Is the Malaysian Mens Olympiad Team a fraud?

What were your thoughts when you saw the players list for the Olympiad? 

Here are some views. From Jimmy's blog. Here. From Ilham's blog. Here.

Here are my views.


NC 2012 was advertised as the selection for the Olympiad. 

Now this is important. And so the players took their leave, trained and got the money together to pay for the tournament fees and other expenses. And then they fought hard to be selected.

But no selection criteria was announced. First indication that maybe not all is right and above board. And then the winners were announced. But it took a long time before the players list was posted. Again another indication that something was up. What was so difficult about the selecting the players?

Now lets go back to the list again. The only player from NC2012 that made it on the team is Li Tian. And he was number 4. The procedure for any selection is that if the Champion declines, the place goes to the runner up and so forth. So this begs the question, was Eng Chiam offered a place? And if he declined, was Syazwan offered a place?

The answer to this question alone may show that NC2012 was misrepresented and could very well constitute fraud against the Malaysian chess community. 

It also raises the speculation that the players were determined not by a fair selection but by side deals. It looks like the squad for the mens team were already predetermined. Look back to the last SEA games selection. There were many clues there as to what is really up.

My next post. Conspiracy theory 2. Here I will try to join the dots and tell you what I think really transpired.