NM Aron Teh has a fine run in Indonesia Open

Here.

Only one loss to a GM on the first round so far up to R9. I have a question here. But let me give you some background information first. We first played Aron in National Junior 2011. Then he was around the level of our other Juniors. But what impressed me was the way he was trained in China as described to me by his mum. Ref: Here.

I later learnt this. Here.  Strategy first.

So these are all training methods we can also try to adapt to our local environment but it has not been possible so far because we are resistant to change and improvement. Let me give an example. In 2010, I arranged for GM Ziaur Rahman to train our Juniors. That was met with a strange attitude by the MCF then. Some officials said that I was making MCF look bad. And some of you know what happened after.

But that was not all. In fact I offered our trainers here an opportunity to advance their training methods with a sponsored session with Ziaur. No one took up the offer.

So that was training.

Now the question.

Would Aron Teh be where he is today if he had been playing in Malaysia? Those who have played with him the last couple of years already know the answer. He was not better than any of our other Juniors back then. It was the training in China that have lead to his spectacular rise.

Now, this is my speculation. If he was brought up in our culture he would have been attacked if he won in Malaysia. He would have been told to wait his turn. If he had beaten certain local IM's he would have been threatened and intimidated. He would have been banned from the tournaments of certain local organisers. Is that not what happens here? I have been getting streams of information that Peter is trying to harass our training partner in Indonesia. So it still goes on. But maybe not as openly as before since now those actions are being highlighted.

I think improving our training methods is not too difficult. In fact we will be travelling to Manila later this month to learn more advanced training methods.

But we need to protect our players from people like Peter no? Or will the training not be in vain if we cannot protect them? I hear the Filipino's rallied around our training partner in Indonesia. And calls were even made to Ignatius Leong of Fide to protest the bullying. However in our case we sometimes see that it is our own officials in MCF that are the perpetrators of attacking/sabotaging our own players.

Here is a mild example. Here. I can tell you some real horror stories.

Let me say this another way. Look at this article. There is something there. Here.

So this is again my speculation from 8 years plus of observation from competing here. There is an industry for getting a player in via the back door. And it is related to the manufacturing of Fide rating by certain organisers. There is also a side promotion of suspect games. Notice the usual promoters are absent from Aron's fantastic run? Could it be because they did not benefit? And if they do not benefit, they attack you. The big problem is that they have nothing to offer as trainers apart from the back doors. So it is lose/lose if you use them.

We need to stop this side industry if we are to progress. It is destroying our chess. A good step forward is to make our National Close all about fighting chess like they do everywhere else. And I guarantee you we will have strong Malaysian players emerging too. Just like Aron. I have made my recommendation. Top 15 from National Close versus the top 10 from the "active" Fide list.

Do that and our Malaysian GM will not be far behind.