Why and how the senior squad selection affects every member of the Malaysian chess community.

If you are a parent with a child playing chess the senior squad selection is important and relevant to you. You come into the game of chess hoping that your child has the talent and skills to go far in chess if they have what it takes. And so you nurture the talent and you develop that skill. And you invest your time and your money when they are Juniors. And you invest your energy. You invest and you invest because you believe if your child is any good, he may eventually qualify for the senior squad and then the Country takes over and develops the player after all your hard work.

What if this is all being taken away from you right before your eyes now?

If you are a player with the talent and skills to go far. You have invested a lot of time in the game. You train and you study hard to improve yourself thinking that one day if you are good enough and qualify for the senior squad, the Country will have recognised your effort and support you in developing your chess.

What if you found out that it is all a fraud? That the selection is fixed for only a few cronies and you may never get into the team no matter how good your chess is for the odds are stacked way way against you and it has nothing to do with chess?

If you are a good Coach or a Trainer, you have spent a lot of time with your players. And you would have taken their money as partial compensation. However it is their achievement that drives you to find out what knowledge your player needs in order to excel. And you spend a tremendous amount of time developing them for in finality you realise that it is the players success that validates your thinking and effort. That makes the journey worth all the sacrifice. And that is even more important than money.

What if you are to find out that certain other "trainers" who have not spent any effort developing their players are busy looking for the back doors and your player will never have a decent shot in a proper selection?

If you are a conscientious State Affiliate and you organise events and training to develop your State players. And you work very hard with no pay developing and implementing your Vision and mission statements.

What if you found that there is no real chance for your State players in the senior National squad based on their skills and knowledge alone because it is all fixed?

If you are an organiser and your income is based on the success of how MCF governs AND promotes the sport. And you realise that the more popular the sport the more business you will have. And a major factor in promoting chess must be that there is a reasonable chance to succeed in the game via proper selection.

What if you found out that there is a person within MCF that is doing all he can to subvert selection so that only his cronies have the higher chance to succeed based on fixing the criteria in their favour?

I have tried to show my readers that selection is the key to promoting chess and that the selection Chair is a key seat within the Council of MCF. I have tried to show that it is primarily because of selection to the senior squad that we found some of our best Juniors attacked on and off the blogs if they are not in the "ordained" group.

There are certain individuals, players included, that will do all they can to subvert selection and if this is not corrected, then Malaysian chess on the whole will suffer. So lets see if the scenarios described above can be true. I will write more on this topic in my next few postings.

NB: Since this will the very first selection criteria under the new Council it is important that we set out properly for this will set the precedence for future selections.