So what is a tournament?

A tournament is just a showcase. It tells us whether we were succesful or we failed in some area.

Lets take a national tournament like the National Rapids. This tournament will tell us which State Associations has been sleeping or have failed and which ones have done the work. Lets use 2 States as examples. Perak and Penang.

In Perak's case we will probably see the neglect of the State from the players representing. In all probability you will find that the strong players are those that made it despite the obstacles placed by the State Association. So the Associations way out is to try to make sure that those players don't show them up by playing. In any case it will still be a showcase because if they dont play, the State won't do well.

Penang will probably be showcasing the products of well thought out strategies for improvement and the sheer hard work that went into it.

The tournament also showcases the products of the trainers, the chess academies (or even just the parent's sheer hard work and success in finding the winning formula. Look at the Azman Hisham family, the Azhar Said family. Amazing results). For chess academies look at Chess Kidz (although from Singapore) for an example.

In International events our players showcase the success of the strategies of MCF as the national conductor of all of the above.

So a tournament is just a showcase. Now do you understand more why they try so hard for representation without selection? Why they harp on ratings as basis for selection? Why they need to ban without justification? Why the Associations want the power to hide the strong players despite their neglect, from public view?

Tournaments showcases the success or failure of the Associations, the Academies, the training methods etc.

This is the main reason why Peter Long cannot be allowed to succeed in dictating national guidelines. But its really up to MCF isnt it? So lets see if the strides of last year were driven by the desire to improve Malaysian chess or it was just an attempt to secure the power base of a certain official. The future of Malaysian chess waits to see the answer.