Y U NO LINK ME???

OK fine, I will link you.

Mamak Hunting - Stupid or Lazy?

My apologies for the dramatic title. Just to be clear, I am not using this term in a derogatory nature, nor am I defending Mamakchess's arguments. I have been out of action for many weeks and my fingers are just itchy after seeing another brainless "argument":

If you guys have not been listening to my advice and have kept on visiting a certain blog, then you would have known that this whole issue resulted from a stupid question:

"But since the topic is brought up, can I ask the blogger in Mamak Chess if it is true that Greg just gave Kelantan a sum of money to do a "chess tournament"? This money has not been cleared by MCF committee. Not tabled and so the money could be haram."

I just can't believe that FGM has the gall to associate "Mamak Gang" with Kelantan Chess and then later in the post, ask who is Mamak Chess? If you don't know who it is, how can you say they are associated?

Never mind, let us pretend that in this world, such nonsense is possible. Anyone with any idea how to browse the Mamak Chess blog will know that the following are considered players that are typically classified in the "Mamak Gang":

Yes, I took the picture from the Mamak Chess blog. If you were a regular chess player, you would easily know who these guys are. In fact, with a bit more homework, you can also look at the "Mamak Gang" team at last year's Astro Rapid:

Of course, there are others who are not in the picture and also not listed above. I can think of Abdullah Che Hassan.  How many of these players are actually from Kelantan? I would say almost all of the above players are NOT from Kelantan. So how can FGM claim that:

"As far as I know Mamak gang is part of the Kelantan group..."

when the only player that is probably remotely closely associated to Kelantan is Abdullah. And if I am not mistaken, Abdullah used to play for Johor.

How do I prove that the above players are not from Kelantan? Fortunately, thanks to "Sicilian-Najdorf", I could get my hands on the list of players from Kelantan. This is from the Jan 2012 National Rating list:

2271 Mas Hafizulhelmi

2112 Ahmad Maliki Mohamed

2101 Azahari Mohd Noor

1877 Abdul Haq Mohamed

1870 Abdullah Che Hassan

1849 Nik Ahmad Farouqi

1800 Mohd Musa Al-Ashaari

1782 Mohd Irman Ibrahim

1749 Nasrul Humaimi Mahmood

1746 Mohd Azizul Mat Daud

1741 Syed Azizi Abdul Rahman

1706 Mohd Ezmi Mahmood

1701 Mohd Amin Mohd Noor

1663 Nik Mohd Nazri Nik Hasan

1658 Izuddin Ahayat

1655 Marzuki Yaacob

1628 Muhd Bakri Jusoh

1621 Wan Mahadzir Wan Sulaiman

1597 Shahril Sulaiman

1591 Siti Nur Afiqah Mohd Haslam

1588 Rosmizal Ibrahim

1586 Mohd Bukhari Yahya

1582 Noor Hisyam Ahayat

1574 Baharuddin Hamzah

1572 Ghazali Che Cob

1563 Laila Husna Sahadi

1562 Mohd Rezal Che Man

1559 Mohd Fauzan Ahayat

1540 Muhd Nor Khairullah

1539 Muhd Ariez Azman

1537 Anuar Ahayat

1527 Sanusi Muhamad

1527 Azmizi Abdullah

1519 Sahadi Ismail

1519 Muhammad Ali Asghar

1509 Khairul Aznan Mohd Kamal

1506 Mohd Hafidz Mat Daud

I stopped at above 1500. If you want to see beyond this, go to the website that I linked. Where is Saprin? Where is Kamaluddin? Where is Fairin? Where is Kamal Ariffin? So how can the Mamak Gang be associated with Kelantan Chess? So when FGM says "As far as I know..." actually, he doesn't know very far. He is just tying the Mamak Gang with Kelantan, then attack Kelantan + Greg, and then discredit the Mamak Gang. If this sounds confusing, then just look at the illustration below:

Disclaimer: The picture above is merely for illustration purposes. Any negative implication on the parties involved is purely coincidental

If an idiot like me can figure out that the Mamak Gang and Kelantan are totally different entities, then it just means that it is either utter LAZINESS or STUPIDITY on FGM's part for his failure determine whether Kelantan and Mamak Gang is related or not.

Of course now, he won't even apologize. He will just say, I reserve the right to pose questions. Blah blah blah... we have all heard the story before.

A Crash Course on How To Argue Better

This post is dedicated to people who have no idea on how to argue their viewpoints properly. Needless to say, this is in reference to the mass "dumbass comments" (as Eddy calls them) that were left on his blog.

I generally agree with Eddy's views on discourse. To have a proper debate, we must first have respect. Use logical and sound arguments to make your point. If you start asking rhetorical questions like FGM, then it is no longer an argument. It is political spin. Also, it makes no sense to just simply assert your own viewpoint and then fold your arms and say "I am entitled to my own opinion". Yeah OK, last I checked, it's a relatively free country. But assertion without justification is the fastest way to prove that you are not very smart.

So here is the Idiot's Guide on How to Make Better Arguments:

1. State your assumptions and assertion

2. Explain your assertions based on your assumptions

3. Give examples to support your assertions

4. State conclusion

5. Check whether your arguments make sense


Of all the steps above, No. 5 is the hardest to do. Steps 1 to 4 are probably taught to you when you were in primary school. Of course you do not have to do it in numerical order, but these are the bare necessities of any cogent argument. But often, we get lazy and just jump from assertion to conclusion, without even checking whether it makes sense. I must admit that I am one of those people sometimes, but I try very hard to avoid it.

The most useful way that I found to check whether your arguments make sense is the "5 Whys". This is one of the underlying techniques of Toyota's kaizen philosophy, which brought it to great heights. As an aside, Toyota seems to have lost its way, but that is not the focus of today's topic.

Let me use Ronnie's arguments as an example:

Assertion:

In fact, I would claim that despite the fact that an 11-year old Yeap Eng Chiam or an 11-year old Fong Yit San is likely to beat an 11-year old Yee Weng, Zi Jing, Ee Vern or Jonathan, the tables are turned as they are older.

Explanation:

Yes, I do believe that a 15-year-old Yee Weng (already two-time national champion), Zi Jing, Ee Vern or Jonathan (already a national champion at 13) is probably able to beat a 15-year-old Eng Chiam or Yit San. And even more surely, an 18-year old Yee Weng, Zi Jing, Ee Vern, Jonathan, Nicholas or Tze Han (all already national champions by then except Zi Jing who only won it at 20 years old) would in all likelihood win an 18-year old Eng Chiam or Yit San. Even an 18-year-old Anas might not stand a chance.

Examples to justify:

To go further, the 20-year old Yee Weng, Zi Jing, Jonathan, Nicholas, Marcus and Tze Han were National Champions (except Marcus who won it at 21), mostly rated around 2200 plus, performed strongly in local tournaments, represented Malaysia internationally (with some good perfomances) and have beaten FMs and IMs internationally. Some of course improved further, getting their IM titles in their twenties while some basically stopped playing.

Conclusion:

I hope you get my point. What I'm trying to say is that the OVERALL achievements of these players before they reached 20 were unparalleled by juniors in the years after (I'm pretty sure in the years before too).

The point here is not to discuss whether Ronnie's arguments are true or not. But this is just to show how a good, strong, logical argument is made. Hopefully, future discussions will be more productive and that some idiots would also have learnt a thing or two in making logical arguments.