ANYONE to support your chess "career". That is the harsh reality of the current situation.

Some of us may think that we are "protecting" our children by not letting them know about the harsh difficulties of life but that is going in the complete opposite direction. Frankly speaking, the juniors these days are "soft". I see parents accompanying them all over the place to play chess tournaments, including the MSSM. Now, the parents even book hotel rooms for the children during MSSM so that they can sleep comfortably etc. No doubt parental support is important, but if we keep protecting the kids from the harsh realities of life, when are they going to learn to face TRUE adversity?

Back in the day, most chess players HAVE to stay in the hostels with the rest of the team, and only 2 or 3 parents go along during the MSSM. The conditions of the hostels were shabby (probably worse than those at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi), but all the players grew from that hardship. There was only cold water in the common bathrooms. No fans in the hostels etc. Sometimes they would have to combat the bedbugs. This is what Chinese people call, "Eat bitter". When placed in such harsh conditions, these players would learn to find that other adversities are much more "manageable".

You can ask players in the olden days about who their coaches were. Many of them do not even have coaches. They all had to work hard on their own. Without the Internet, one of their main sources of chess information from the outside world was Quah Seng Sun's weekly article in the Star! Our children today are spoilt for choices in ways of helping themselves improve, yet they are not utilizing them. And whose fault is this? Whose fault is it that the children today only wait to be spoon fed by their so-called "coaches"? Somewhere along the way, we have developed a culture of dependence. If any of you junior players are reading this, why don't you do yourself a favor and go improve on your own for a little bit before you run to your coach again?

The Hunt for Rationality

I just had to join in the excitement especially since Rationality has kindly hooked me up in his site without my asking. Well, like him (or her), I have chosen to wear a mask, although I really think a Guy Fawkes mask does seem to be way cooler.

On a more serious note, I find it hard to not make a comment about this, but the point I address here is not about who Rationality is. That in itself, is completely pointless. The most important thing is about what Rationality is saying.

You have all been misled by the powers that be in the MCF that all is well in Malaysia. All is NOT WELL. Why are Malaysians in such denial? Why do we tell ourselves it is OK? All this Malaysia Boleh crap that is spewing around is ruining our competitive spirit. Let me just summarize the situation a little bit for some of you who are less informed.

1. Malaysia vs Singapore

Back in the day, in the early 1990s, the Malaysia vs Singapore matches were hardly even close. We used to be trashing them day and night, in almost every category. Now, we get to listen to Ignatius Leong boast about how Singapore does not want to play against Malaysia anymore because we are "too weak". And we are angry at Singapore for their arrogance. Whether that comment by Ignatius is warranted or otherwise, what he says is 100% true. With IMs mushrooming all over the place, Singapore has a right to refuse to play against Malaysia. In a small puny country with barely 5 million people, they have managed to grow and develop so many IMs and IM elects, not to mention, several GMs (not including the imported ones).

2. No money, no talk

OK, we hear the MCF officials and even parents talk about how Singaporeans are so rich and they can afford to hire GMs and such to coach their children. That's why they end up being so good. Is money the only problem? Even if so, is Malaysia really short of money? Let us just take a step back and look at our other neighbors. Anyone who reads the newspaper knows that Malaysia's income per capita is higher than Indonesia, Vietnam and Philippines. It has been so since our independence.

But mind you, these 3 countries have their very own GMs, and several at that. We can't even claim that we have a "potential" GM. If you look at the recent Olympiad result, Philippines is ranked 50, Vietnam is ranked 52, Singapore is ranked 58, Indonesia is ranked 67, and Malaysia is ranked 92!!!!! If this is not bad enough, Thailand, who sent a team with an average rating of 2256, finished only 1 place below us, with the same number of match points. All these countries who are "poorer" than us, are scoring better results than us, consistently. I will let you do your own research on that. So money is not the main problem.

So what then, is the real problem? Why is Malaysia such a great failure? Where did Malaysia go wrong? Are Malaysians just plain stupider than our neighbors? How can we live with ourselves pretending that nothing is wrong and our players have tried their best? We are all guilty of hiding our head in the sand with our butts held high if we do not see that something is wrong here.

Now, the difficult task here is, what is wrong with Malaysian chess? I have proved to you that our progress is dismal (to call it dismal is a praise), and it is not because Malaysians lack funding alone. Could it be something is not right with the chess environment? Could it be that the chess authorities are not doing enough?

Let me just venture into what being effective means. We keep spewing this junk about our players and officials having tried their best. But we never ask ourselves, what are they trying their best in? Are they doing the right things? So now you see, what Rationality has been saying, is merely rational.

There are always two components in achieving success. Doing the right thing, and doing things right. Trying your best can at best, lead to efficiency, which is doing things right. We often forget to ask, are they doing the right things? I will not blame the players on this. The role of a chess player is just to play good chess.

But what about the people in charge? Are they doing the right things? Have we put in place a system that allow GMs to be born? Or are we just going to keep throwing money at a "select group" of chess players until one of them becomes a GM? What have the Singaporeans, Indonesians, Vietnamese, and Filipinos done right that we have refused to see, or simply cannot see? Perhaps someone who knows why these countries succeed can shed some light with ALL OF US on this. How about Malaysia combine all their systems and call it the 1ASEAN system and produce more GMs than all these 4 countries combined?

It is precisely the mentality of the chess observers that think "they tried their best" that has led us to this exact point. Granted, it is not the chess players' fault. But can't you all see that the progress (if it can be called that at all) of chess in Malaysia is simply hopeless? SOMETHING IS WRONG AND WE ARE NOT SEEING IT!

Now, before any of you curse me for being unpatriotic, let me remind you that I am saying this because I love chess and I love Malaysia. I just can't bear to see the rot that has been destroying the game that I love in the country that I love. I weep for you, Malaysia.