Dato Tan Chin Nam, a story of 2 seeds.

Like many people in Malaysian Chess, I puzzled over why we have lagged so far behind our neighbours. Dato Tan was at the helm for so many years. If he could not solve the issues then to my mind it cannot be a simple problem.

Someone confronted me at the last National Junior. He told me not to be another Peter Long and be critical of Dato Tan. In that moment a penny dropped. But before I comment on the conversation, lets agree on one thing first. Our performance, the results of MCF is not stirling.

So here's the conversation in a nutshell. I said Dato was instrumental in planting 2 chess seeds. One in Malaysia and one in China. In the beginning Malaysian players were sent to China to introduce the game. Or so I'm told.

But in China, the game grew, they became world champions and in Malaysia we went the other way. So what does this tell us? To me one seed was planted on fertile soil and that seed grew into an Oak tree. And the other seed fell on barren land.

So who is responsible for tending to the seed? For the nurturing, to add the fertilisers, to water and to pull out the weeds? As opposed to pulling out the saplings. See what I mean?

To me the answer lies with the 2 Federations. With the officials. So my answer to that man who confronted me is; I do not blame Dato Tan. He planted the seeds. That was a noble effort.

It is the people who were/are supposed to tend to the seedlings, the saplings that have failed. Not him.

So lets look at ourselves instead of finger pointing or finding cheap excuses. Lets turn our minds to finding solutions and pulling out the weeds. Not the saplings.