Off to Penang Open and some comments.

This will be the second part of our 2 tournament run of NJ and now Penang Open for this year. Previous to this run was Malaysian Open. I prefer to space out our tournament runs so that my team have time to do a proper postmortem after the runs and then followed by fine tuning or if necessary even an overhaul of the training program.

And then we train again. When we feel that we have been able to correct our weaknesses then we do another run to test if the training has worked or not. I am not inclined to subjective opinions or claims. So how do I evaluate? Yes. By the results. And only that.

And that is why clean tournaments are important for the progress of Malaysian chess. And that is why cooked Fide ratings, back door selections and dubious claims of being the best together with dubious tournaments is a crime against Malaysian chess.

Look back, think back. Is that not how almost all of our previously strong players have been weakened?

They start out strong. 

Then they are told to kow tow to the seniors. Wait for your turn they are told or you will be attacked. They are also told that they must kow tow to the officials by not complaining if side doors are used, if they think there are fixed tournaments. Keep quiet. Or you will not be selected. Or we will ban you.

And so the strong have been terrified into being the weak. The lions become kittens. Then we send them out to fight for Malaysia. Is there any truth to what I say?

Has it been about the quality of chess or has it been about little Napoleans protecting their power? Has it been about building strong chess players or making money from new and naive parents?

Lets think of this a little more. If they are strong they will not need to avoid tournaments where their weapons cannot fire. They will not avoid playing International age groups because suddenly the whole world can see the the touted lion can only mew among his peers.

The only thing that is good about that is that it perhaps generate some business for the Fide rating sellers.

The only real basis for evaluation is a clean fight in a proper tournament. Wake up and look at what they have done to Malaysian chess. And do you wonder why, like I do sometimes, that they seem to be so proud of that fact?

Ref: Here.

Now do you understand why we are not worried about those players? It is only a question of time and correct training for when we will catch up with them. 

We only "worry" a little when the lion can roar. For then it will be a question of speed of learning. Who can learn faster. Who can learn without resistance and who can drop subjective opinions.

Underlying all this is, who has the greater amount of fear of change? The essence of competition. And chess is a mind game more than it is a technical game. U think?