On false hopes and dreams.

I am not sure how to say this without hurting your sensitivities so I will just plunge in and hope that this holiday season will have mellowed you out somewhat.

I am sorry to tell you that our own GM won't come no matter how much we wish for it, until we change or have saved enough pocket money to buy one from overseas.

I am sorry to tell you that we won't be getting any real medals until we take a long hard look at what is ailing us and then design a selection criteria and training program to narrow the gap between us and our competitors.

What I have seen over the last few years is this. Correct me if I am wrong. People hoping to win in the elections and become President of MCF etc but don't understand the situation and have no concrete plan.

And then today I hear some State Association even saying that they do not recognise MCF. I can sense the seething frustrations. But is that frustration not a result of not having a realistic plan? And so you are defeated. But lets think about this. Isn't MCF and Malaysian chess better off because you are defeated? If you want to takeover then you must be better not worse, is that not so? You even lost a won game. So isn't the chess community better off today because you lost? Why not just learn from this if you can and become better.

And then I see people hoping for medals without doing accurate competitor analysis, measuring the gap and then working hard to narrow it. I can't tell you about the training for this SEA games but I can tell you about the training for the one in 2011. The players went for the "training" and played Chor Tai Ti.

So what does that tell you? They have given up even before they went. And so they go for Myammar chess today via a side deal. Actually that is all they know to do isn't it. We don't have strong players because a large number of them are back door boys. And these players have no confidence as a result of their back door entries. And then these players infect the rest of the contingent.

This bad culture is from the very top to the very bottom.

The product of false hopes and dreams are frustrations and then delusion. Can you see that?

That is not the lesson from chess. Chess is a reality game. The one who sees the clearest, the one with the better strategy, the one who plan and train the hardest and smartest wins. If you don't win then you have missed something. So just go back and re-examine what you missed and do it better next time. What did you misassess?

But for crying out loud, don't repeat the same mistakes and then try to drag the entire chess community into another futile battle again. Do it when you have a better plan to improve. Do it when you can win. Do it only when you have learnt your lesson.

Don't try and "change" MCF when all you can offer is also only false hopes and dreams.