Beyond the Juniors.

If my suppositions are more or less on the mark, then our Juniors will end their careers as Juniors at around 2100 to 2200 Elo given current conditions.

These are the conditions we are working under.

1. The senior's real fighting strength are only around 2200 in todays chess.

2. Our chess culture is infected by people who attack rather then nurture our talent. The Juniors who are backsliding are a direct result of these people. Make no mistake about this. The moment they try to learn, try to explore new ideas, they are attacked. They attack our hero's; the ones who dare to fight. And they defend and make really dumb excuses for the cowards and those that have checked out.

3. We have unrealistic expectations of medals without doing the work. We point fingers rather than understanding and solving the underlying reasons for our deteriorating performance on the World stage.

4. We resist change for the better.

5. Etc.

So really at the senior stage today, we have a lot of people who are not very far off from each other in terms of fighting strength. It's just that some have worked much harder at creating false numbers than others. At Datmo Nicholas Cheah gave us a very convincing run. And there are many more. Offhand I can think of Nik Farouqi, Masrin Erowan etc. etc. etc.

They are fast improving. Together with the other former and current Juniors, these can form a band of players who can challenge the still fighting seniors given a little more time and more senior selection. From this healthy competition we can squeeze another 100 rating points or more. We need to increase our internal competition to move forward. The way of manufactured ratings or using outdated ratings as basis for selection will just keep us backward.

This will be the spark that will inject more energy into our system. This is our first step forward and we musn't falter now just because they attack the idea of senior squad selection with lies and misdirection.

Note: If you want a clearer sense of the direction we should be heading for, go to IM Goh's site and see what it takes to be a fighting IM. Then compare his knowledge level with our current IM blogger. That is the gap.

ps: What I am really saying is that the barrier now is mainly psychological. Objectively there is little to separate the chess skills at the senior level among our top players. And there are many of them. Just a very very small gap that can be bridged with some confidence and faith in oneself. And correct training of course.