Towards Malaysia's first GM.

I almost always get a funny feeling when I hear our State Associations claiming to want to develop a GM. I hear these claims and then I see that they have no resolve to fix the things that really matters. Over the last few weeks I have been hearing about new attempts to get rid of the current committee in MCF. And so there are those old whisperings again in the corridors of our tournament halls. But I fear that the intent is only to replace one bad apple with another.

I hear nothing resembling a clear strategy to improve things. Just disaffected people rearranging the dust. So if they succeed then we will just have a new "Greg", a new "Jimmy" and a new "Peter". Nothing will change except the names on the committee and senior squad players.

How will we ever get our own GM, if we continue to allow the back doors only by different people? We have a huge pool of talented Juniors that have spent a great amount of time developing their chess. But they will never get to the senior squad on merit if things don't change.

The moment they start to shine they will be attacked so that the fixers can put in their own broken players. They will face biased selection criteria, they will face bans, they will face fixed tournaments.

They will face deadbeats like Jimmy and Peter telling them they cannot play chess. They will be told that only these lousy chess players who are defeated even before they play are the Gods of Malaysian chess.

The Juniors will hear things like they are Ferrari's and so they do not need to fight in selection. They will pump up their ratings with viagra so they can come in through the side doors.

So I hope you can understand that all those things need to be changed before we clamour for our own GM, before we scream for medals.

The GM will not come from the laying of false hopes and dreams. The GM will only come when we wake up to the realities and start to do some real work. Chess is the ultimate reality game. It is supposed to teach you how to evaluate and assess positions. Not bury your heads in the sand.

Think about this. We keep putting in the back door boys only because their chess is not any good. If it was good they wouldn't need the back doors. They wouldn't need to cheat and steal other players places. The moment they do that they have lost whatever potential they may have had once upon a time. For when they cheat they have already admitted to themselves that they are not good enough. And so these people will never be able to face tough opponents or win strong tournaments. They are essentially losers and quitters. And so it is quite pointless for us to look to them for medals.

All you need to do is to look at Jimmy and you will see how those players are going to end up. They are taking the same route he took. Next time you see Li Tian, have a good look at him. He is already on the way. So I hope he changes his road. There may be time for him yet. It's not too late.

Our GM cannot come without resolve to change those things in MCF. Not just the names. What we need is clear thinking and boldness. Not more whisperings in dark corners. That was how Greg and Jimmy was formed. In the dark. So don't kid yourselves. The new maneuvers are only to replace bad apples with bad apples.

Question. How can you be a GM if you are scared of your own shadow? How can a GM be developed by people scared of their own shadows?