On Penang Open

Ref: Here.

I seriously think that Penang is doing something right and I would not be surprised at all if they become the strongest chess State in Malaysia if they are not already.

What do I see there? They don't say very much but they do all the talking on the table. And they are not afraid of competition. These are the type of players that we need to fight for Malaysia. So we need to create the space for them. For that we need genuine selection. The current system where all our top players are not given a chance because no attempts are made to reach them in order to give free holidays to the deadwoods must go.

Compare their culture to the culture we have currently. Seniors teaching the Juniors how to write nasty emails. Seniors attacking a Junior when he has won his rightful place in the senior squad via a proper selection. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if we had praised and supported Sumant for his historic achievement as a Malaysain Junior instead of the way he was treated by both MCF and the seniors. Would he have shone further with encouragement and recognition?

We have 2 very vocal "seniors" who cannot even play U16 level chess anymore and yet they want to remain relevant by telling us who can succeed and who cannot when their own judgement is seen to be fundamentally flawed. We have trainers who can only teach to U8 but talks like he knows how to develop GM's. We have organisers who think that the way to succeed in Malaysian chess is to learn how to make personal attacks on facebook like little children or to ban players stronger than the ones they can produce etc.

We can choose what culture we want. We can decide for ourselves which culture will take us further. But for that to happen we need good leadership that supports our fighting players and not the deadbeats. We need a leadership that supports its own constitution rather than support the rule breakers, gangsters and "terrorists".

Then we will progress again.